I Am Curious: Ballista

[molly bloom]

As I was rereading a book entitled 'The Roman War Machine' the other day (and prompted again by an excellent series on BBC 2 called 'What the Romans Did For Us) it occurred to me that it used to be a matter of faith, or at least taken for granted, that Europe did not see a crossbow until the early Middle Ages, with it frequently being attributed to Arab transmission.

Now having looked at a demonstration of a ballista, and the holes left from ballista bolts and an arrowhead lodged in skeletal remains of Celts found at Maiden (Mai Dun) Castle in Dorset, I wondered why people would assume that the ever practical Romans hadn't used a smaller version of a ballista?

After all, these were the people who changed the way their armour was formed when confronted with the Dacian sword/pick which inflicted such horrendous wounds when the Romans first besieged Dacian strongholds, and whose army was run on the fox, rather than hedgehog, approach to tactics.

Any of the 'Poly Roman enthusiasts shed some light on this?

[alva]

What the hell is a ballista...is this just one them fashion items and you just went and added -ista on it all...

[MikeH]

Ballista's a small roman crossbow like catapult.

Actually invented by the greeks, before MarkG bans me.

http://www.mangonel.com/ballista/

[alva]

Ballista's a small roman crossbow like catapult.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=3612279#post3612279

[MikeH]

Ah. I only read selected threads.

[Provost Harrison]

Yeah, but didn't they have them so they were effectively automatic though so they did have a certain advantage in terms of reload and fire...

[Proteus_MST]

They already had a big advantage.
Their size and strength combined with their base meant,
that you could throw arrows and stones at a much larger range and with a greater accuracy than you could with a bow (and still being able to pierce shield with it at the end of the fligth)

Here´s a nice site with a Palintona,
which probably is more of the original size the romans used in sieges

http://www.legionxxiv.org/ballistacatapulta/

[laurentius]

Hail Rome!

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=3612493#post3612493

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

This is the best thread title I've read in a while. It sounds like a Chris Morris parody of Scandobonk cinema.

[Dry]

Re: I Am Curious: Ballista

Originally posted by molly bloom
Any of the 'Poly Roman enthusiasts shed some light on this?

I remember something in the Rome: Total War comments about the difference between X-bow and balista.
And because I could not copy-paste their comments, I made a small google search:

http://xenophongroup.com/montjoie/ngp_arty.htm

The large, carriage or post-mounted crossbow had two distinct forms, even in ancient times. One configuration, arbalète à tour, was of a single bow, aligned horizontally; its energy was from tension (as with the normal hand-bow), due to the spanning of the wood or steel bow. The second configuration, baliste [ballista], was two horizontally-aligned arms, each under torsion when the common chord at the far ends was spanned.

IIRC the bow of the x-bow need to be composite.
(and I don't know when the composite bow was discovered).

[Dry]

From http://xenophongroup.com/montjoie/ngp_arty.htm

[Dry]

And

[molly bloom]

Re: Re: I Am Curious: Ballista

Originally posted by Dry


I remember something in the Rome: Total War comments about the difference between X-bow and balista.
And because I could not copy-paste their comments, I made a small google search:

http://xenophongroup.com/montjoie/ngp_arty.htm

The large, carriage or post-mounted crossbow had two distinct forms, even in ancient times. One configuration, arbalète à tour, was of a single bow, aligned horizontally; its energy was from tension (as with the normal hand-bow), due to the spanning of the wood or steel bow. The second configuration, baliste [ballista], was two horizontally-aligned arms, each under torsion when the common chord at the far ends was spanned.

IIRC the bow of the x-bow need to be composite.
(and I don't know when the composite bow was discovered).

Many thanks. I believe that the steppe peoples and Parthians had composite bows, but not crossbows.