Catapults Research Paper

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Power, greed, corruption, manpower, manipulation, torsion bundles. All of these powered the engines of war for centuries. Some of these still power war today, though one does not. Catapults are a large array of medieval weaponry used to hurl large projectiles over long distances. These weapons of utter chaos and mass destruction were crucial to midevil armies if they wanted to conquer anything. The image of them hurling explosive bombs at opposing forces in open fields is largely wrong. They were used to siege castles, break down walls, poison enemies and destroy morale, though the main usage was for siege these would set up outside castles. Castles being town sized fortifications, typically surrounded by walls and with defense in mind …show more content…
One of the most ancient and simple catapult is the onager “wild ass”. (source 4) This catapult is powered by what is known as a torsion bundle. These bundles are tightly wound hair, fur, entrails, of rope that act like a modern day coil (source 4). The onager is the mental picture of a catapult with the single arm and simple rectangular stop to angle the throw. While this design was practical for defense and being stationary, it had a hard time moving around. The pure beefiness of the throwing arm and stop bar made it ridiculously heavy (source 4). In addition to the aforementioned issues the recoil was simply uncontrollable. As the logistics concerning the onager started to prove too much for the vast empires sprouting in the ancient times a new catapult was born. This one being the ballista, literally meaning to throw, and to crush. By utilising two smaller torsion bundles rather than one large one the ballista could pack more punch in a smaller frame. This allows for the ballista to be more accurate, lighter, and more reliable. The Ballista unique design unlocked a whole new level of precision to the ancient battlefield. With a design looking like a modern day crossbow this catapult was in a league of it’s own. The ballista was more powerful than the onager and more mobile (source 4). The ballista due to the central channel running between the two arms acted …show more content…
The concept of siege is described as “attempting to wait for the enemy to run out of food, supplies or men. The strong defenses that came with castles allowed for a very small defence force even if the atters had a large defense force. In medieval times the defending force could be as small as 14 men (source 1). Walls were a major challenge for attacking forces. The walls did not allow for passage of the massive amounts of men and machines quickly. Thus the walls needed to be destroyed or seriously hindered. This is where siege engines came in while the classic battering ram could work, hot oil and flames were a brutal combination that usually spelled the end for that particular tool. Attempting to go over the wall was almost suicide as ladders were exposed, non structurally sound and were made quick work for experienced archers. Going under the walls was dangerous, time consuming and plain impractical under certain situations. Siege was a stressful time for all parties involved including the rulers who had to keep their city in order and the town's morale up otherwise the civilians would surrender far faster than the leaders of the city. There would be shows of power once in awhile such as feasts and killing animals just to show the attackers that they had plenty of food to just throw away (source
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