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Someone in another forum stated that "even amongst the most advanced bows (and slingers) the odds of hitting a large group of men from the usual distance range of a battle was about 22%"

Now, this seems like he just pulled this out of his a**. Not surprisingly, I wasn't able to find any sources that have statements anyhere near the quote. Furthermore, most reliable historians that I have talked to think that there should be no problem hitting a large enemy formation at the distance. This leads me to believe that the person quoted above is lying.

However, I also - besides the words of the military historians - cannot find any statistics that deal with the accuracy of archers/slingers.

Do you guys have any sources that I can use? If it's a book, can you please provide the page number?

Thank you

Looking at the very large numbers of men involved in ancient battles I am confident that even I could drop a stone into the enemies ranks at my own maximum range (120 yards, which is rubbish really)

Whether that stone would hit a soldier or land on the ground or hit a shield is up to chance. But then, I'll have a bag with a hundred stones, I'll be throwing a shot every six seconds and with a hundred other slingers we will have a rate of fire equal to two modern machineguns (1000 rounds per minute)

If there was just a single person out there they would probably be able to run right up to me and stick a sword through me before I hit them ;D

yep he did pull it out of his fundament :-)

Most of us are pretty good at hitting large targets from a distance.
I frequently sling into woods, you hear the thunk and say, as confidently as possible: 'yep, that's the tree I was aiming at'.

Hitting a particular individual in a battle formation - that's a different kettle of octopus entirely.

but any half decent slinger would have been capable of getting a stone on target 100% of the time.
and if they were using lead glandes then you're talking up to and probably beyond 300 yards range.

Livy 38.29 for the siege of Same in 189 re accurate aimed fire against sorties
Thuc. 2.81 for Akarnanian slinger-sniping in 429 BC.

well-known (indeed, discussed on this site)

TheAznValedictorian wrote on Nov 8^th, 2009 at 8:43pm:

My GUESS is, as the 22% figure sounds so definite it may have been based on some independent research or an assumption that a stone thrown randomly into a crowd has a 22% chance of hitting someone, as a function of the density of the crowd not the specific accuracy of the slinger. Of course that figure would be fairly suspect; depends how closely packed the crowd is and how close to vertically the stone was falling. A shot coming in horizontally would have a much better chance of connecting than one falling vertically which would have to landon a person's head or shoulders

At distances of over 70m or so it is unlikely that slingers would be aiming at specific targets, merely landing their stones within the enemy ranks. So you technically you have no problem "hitting a large enemy formation" ie. the stone lands in their midst but it still may not hit anyone and causes no casualty.

Even I feel that I would hit an enemy group of men, most of the time, if they was within my reach. Such general accuracy simply takes a bit of focused practice, after the basic mastering of the sling is acquired.
It is the pin-point accuracy that is difficult.
timann

The person also says something like this:

This may seem extraordinarily high, but when taken into account that this would be your odds of hitting a group of naked men, the inefficiency of the projectile is shown. With armor on, a soldiers odds of wounding or death from an arrow/gland was about 10%, most being stopped by the soldiers armor or flat out missing. When taken into account the shield coupled with armour, the odds of a soldier being wounded or killed is less than one percent (estimated in under .5%). This means that out of 1,000 projectiles fired, only 5 men would be wounded or killed.

Even if he counted only death, his statement was widely wrong already. In this statement, he claims that only 5 people out of 1000 would be dead + wounded - the rest 995 soldiers aren't supposedly even wounded at all. Arrrgh, I can't wait to call him out on his BS. Unfortunately, I have to do things right now. >:(

TheAznValedictorian wrote on Nov 9^th, 2009 at 5:07pm:

It would be very interesting to know who this person is and how he came to arrive at those figures. However if slinging at a body of armored men carrying shields I personally think his estimate of less than 1% of any given stone causing a death or significant injury is probably realistic. Chances of a harmless hit or minor injury much higher of course. This is at distances of >100m naturally.

BTW the stats are 5 casualties per 1000 shots, not quite the same as 5 casualties per 1000 men.

Keep us posted!

PS. Casualties for unarmored warriors such as Polynesians would probably be higher but they would also likely be more spread out so chances of a complete miss would also be higher.

I think its a very similar situation to hunting (shooting) ducks and geese. You don't just shoot into the flock. You pick out one bird and shoot it or most of the time you will go home empty handed.

walter

Xen. Anab. (Book 3.3) describes the experience of retreating under constant harrassing fire by archers and slingers.

After this, they breakfasted and crossed the river Zapatas, marching in regular order, with the beasts and mob of the army in the middle. They had not advanced far on their route when Mithridates made his appearance again, with about a couple of hundred horsemen at his back, and bowmen and slingers twice as many, as nimble fellows as a man might hope to see. He approached the Hellenes as if he were friendly; but when they had got fairly to close quarters, all of a sudden some of them, whether mounted or on foot, began shooting with their bows and arrows, and another set with slings, wounding the men. The rearguard of the Hellenes suffered for a while severely without being able to retaliate, for the Cretans had a shorter range than the Persians, and at the same time, being light-armed troops, they lay cooped up within the ranks of the heavy infantry, while the javelin men again did not shoot far enough to reach the enemy's slingers. This being so, Xenophon thought there was nothing for it but to charge, and charge they did; some of the heavy and light infantry, who were guarding the rear, with him; but for all their charging they did not catch a single

TheAznValedictorian wrote on Nov 9^th, 2009 at 5:07pm:

Is this from some game playing web site? It seems to be the kind of calculations that one sees there. However, garbage in garbage out.... perhaps the result of some simulation.

I have been trying to find that reference to Roman archers and slingers practicing at the same target at 180 yards... any ideas who/where that is?

This book talks about archery and musketry hit rates, with references: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=y1ngxn_xTOIC&lpg=PA30&ots=KbjVbL6gtJ&dq=roman%20archer%20slinger%20target&pg=PA29#v=onepage&q=&f=false

It also writes about Vegetius saying a man-sized target at 600 feet is passing grade for a Roman slinger - which I seriously doubt!?

David Morningstar wrote on Nov 10^th, 2009 at 7:24am:

Great - so that's where this 22% comes from. Seems to have lots of citations, so it must be true ;D

It also seems that Vegetius was referring to the staff sling in this passage. The Wiki (on this site) quotes the passage as:

The exact origin and age of the staff-sling are unknown. The first historical source to mention it is the Roman military writer
Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus in his book De Re Militari. Vegetius lived in the fourth century AD. He mentions the weapon as standard military equipment and gives the range for practice:

"The archers and slingers set up bundles of twigs or straw for marks, and generally strike them with arrows and with stones from the fustibalus at the distance of six hundred feet."

Here is another excellent website (apart from the ads):

http://garyb.0catch.com/site_map.html

Slingers are listed under 'The Skirmishers'

R. Gabriel's sources ? He quotes "Metz and Gabriel", but I have no idea who they are (and can't find abbreviations or biblio. Not clear either what he means by "22% chance of hitting individual target within formation". Is this because of stress etc during battle ? He does single out shield and body armour as casualty reducing factors. On lead bullets, he mentions Xenophon, but it is not X. who mentions "horrible wounds", and lead projectiles are not for short range work as the author states

R. Gabriel probably quotes:

Richard A. Gabriel and Karen S. Metz, From Sumer to
Rome: The Military Capabilities of Ancient Armies

Before weapons became somehow "computerized" and projectiled led by GPS and so on it was sufficient to hit with a reasonable number of shots. During my service about 20 years ago I was told to hit at least with the third shot of the tank gun. Statistically that would be not more than 33%. That does not seem to be the maximum of potential accuracy. But nevertheless it is still a very uncomfortable situation for an enemy who can not get out of range within the few seconds necessary to shot three times at him. I guess the situation for ancient warriors was not basically different to my modern. The advantage of a long range weapon in battle is just that it can hit every thing that can't get out of its range faster than it takes to reload the sling/tank gun (i. e. about 2-4 seconds).
In short words: if 22 % is any thin else than totally theoretical than it shows that mankind gained 11 % improvement of accuracy within 5000 years. Great ;D

funda iucunda

yes but that's 50% improvement ?

well in ancient times wouldn't the enemy just have to grit their teeth and hope they don't die? if you break lines then you might as well be dead since deserters where usually beheaded

if only 5 out of 1000 shots caused damage - armies would just not have bothered.

Bear in mind that even a stone that hits armour will have an effect. Stone not lead glande. A stone will shatter on hard contact with metal, resulting in small sharp sharpnel.

Also bear in mind that the slingers of old started as kids and were considerably more accurate and effective than all but a minuscule number of modern slingers.

A 1 in 5 hit rate is pretty good - but I suspect at 100 yards or so it would hae been much higher. But regardless of whether or not a critical wound was caused each of those hits would have a significant effect on morale & unit cohesion.
Then you've got the sheer noise that the 'invisible' slinging projectiles make - so that even missiles that miss would be messing with the enemie soldiers efficiency.

Thucydides 4.32-6 describes the defeat of the Spartan contingent on the island of Sphakteria. 420 men strong; an outpost was slaughtered by the Athenians when they landed; the main body faced 800 archers, 800 peltasts-- and 8000+ rowers, armed with stones and slings. Outnumbered 25 to one, they held out for a long period of being pelted with stones, javelins and arrows from three sides; they tried to manouever to get to grips with their tormentors, but the latter were so numerous that they were always exposed to flanking fire. When they finally got turned and surrendered, they were 282 men left, so 138 KIA-- a 32% casualty rate. They had shields, but probably not armour (the military practice at the time is to light hoplites), and possibly not helmets (Thucydides speaks of their "piloi", caps, not protecting against arrows).

An extreme case, of course. I suppose some back of the envelope calculations might be interesting. If every one of the troops in the Athenian force threw only 2 projectiles (20,000 arrows, sling-stones, hand-thrown stones)-- absurdly low, of course--, the kill rate is 144 projectiles per KIA. I assume that each one of the Athenians, in the course of a long engagement (say 4 hours ?), threw more than just one, even taking into account the combat factors of stress, excitement, crowding, etc. Thuc. tells us that they were arranged in datchments 200 strong, and manoeuvered to keep up constant fire on the Spartans. If in the course of a 4 hour engagement, every man threw a mere 10 projectiles (averaged across the whole contingent)-- 200,000 projectiles produced 138 KIA-- 1450 projectiles for every KIA. Note that this assumes all the KIA were killed by missiles-- whereas in fact the real figure of killed by projectiles is lower, since the outpost was wiped out in hand to hand combat.

Shorter: it took ten thousand guys several hours of shooting, in ideal conditions, at 400 guys, to kill 100 of them.

yeah but we're talking about spartans here not ordinary troops.
basically the rock hard ninja of the ancient world.

And with the way they use interlocked shields - it would have been essentially like shooting at a tank.
Only shots that managed to find a gap would have had a chance of damage.

A small well drilled contingent with good shield practice is a totally different situation to shooting into a larger army of charging individuals.

Horses for courses.

Roman slingers against the germanic tribes would give you drastically different figures.

Very interesting event with indeed impressively low casualties.

What about the rowers? Were they "free" Athenians/allies? If I remember well, the Greeks usually didn't use slaves as rowers (or did they?). At least they were probably no regular warriors like the peltasts and the archers, so their motivation to eagerly take part in the encounter may have been limited.

Furthermore, was this the first time the rowers used slings? Is it known how high was the rate of hand-thrown stones? A death toll of 138 is very low comparatively, but on the other hand it might not be so easy to kill an experienced soldier (with mostly hand-thrown stones?), even if he is only protected by a shield.

Does Thuc. give any figures about injured Spartans? They would at least raise the number of Athenian "hits" (not counting the indentations on Spartan shields).

Quote:

even if he is only protected by a shield.

ONLY ?????

Have you ever seen the protection interlocked shields give ?
Definitely not an 'only' lol

Don't have the text here, but yes, most Spartans were wounded. And as you say, rowers are not full time fighters like petlasts and archers. Perhaps the latter did most of the shooting, and the rowers got in occasional fire-- so perhaps the full "ammo consumption" is much lower.

My maths are off any way: if 10,000 guys each throw 10 projectiles, 100,000 projectiles killed 138 men, which is 725 projectiles per KIA. Above figure of 1450 proj/KIA is, of course, for 20 projectiles.

Still, I think the figure of several hundred, perhaps even 1000+ projectiles per fatality in optimal conditions is not unlikely, or at least worth considering. In consequence, what casualties are produced by a skirmish line "having a go" at heavy infantry drawn up and not having to manouver with flanking fire ?

So - did the peltasts sling too, or was it only the rowers? If yes, well, I would spontaneously call it not the most glorious day either for peltasts and even less for 800 (!) archers. :-/

I'm not sure if this special battle can be compared to a line-to-line-fight between heavy infantry and "professional" slingers (who, as we all know, could be astonishingly accurate). I can't help but imagining the rowers as some bulk of clumsy tar-loincloths who, by their sheer multitude, are useful to block possible escape routes of the Spartans, but do not have any great value as slingers or throwers.

Btw: Any figures on Athenian losses?

Here's the passage. Great piece of writing re. combat, and tactical analysis

****

As soon as day broke, the rest of the army landed, that is to say, all the crews of rather more than seventy ships, except the lowest rank of oars, with the arms they carried, eight hundred archers, and as many targeteers, the Messenian reinforcements, and all the other troops on duty round Pylos, except the garrison on the fort. The tactics of Demosthenes had divided them into companies of two hundred, more or less, and made them occupy the highest points in order to paralyse the enemy by surrounding him on every side and thus leaving him without any tangible adversary, exposed to the cross-fire of their host; plied by those in his rear if he attacked in front, and by those on one flank if he moved against those on the other. In short, wherever he went he would have the assailants behind him, and these light-armed assailants, the most awkward of all; arrows, darts, stones, and slings making them formidable at a distance, and there being no means of getting at them at close quarters, as they could conquer flying, and the moment their pursuer turned they were upon him. Such was the idea that inspired Demosthenes in his conception of the descent, and presided over its execution.

Meanwhile the main body of the troops in the island (that under Epitadas), seeing their outpost cut off and an army advancing against them, serried their ranks and pressed forward to close with the Athenian heavy infantry in front of them, the light troops being upon their flanks and rear. However, they were not able to engage or to profit by their superior skill, the light troops keeping them in check on either side with their missiles, and the heavy infantry remaining stationary instead of advancing to meet them; and although they routed the light troops wherever they ran up and approached too closely, yet they retreated fighting, being lightly equipped, and easily getting the start in their flight, from the difficult and rugged nature of the ground, in an island hitherto desert, over which the Lacedaemonians could not pursue them with their heavy armour.

After this skirmishing had lasted some little while, the Lacedaemonians became unable to dash out with the same rapidity as before upon the points attacked, and the light troops finding that they now fought with less vigour, became more confident. They could see with their own eyes that they were many times more numerous than the enemy; they were now more familiar with his aspect and found him less terrible, the result not having justified the apprehensions which they had suffered, when they first landed in slavish dismay at the idea of attacking Lacedaemonians; and accordingly their fear changing to disdain, they now rushed all together with loud shouts upon them, and pelted them with stones, darts, and arrows, whichever came first to hand. The shouting accompanying their onset confounded the Lacedaemonians, unaccustomed to this mode of fighting; dust rose from the newly burnt wood, and it was impossible to see in front of one with the arrows and stones flying through clouds of dust from the hands of numerous assailants. The Lacedaemonians had now to sustain a rude conflict; their caps would not keep out the arrows, darts had broken off in the armour of the wounded, while they themselves were helpless for offence, being prevented from using their eyes to see what was before them, and unable to hear the words of command for the hubbub raised by the enemy; danger encompassed them on every side, and there was no hope of any means of defence or safety.

At last, after many had been already wounded in the confined space in which they were fighting, they formed in close order and retired on the fort at the end of the island, which was not far off, and to their friends who held it. The moment they gave way, the light troops became bolder and pressed upon them, shouting louder than ever, and killed as many as they came up with in their retreat, but most of the Lacedaemonians made good their escape to the fort, and with the garrison in it ranged themselves all along its whole extent to repulse the enemy wherever it was assailable. The Athenians pursuing, unable to surround and hem them in, owing to the strength of the ground, attacked them in front and tried to storm the position. For a long time, indeed for most of the day, both sides held out against all the torments of the battle, thirst, and sun, the one endeavouring to drive the enemy from the high ground, the other to maintain himself upon it, it being now more easy for the Lacedaemonians to defend themselves than before, as they could not be surrounded on the flanks.

The struggle began to seem endless, when the commander of the Messenians came to Cleon and Demosthenes, and told them that they were losing their labour: but if they would give him some archers and light troops to go round on the enemy's rear by a way he would undertake to find, he thought he could force the approach. Upon receiving what he asked for, he started from a point out of sight in order not to be seen by the enemy, and creeping on wherever the precipices of the island permitted, and where the Lacedaemonians, trusting to the strength of the ground, kept no guard, succeeded after the greatest difficulty in getting round without their seeing him, and suddenly appeared on the high ground in their rear, to the dismay of the surprised enemy and the still greater joy of his expectant friends. The Lacedaemonians thus placed between two fires, and in the same dilemma, to compare small things with great, as at Thermopylae, where the defenders were cut off through the Persians getting round by the path, being now attacked in front and behind, began to give way, and overcome by the odds against them and exhausted from want of food, retreated.

The Athenians were already masters of the approaches when Cleon and Demosthenes perceiving that, if the enemy gave way a single step further, they would be destroyed by their soldiery, put a stop to the battle and held their men back; wishing to take the Lacedaemonians alive to Athens, and hoping that their stubbornness might relax on hearing the offer of terms, and that they might surrender and yield to the present overwhelming danger. Proclamation was accordingly made, to know if they would surrender themselves and their arms to the Athenians to be dealt at their discretion.

The Lacedaemonians hearing this offer, most of them lowered their shields and waved their hands to show that they accepted it. Hostilities now ceased, and a parley was held between Cleon and Demosthenes and Styphon, son of Pharax, on the other side; since Epitadas, the first of the previous commanders, had been killed, and Hippagretas, the next in command, left for dead among the slain, though still alive, and thus the command had devolved upon Styphon according to the law, in case of anything happening to his superiors. Styphon and his companions said they wished to send a herald to the Lacedaemonians on the mainland, to know what they were to do. The Athenians would not let any of them go, but themselves called for heralds from the mainland, and after questions had been carried backwards and forwards two or three times, the last man that passed over from the Lacedaemonians on the continent brought this message: "The Lacedaemonians bid you to decide for yourselves so long as you do nothing dishonourable"; upon which after consulting together they surrendered themselves and their arms. The Athenians, after guarding them that day and night, the next morning set up a trophy in the island, and got ready to sail, giving their prisoners in batches to be guarded by the captains of the galleys; and the Lacedaemonians sent a herald and took up their dead. The number of the killed and prisoners taken in the island was as follows: four hundred and twenty heavy infantry had passed over; three hundred all but eight were taken alive to Athens; the rest were killed. About a hundred and twenty of the prisoners were Spartans. The Athenian loss was small, the battle not having been fought at close quarters.

I don't want to interrupt this interesting discussion. But in addition to my comparison to modern long range weapons I remember that I read somewhere that in the Korean war around 1950 the US Army found out that statistically 1 kill of an enemy took 50,000 shots of US infantry weapons. (I admitt that this figure is of an epoche when automatic weapons and related to this tactics had been invented exchanging accuracy by pumping the terrain full with masses of projectiles. So it might not be directly comparable to the discussed defeat of the Spartans.)

@ Thearos ("yes but that's 50% improvement ? ")
It depends on our exspectations. Today we are used to gain 100% accuracy with computerized weapons. Today a tank gunner has to justify a failed shot. So we can say the improvement between the 1980'ties and today is from 33 to 99% that ist 200% within 25 years!

funda iucunda

Can modern tanks really score first shot hits at eg. 2000 m range ?

Thearos wrote on Nov 13^th, 2009 at 6:56am:

Can modern tanks really score first shot hits at eg. 2000 m range ?

Looks like it: http://www.strategypage.com/militaryforums/2-5534.aspx

Quote:

Can modern tanks really score first shot hits at eg. 2000 m range ?

yes, what's more they can do it while moving, while in midair (modern tanks can travel fast enough to get air time over sharp bumps) and while moving can fire a series of shots at different trajectories that arrive on target at the same time.

when you consider that modern ordnance costs tens of thousands of dollars per round. You don't want to miss !

But what i really wanted to add to this thread was about the spartan thing.

half a dozen staff slingers with firepots would have ended that battle in about half an hour.
why didn't they use staff slings and incendiaries more against infantry?

Probably they weren't prepared to that kind of warfare. To my current knowledge the ships didn't use fire for catapults or so at that time. Fire was rather used for siege purposes. The so called Greek fire was invented much later.

funda iucunda

Curious Aardvark wrote on Nov 14^th, 2009 at 11:21am:

Quote:

Can modern tanks really score first shot hits at eg. 2000 m range ?

From whatI know about the greeks, they couldn't make fire very easily. Perhaps slinging firepots was too technologically costly to use often?

Short reply: either the ancient Greeks were too unimaginative and stupid, or the idea of slinging firepots is, well, ever so slightly naff.

Sounds like an ancient equivalent of the Geneva Convention.

Okay, first off, we must realize that the ancient sources, especially those of the Greeks, tend exaggerate very much. An example would be the 1,000,000 Persians in the Battle of Thermopoylae mentioned when, in real life, the numbers should have been 200,000; the Greeks exaggerated the number by a wooping factor of 5.

Now, if I'm not mistakened, Thucydides did seem to be a more reliable person. However, this does not mean that he was not guilty of wild assertions in some of his works. And there certainly is something suspicious about the event.
The most suspicious would be the harmlessness of 800 peltasts. Since javelins were mostly used at around 30 meters, accuracy should not have been a problem and should have been much greater than 22%. More importantly, in the European world, the javelins have more power than the arrows. The bronze shields of the Spartans might have still blocked out the projectiles, but one hit in the body by the javelin would have severely injured them. But, how much of body parts were not covered by the shields? The answer is shown below.

Curious Aardvark wrote on Nov 12^th, 2009 at 6:20am:

yeah but we're talking about spartans here not ordinary troops.
basically the rock hard ninja of the ancient world.

I agree that they were very professional and well trained. However, if you are implying that they can withstand arrows that had bypassed the shields with only naked flesh, then I would say that you have watched too many movies like 300. They might have performed a shield lock formations, but, if I remember correctly, those did not cover as much as the testudo formation of the Romans. This meant that that a lot of important organs were only protected by the flesh. And, contrarily to the move 300, the Spartans did not have any Arrow-Proof Abs ;D

Yes, maybe Thuc. was wrong (in spite of painstaking enquiry, as he claims, and his very careful tactical writing), or lazy; or maybe the text, as transmitted, is wrong (I mean a mistake has crept into the text as copied and recopied during antiquity and the Middle ages). But is the grounds for saying so that we think the peltasts ought to have been more effective ? If so, on what grounds ?

Actually, rereading the text, I see that the Spartans are not unarmoured besides shield, but are armoured.

The 8000+ stone throwers come from the crews of 70+ ships (180 rowers per ship, minus the lowest rank of rowers, roughly one third of each crew, so 120 rowers)= 8400 rowers. The figure for ships we assume to be reliable-- i think it shows up elsewhere (the ships on on their way to Sicily), and I suppose these figures were matter of public record, since the forces were decided by public decrees.

Archers and peltasts ? Earlier, 400 archers are mentioned, and (no number given) peltasts from Ainos.

Further thoughts.

"Wild assertions" is not quite right for Thucydides-- selectivity and reshaping the material for analytical and artistic purposes, yes; but on the whole, his tactical narratives are extremely careful.

The account of the battle on the island of Sphakteria tells us that the Spartans actually came forth to engage the Athenian hoplites, with light infantry (8000 rowers, 800 peltasts, 800 archers) getting good flanking fire. The figure of 292 Spartans captured was presumably well known, since the Athenians kept them as hostages. If the text of Thuc. is secure, I suggest the figure is trustworthy.

A comparandum: in 390 BC, Iphikrates' peltasts killed 250 out of 600 Spartan hoplites-- 41% KIA; but those were very good conditions, and ended in a rout of the Spartan regiment being tormented by the lights. (Xen. Hellenica 4.5). No figure given for the Athenian peltasts.

Hague Convention actually

Geneva Convention was strictly about POW treatment

Fundibularius wrote on Nov 14^th, 2009 at 7:51pm:

Sounds like an ancient equivalent of the Geneva Convention.

Ooops, sorry, yes, The Hague of course.

It was just a test. And the rest of the class has been sleeping. ;)

Slinging.org Forum
https://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl General >> Project Goliath - The History of The Sling >> Accuracy of Slingers https://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1257730993 Message started by TheAznValedictorian on Nov 8^th, 2009 at 8:43pm