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Siege Weapon

2020-03-13T01:42:11Z

2601:280:5B7F:85C4:ADBC:D0B2:1C7D:8365: /* Ballista */

Let's say you're a medieval lord with 5,000 knights, men-at-arms and peasant levies you've decided to attack and conquer a lesser lord who has 1,000 fighting men of similar abilities. If you line your guys up and fight out in the open, you'll crush him. But the coward/sensible leader does not do this and instead holds up in his [[castle]], which has high walls and heavy gates to keep people out, a large supply of rocks to drop on the heads of people trying to climb said walls, safe vantage points to shoot at attackers before they get to the walls and graineries, larders, wine cellers an cisterns which can keep his troops fed for months. You have several options available to you. You can try to storm the castle while your guys are shot and get rocks and burning sand dropped on them. You can try to starve them out, which is going to take months, suffer casualty's from raids and camp sickness, lower morale as people are away from the friends and family and incur massive opportunity costs as the peasant levies could be farming, or you could employ '''Siege Weapons'''.

Note that while most siege weapons were used offensively against fortifications, some could be used defensively, whether against infantry formations or to destroy enemy siege weapons.

== Types of Siege Weapons ==
==Historic==
===Battering Ram===
One of the oldest and simplest siege weapons, the Battering Ram is, at its most basic, a log that men use to try and break down a door or section of wall. Over time people got ideas like swinging it from ropes to make it easier to smash into enemy fortifications, an iron cap on the log to help it smash through tougher materials, and strong roofs to keep the men inside from being crushed by falling rocks, scalded with boiling oil or shot by arrows. Notably under Roman law, any defenders who failed to surrender after the first ram touched their wall were basically fair game. You could throw in the towel before then, but afterwards if the Romans won they would kill you, enslave your wife and loot everything you owned.

===Ballista===
One day a Greek man looked down at his [[crossbow]] and thought "what if I made it bigger?". They came with two designs: a ridiculously large ''Oxybeles'' (which was essentially a larger version of the gastraphetes crossbow with wooden prods), later known as a ''scorpion'' (which was commonly used as anti-siege-weapon weapon mounted on fortifications) and an "even bigger mounted crossbow" called the ''ballista'' (which replaced used coiled rope for torsion rather than wooden prods). Adding a windlass turned chain and a hopper magazine resulted in the ''Polybolos.'' Contrary to popular belief ballista is not an oversized crossbow - as the tensions, stresses, and material resistances scale differently and cause huge wooden bows to break and huge metal bows to deform from straining under such pressure. Thus Greeks devised a system that uses twisted ropes in which bow arms are fixed to store energy to the point it can hurl spear-sized bolts with enough power to break gates and warship hulls.

* '''Polybolos''': roughly meaning “multi-bolt thrower” in Greek and also known as a "repeating ballista," the Polybolos more often resembles a big crossbow than a ballista since the arms are fixed to the "stock" and don't twist around to fire it; though some versions do use arms wedged into tense bundles of twisted ropes like regular ballista. The repeating ballista was fired by turning a wheel connected to a chain drive forward to cock it, then turning it the other way to load it again from a hopper on top of the stock and fire it. Turning the wheel at the back of the crossbow counterclockwise pushed a sliding plank called the mensa (like that from the Gastrophetes/Oxyboles) forward. Once driven forward sufficiently, the latch claws at the back of the plank are pushed up by a lug under the plank and hold the drawstring in place. Then, turning the wheel clockwise drew the drawstring back as the plank slides backwards. At the same time, the motion of the plank drives a screw threaded pole (in contact with the plank by a block with a sliding nut) to rotate and load a bolt (via a built-in notch on the rod) onto the body of the plank from the hopper on top. Pulling the wheel back to the very end will bump the latch on another lug that triggers the latch into releasing the drawstring and firing the bolt.

* '''Springald''': Also known as the "skein-bow," it was the transitional successor to the Ballista before the arrival of cannons, the Springald began replacing it in the 11-12th century. While it used coiled rope and torsional power to fire bolts, rocks, and even containers of Greek Fire, it physically differed visually by looking like a cubical scaffold with the arms swinging inward rather than outwards like the ballista.

Serving as highly accurate artillery (multiple stories exist of single soldiers getting sniped by bolts), Ballista was used by both the Greeks and Romans and later through Medieval times, for a long time coexisting with early gunpowder artillery until development of cannon technology made it obsolete. Not only were cannon barrels relatively simple to cast and maintain, but they were not as finicky or vulnerable to humidity or weather compared to wood and rope.

===Catapult===
Using weights and levers, ancient and medieval people found they could throw rocks, balls of metal or whatever else they had handy into walls to knock them down. If they had dead bodies handy, they could fling them ''over'' the walls of an enemy city and wait for them to get sick and die, as the Mongols did. Alternatively, a pot of incendiary liquid or something soaked in oil being lit on fire and then thrown over the wall to start fires worked nicely, as did explosives.
* '''Mangonel''': One of the more basic types of catapult and probably what you think of when you imagine one. What actually constitutes a 'mangonel' is a little unclear, as there is not set historical definition for the type of weapon the name describes. They had an impressive range, able to hit targets over 1000 feet away.
* '''Onager''': A siege weapon commonly used by the Roman Legions, employing the torsional tension of twisted rope and the whip-lash effect of a sling to hurl very large projectiles. Onagers were mainly designed for attacking fortifications from within the confines of other fortifications (as in Roman-style siegecraft), and thus were quite short-ranged. Confusingly, some onagers are mangonels, but not all mangonels are onagers.
* '''Trebuchet''': The big daddy of catapults, it was the biggest, most destructive and longest ranged catapults in history. This was the go-to weapon for sieges until gunpowder became practical. Unlike most catapults, which used torsion to power their throwing arm, trebuchets instead used a weight and gravity to do the trick.
**'''Floating Arm Trebuchet''': A normal trebuchets when fired has a weight on short end of the throwing arm and a rock attached to a sling on the long arm, both ends swing in Arcs as its fired and the weight and throwing arm both curve. The Floating Arm Trebuchet on the other hand is very different. Unlike a normal trebuchet, the floating arm has the throwing arm attached to wheels that roll freely in a channel. The weight is lifted up, straight up (unlike a traditional trebuchet where the weight is moved along an arc), which pushes the throwing arm back on the channel. When fired the weight drops straight down, the arm rolls forward and the throwing arm is whipped forward as its weight makes it rotate on the axis very quickly. If your thinking "''Gee that sound complicated for medieval engineering''", then you're not wrong. The Floating Arm Trebuchet is a modern design used mostly as an engineering student project. It may not even be that practical a design on its own merits since '''Yankee Siege II''', A traditional Trebuchet design was the record holder in the 2013 "Pumpkin chunking contest" beating out multiple floating arm designs (although that may be because increasing the range requires a greater drop distance, which then risks damaging the track from the impact of the arm).

===Siege Ladder===
Sometimes the best answer to a large wall is to simply go over it. The siege ladder was invented with this in mind, allowing men to climb over the walls.

*'''Sambuca''': Like a siege ladder, only built for D-Day. They let roman soldiers on ships charge up onto the walls of enemy citys.

===Siege Tower===
If a Siege Ladder didn't work, the solution was to make it bigger and with protection. Siege Towers allowed men to climb up without having to worry about anyone attacking them from the sides or simply knocking the ladder over. There were also platforms on top to allow archers to fire at the defenders.

===Sappers===
A good way to weaken enemy walls was to dig under them, weakening the foundation and making them more prone to fracturing and collapsing. What sappers would usually do is once they were certain that they were directly underneath the enemey’s walls, they’d stash a whole lot of flammable materials and douse it with pig’s fat (not live pigs, they’re significantly less flammable and more prone to running away) then set everything on fire to collapse the supports and cause a cave-in. It was a dangerous job, but it was effective, so long as the enemy didn’t catch on and start counter-mining. Would-be attackers would oftentimes be literally smoked-out and suffocate if they were discovered. Cave-ins were also rightly feared.

As modern cities typically have tunnel systems running through them (e.g. for subways, access to water pipes, smuggling), sapping and mining still see some use in urban warfare situations where a heavily fortified building needs to be brought down but anti-aircraft defenses prevent the use of bombers to do so.

===Petards===
Before people worked out how to make [[cannon]]s that were better at killing the enemy than whoever was using them, they would sometimes use Petards. Their job was to run up to enemy walls with barrels of gun powder or other primitive bombs, light the fuse and run like hell, letting the explosion take down the wall. Most of the time this ended up killing the Petard as well, hence the phrase "hoisted by his own petard"

===Hwacha===
A Korean gunpowder weapon used defensively against large armies. Take a bunch of long arrows, attach small rockets to each arrow, and fire all of them at once out of a portable box container on a fixed cart. A single launcher could fire as many as 200 arrows. Such overwhelming firepower made attackers think twice about charging defensive positions. While reloading them was a time consuming nightmare, they served as a good psychological deterrent and volley weapon from defensive positions.

===Named Historic siege engines===

'''Warwolf''': Thought to be the largest Trebuchet ever built, it took 30 wagons to transport it, putting at between 300–400 feet tall and it took over 50 people over three months to build it. Used in the Siege of Stirling castle by king Edward the scotts were so scared of the thing they tried to surrender, but the king was like "nope" and he wanted to see his weapon at work. Records show it threw over 300 pound stone balls and leveled a section of the castle's wall.

'''Helepolis''': not to be confused with "''Heliopolis''", or Suncity, the Helepolis was a greek seige engine who's name means "Taker of Cities". Actually it was a type of siege engine, but it was more then just a siege tower. It was tank! It was built like a siege tower only with multiple catapults at each level of the tower, it could roll up to a castle wall, firing all the while, while solider manning dart throws on top could clear the walls for soldiers in side to jump out of the moveable tower.

==Modern==
Seige Weapons are still useful into modern times. However they are used a bit differently than their middle age counterparts.

===Howitzer===
Originating in the 17th century after descending from early [[Cannon|cannons]]. The Howitzer is still the go to indirect fire weapon for infantry in the 21st, and will continue to be so until [[Gauss#Railgun|Railguns]] become smaller and more portable.

===Portable Explosives===
Comes in all shapes and sizes. A few of the more noteworthy types:
*'''TNT''': TriNitroToluene. Also known as dynamite. More powerful than gunpowder, more stable than nitroglycerin. Dynamite comes in sticks and and is ignited using an electrical charge from a plunger device. Just a few well-placed sticks can blast rocks with ease.
*'''Plastic Explosives''': Explosives made from a flexible material, such as C4. Can be molded into any shape and stuck on any surface with a bit of duck tape. Stick the primer in, then remotely detonate when you’re a safe distance away.
*'''Thermite''': this compound produces a jet of molten iron when ignited, rather than exploding outright. Great for cutting through thick surfaces, or destroying gun barrels/sensitive equipment.
*'''Detcord''': A type of plastic explosive that’s optimized for dynamic entry. Comes in a rope shape for easy bundling and placement; stick it on a wall in an outline of the hole you want to make, or sandwich a rolled up bundle between two bags of water to create a powerful door-knocking explosive.
*'''Shape Charge''': explosives placed around an inverted metal cone. When ignited, the cone collapses into a jet of molten metal, concentrating the explosive power into a fine point to punch through armor. Commonly used in anti-tank rounds, though portable versions exist.

===Bangalore torpedo===
These were explosives in a tube used mainly to clear obstacles such as mines, barbed wire, and barricades. They came in handy if you couldn't otherwise dismantle said obstacles properly, such as if you were storming an enemy position under fire and needed to create a clear path very quickly.

{{stub}}
{{Vehicle Warfare}}
[[Category:History]]

Siege Weapon

2020-03-13T01:40:29Z

2601:280:5B7F:85C4:ADBC:D0B2:1C7D:8365: /* Ballista */

Let's say you're a medieval lord with 5,000 knights, men-at-arms and peasant levies you've decided to attack and conquer a lesser lord who has 1,000 fighting men of similar abilities. If you line your guys up and fight out in the open, you'll crush him. But the coward/sensible leader does not do this and instead holds up in his [[castle]], which has high walls and heavy gates to keep people out, a large supply of rocks to drop on the heads of people trying to climb said walls, safe vantage points to shoot at attackers before they get to the walls and graineries, larders, wine cellers an cisterns which can keep his troops fed for months. You have several options available to you. You can try to storm the castle while your guys are shot and get rocks and burning sand dropped on them. You can try to starve them out, which is going to take months, suffer casualty's from raids and camp sickness, lower morale as people are away from the friends and family and incur massive opportunity costs as the peasant levies could be farming, or you could employ '''Siege Weapons'''.

Note that while most siege weapons were used offensively against fortifications, some could be used defensively, whether against infantry formations or to destroy enemy siege weapons.

== Types of Siege Weapons ==
==Historic==
===Battering Ram===
One of the oldest and simplest siege weapons, the Battering Ram is, at its most basic, a log that men use to try and break down a door or section of wall. Over time people got ideas like swinging it from ropes to make it easier to smash into enemy fortifications, an iron cap on the log to help it smash through tougher materials, and strong roofs to keep the men inside from being crushed by falling rocks, scalded with boiling oil or shot by arrows. Notably under Roman law, any defenders who failed to surrender after the first ram touched their wall were basically fair game. You could throw in the towel before then, but afterwards if the Romans won they would kill you, enslave your wife and loot everything you owned.

===Ballista===
One day a Greek man looked down at his [[crossbow]] and thought "what if I made it bigger?". They came with two designs: a ridiculously large''Oxybeles'' (which was essentially a larger version of the gastraphetes crossbow with wooden prods), later known as a ''scorpion'' (which was commonly used as anti-siege-weapon weapon mounted on fortifications) and an "even bigger mounted crossbow" called the ''ballista'' (which replaced used coiled rope for torsion rather than wooden prods). Adding a windlass turned chain and a hopper magazine resulted in the ''Polybolos.'' Contrary to popular belief ballista is not an oversized crossbow - as the tensions, stresses, and material resistances scale differently and cause huge wooden bows to break and huge metal bows to deform from straining under such pressure. Thus Greeks devised a system that uses twisted ropes in which bow arms are fixed to store energy to the point it can hurl spear-sized bolts with enough power to break gates and warship hulls.

* '''Polybolos''': roughly meaning “multi-bolt thrower” in Greek and also known as a "repeating ballista," the Polybolos more often resembles a big crossbow than a ballista since the arms are fixed to the "stock" and don't twist around to fire it; though some versions do use arms wedged into tense bundles of twisted ropes like regular ballista. The repeating ballista was fired by turning a wheel connected to a chain drive forward to cock it, then turning it the other way to load it again from a hopper on top of the stock and fire it. Turning the wheel at the back of the crossbow counterclockwise pushed a sliding plank called the mensa (like that from the Gastrophetes/Oxyboles) forward. Once driven forward sufficiently, the latch claws at the back of the plank are pushed up by a lug under the plank and hold the drawstring in place. Then, turning the wheel clockwise drew the drawstring back as the plank slides backwards. At the same time, the motion of the plank drives a screw threaded pole (in contact with the plank by a block with a sliding nut) to rotate and load a bolt (via a built-in notch on the rod) onto the body of the plank from the hopper on top. Pulling the wheel back to the very end will bump the latch on another lug that triggers the latch into releasing the drawstring and firing the bolt.

* '''Springald''': Also known as the "skein-bow," it was the transitional successor to the Ballista before the arrival of cannons, the Springald began replacing it in the 11-12th century. While it used coiled rope and torsional power to fire bolts, rocks, and even containers of Greek Fire, it physically differed visually by looking like a cubical scaffold with the arms swinging inward rather than outwards like the ballista.

Serving as highly accurate artillery (multiple stories exist of single soldiers getting sniped by bolts), Ballista was used by both the Greeks and Romans and later through Medieval times, for a long time coexisting with early gunpowder artillery until development of cannon technology made it obsolete. Not only were cannon barrels relatively simple to cast and maintain, but they were not as finicky or vulnerable to humidity or weather compared to wood and rope.

===Catapult===
Using weights and levers, ancient and medieval people found they could throw rocks, balls of metal or whatever else they had handy into walls to knock them down. If they had dead bodies handy, they could fling them ''over'' the walls of an enemy city and wait for them to get sick and die, as the Mongols did. Alternatively, a pot of incendiary liquid or something soaked in oil being lit on fire and then thrown over the wall to start fires worked nicely, as did explosives.
* '''Mangonel''': One of the more basic types of catapult and probably what you think of when you imagine one. What actually constitutes a 'mangonel' is a little unclear, as there is not set historical definition for the type of weapon the name describes. They had an impressive range, able to hit targets over 1000 feet away.
* '''Onager''': A siege weapon commonly used by the Roman Legions, employing the torsional tension of twisted rope and the whip-lash effect of a sling to hurl very large projectiles. Onagers were mainly designed for attacking fortifications from within the confines of other fortifications (as in Roman-style siegecraft), and thus were quite short-ranged. Confusingly, some onagers are mangonels, but not all mangonels are onagers.
* '''Trebuchet''': The big daddy of catapults, it was the biggest, most destructive and longest ranged catapults in history. This was the go-to weapon for sieges until gunpowder became practical. Unlike most catapults, which used torsion to power their throwing arm, trebuchets instead used a weight and gravity to do the trick.
**'''Floating Arm Trebuchet''': A normal trebuchets when fired has a weight on short end of the throwing arm and a rock attached to a sling on the long arm, both ends swing in Arcs as its fired and the weight and throwing arm both curve. The Floating Arm Trebuchet on the other hand is very different. Unlike a normal trebuchet, the floating arm has the throwing arm attached to wheels that roll freely in a channel. The weight is lifted up, straight up (unlike a traditional trebuchet where the weight is moved along an arc), which pushes the throwing arm back on the channel. When fired the weight drops straight down, the arm rolls forward and the throwing arm is whipped forward as its weight makes it rotate on the axis very quickly. If your thinking "''Gee that sound complicated for medieval engineering''", then you're not wrong. The Floating Arm Trebuchet is a modern design used mostly as an engineering student project. It may not even be that practical a design on its own merits since '''Yankee Siege II''', A traditional Trebuchet design was the record holder in the 2013 "Pumpkin chunking contest" beating out multiple floating arm designs (although that may be because increasing the range requires a greater drop distance, which then risks damaging the track from the impact of the arm).

===Siege Ladder===
Sometimes the best answer to a large wall is to simply go over it. The siege ladder was invented with this in mind, allowing men to climb over the walls.

*'''Sambuca''': Like a siege ladder, only built for D-Day. They let roman soldiers on ships charge up onto the walls of enemy citys.

===Siege Tower===
If a Siege Ladder didn't work, the solution was to make it bigger and with protection. Siege Towers allowed men to climb up without having to worry about anyone attacking them from the sides or simply knocking the ladder over. There were also platforms on top to allow archers to fire at the defenders.

===Sappers===
A good way to weaken enemy walls was to dig under them, weakening the foundation and making them more prone to fracturing and collapsing. What sappers would usually do is once they were certain that they were directly underneath the enemey’s walls, they’d stash a whole lot of flammable materials and douse it with pig’s fat (not live pigs, they’re significantly less flammable and more prone to running away) then set everything on fire to collapse the supports and cause a cave-in. It was a dangerous job, but it was effective, so long as the enemy didn’t catch on and start counter-mining. Would-be attackers would oftentimes be literally smoked-out and suffocate if they were discovered. Cave-ins were also rightly feared.

As modern cities typically have tunnel systems running through them (e.g. for subways, access to water pipes, smuggling), sapping and mining still see some use in urban warfare situations where a heavily fortified building needs to be brought down but anti-aircraft defenses prevent the use of bombers to do so.

===Petards===
Before people worked out how to make [[cannon]]s that were better at killing the enemy than whoever was using them, they would sometimes use Petards. Their job was to run up to enemy walls with barrels of gun powder or other primitive bombs, light the fuse and run like hell, letting the explosion take down the wall. Most of the time this ended up killing the Petard as well, hence the phrase "hoisted by his own petard"

===Hwacha===
A Korean gunpowder weapon used defensively against large armies. Take a bunch of long arrows, attach small rockets to each arrow, and fire all of them at once out of a portable box container on a fixed cart. A single launcher could fire as many as 200 arrows. Such overwhelming firepower made attackers think twice about charging defensive positions. While reloading them was a time consuming nightmare, they served as a good psychological deterrent and volley weapon from defensive positions.

===Named Historic siege engines===

'''Warwolf''': Thought to be the largest Trebuchet ever built, it took 30 wagons to transport it, putting at between 300–400 feet tall and it took over 50 people over three months to build it. Used in the Siege of Stirling castle by king Edward the scotts were so scared of the thing they tried to surrender, but the king was like "nope" and he wanted to see his weapon at work. Records show it threw over 300 pound stone balls and leveled a section of the castle's wall.

'''Helepolis''': not to be confused with "''Heliopolis''", or Suncity, the Helepolis was a greek seige engine who's name means "Taker of Cities". Actually it was a type of siege engine, but it was more then just a siege tower. It was tank! It was built like a siege tower only with multiple catapults at each level of the tower, it could roll up to a castle wall, firing all the while, while solider manning dart throws on top could clear the walls for soldiers in side to jump out of the moveable tower.

==Modern==
Seige Weapons are still useful into modern times. However they are used a bit differently than their middle age counterparts.

===Howitzer===
Originating in the 17th century after descending from early [[Cannon|cannons]]. The Howitzer is still the go to indirect fire weapon for infantry in the 21st, and will continue to be so until [[Gauss#Railgun|Railguns]] become smaller and more portable.

===Portable Explosives===
Comes in all shapes and sizes. A few of the more noteworthy types:
*'''TNT''': TriNitroToluene. Also known as dynamite. More powerful than gunpowder, more stable than nitroglycerin. Dynamite comes in sticks and and is ignited using an electrical charge from a plunger device. Just a few well-placed sticks can blast rocks with ease.
*'''Plastic Explosives''': Explosives made from a flexible material, such as C4. Can be molded into any shape and stuck on any surface with a bit of duck tape. Stick the primer in, then remotely detonate when you’re a safe distance away.
*'''Thermite''': this compound produces a jet of molten iron when ignited, rather than exploding outright. Great for cutting through thick surfaces, or destroying gun barrels/sensitive equipment.
*'''Detcord''': A type of plastic explosive that’s optimized for dynamic entry. Comes in a rope shape for easy bundling and placement; stick it on a wall in an outline of the hole you want to make, or sandwich a rolled up bundle between two bags of water to create a powerful door-knocking explosive.
*'''Shape Charge''': explosives placed around an inverted metal cone. When ignited, the cone collapses into a jet of molten metal, concentrating the explosive power into a fine point to punch through armor. Commonly used in anti-tank rounds, though portable versions exist.

===Bangalore torpedo===
These were explosives in a tube used mainly to clear obstacles such as mines, barbed wire, and barricades. They came in handy if you couldn't otherwise dismantle said obstacles properly, such as if you were storming an enemy position under fire and needed to create a clear path very quickly.

{{stub}}
{{Vehicle Warfare}}
[[Category:History]]

Siege Weapon

2020-03-13T01:39:47Z

2601:280:5B7F:85C4:ADBC:D0B2:1C7D:8365: /* Historic */

Let's say you're a medieval lord with 5,000 knights, men-at-arms and peasant levies you've decided to attack and conquer a lesser lord who has 1,000 fighting men of similar abilities. If you line your guys up and fight out in the open, you'll crush him. But the coward/sensible leader does not do this and instead holds up in his [[castle]], which has high walls and heavy gates to keep people out, a large supply of rocks to drop on the heads of people trying to climb said walls, safe vantage points to shoot at attackers before they get to the walls and graineries, larders, wine cellers an cisterns which can keep his troops fed for months. You have several options available to you. You can try to storm the castle while your guys are shot and get rocks and burning sand dropped on them. You can try to starve them out, which is going to take months, suffer casualty's from raids and camp sickness, lower morale as people are away from the friends and family and incur massive opportunity costs as the peasant levies could be farming, or you could employ '''Siege Weapons'''.

Note that while most siege weapons were used offensively against fortifications, some could be used defensively, whether against infantry formations or to destroy enemy siege weapons.

== Types of Siege Weapons ==
==Historic==
===Battering Ram===
One of the oldest and simplest siege weapons, the Battering Ram is, at its most basic, a log that men use to try and break down a door or section of wall. Over time people got ideas like swinging it from ropes to make it easier to smash into enemy fortifications, an iron cap on the log to help it smash through tougher materials, and strong roofs to keep the men inside from being crushed by falling rocks, scalded with boiling oil or shot by arrows. Notably under Roman law, any defenders who failed to surrender after the first ram touched their wall were basically fair game. You could throw in the towel before then, but afterwards if the Romans won they would kill you, enslave your wife and loot everything you owned.

===Ballista===
One day a Greek man looked down at his [[crossbow]] and thought "what if I made it bigger?". They came with two designs: a ridiculously large''Oxybeles'' (which was essentially a larger version of the gastraphetes crossbow with wooden prods), later known as a ''scorpion'' (which was commonly used as anti-siege-weapon weapon mounted on fortifications) and an "even bigger mounted crossbow" called the ''ballista'' (which replaced used coiled rope for torsion rather than wooden prods). Adding a windlass turned chain and a hopper magazine resulted in the ''Polybolos.'' Contrary to popular belief ballista is not an oversized crossbow - as the tensions, stresses, and material resistances scale differently and cause huge wooden bows to break and huge metal bows to deform from straining under such pressure. Thus Greeks devised a system that uses twisted ropes in which bow arms are fixed to store energy to the point it can hurl spear-sized bolts with enough power to break gates and warship hulls.

* '''Polybolos''': roughly meaning “multi-bolt thrower” in Greek and also known as a "repeating ballista," the Polybolos more often resembles a big crossbow than a ballista since the arms are fixed to the "stock" and don't twist around to fire it; though some versions do use arms wedged into tense bundles of twisted ropes like regular ballista. The repeating ballista was fired by turning a wheel connected to a chain drive forward to cock it, then turning it the other way to load it again from a hopper on top of the stock and fire it. Turning the wheel at the back of the crossbow counterclockwise pushed a sliding plank called the mensa (like that from the Gastrophetes/Oxyboles) forward. Once driven forward sufficiently, the latch claws at the back of the plank are pushed up by a lug under the plank and hold the drawstring in place. Then, turning the wheel clockwise drew the drawstring back as the plank slides backwards. At the same time, the motion of the plank drives a screw threaded pole (in contact with the plank by a block with a sliding nut) to rotate and load a bolt (via a built-in notch on the rod) onto the body of the plank from the hopper on top. Pulling the wheel back to the very end will bump the latch on another lug that triggers the latch into releasing the drawstring and firing the bolt.

* '''Springald''': Also known as the "skein-bow," it was the transitional successor to the Ballista before the arrival of cannons, the Springald began replacing it in the 11-12th century. While it used coiled rope and torsional power to fire bolts, rocks, and even containers of Greek Fire, it physically differed visually by looking like a square scaffold with the arms swinging inward rather than outwards like the ballista.

Serving as highly accurate artillery (multiple stories exist of single soldiers getting sniped by bolts), Ballista was used by both the Greeks and Romans and later through Medieval times, for a long time coexisting with early gunpowder artillery until development of cannon technology made it obsolete. Not only were cannon barrels relatively simple to cast and maintain, but they were not as finicky or vulnerable to humidity or weather compared to wood and rope.

===Catapult===
Using weights and levers, ancient and medieval people found they could throw rocks, balls of metal or whatever else they had handy into walls to knock them down. If they had dead bodies handy, they could fling them ''over'' the walls of an enemy city and wait for them to get sick and die, as the Mongols did. Alternatively, a pot of incendiary liquid or something soaked in oil being lit on fire and then thrown over the wall to start fires worked nicely, as did explosives.
* '''Mangonel''': One of the more basic types of catapult and probably what you think of when you imagine one. What actually constitutes a 'mangonel' is a little unclear, as there is not set historical definition for the type of weapon the name describes. They had an impressive range, able to hit targets over 1000 feet away.
* '''Onager''': A siege weapon commonly used by the Roman Legions, employing the torsional tension of twisted rope and the whip-lash effect of a sling to hurl very large projectiles. Onagers were mainly designed for attacking fortifications from within the confines of other fortifications (as in Roman-style siegecraft), and thus were quite short-ranged. Confusingly, some onagers are mangonels, but not all mangonels are onagers.
* '''Trebuchet''': The big daddy of catapults, it was the biggest, most destructive and longest ranged catapults in history. This was the go-to weapon for sieges until gunpowder became practical. Unlike most catapults, which used torsion to power their throwing arm, trebuchets instead used a weight and gravity to do the trick.
**'''Floating Arm Trebuchet''': A normal trebuchets when fired has a weight on short end of the throwing arm and a rock attached to a sling on the long arm, both ends swing in Arcs as its fired and the weight and throwing arm both curve. The Floating Arm Trebuchet on the other hand is very different. Unlike a normal trebuchet, the floating arm has the throwing arm attached to wheels that roll freely in a channel. The weight is lifted up, straight up (unlike a traditional trebuchet where the weight is moved along an arc), which pushes the throwing arm back on the channel. When fired the weight drops straight down, the arm rolls forward and the throwing arm is whipped forward as its weight makes it rotate on the axis very quickly. If your thinking "''Gee that sound complicated for medieval engineering''", then you're not wrong. The Floating Arm Trebuchet is a modern design used mostly as an engineering student project. It may not even be that practical a design on its own merits since '''Yankee Siege II''', A traditional Trebuchet design was the record holder in the 2013 "Pumpkin chunking contest" beating out multiple floating arm designs (although that may be because increasing the range requires a greater drop distance, which then risks damaging the track from the impact of the arm).

===Siege Ladder===
Sometimes the best answer to a large wall is to simply go over it. The siege ladder was invented with this in mind, allowing men to climb over the walls.

*'''Sambuca''': Like a siege ladder, only built for D-Day. They let roman soldiers on ships charge up onto the walls of enemy citys.

===Siege Tower===
If a Siege Ladder didn't work, the solution was to make it bigger and with protection. Siege Towers allowed men to climb up without having to worry about anyone attacking them from the sides or simply knocking the ladder over. There were also platforms on top to allow archers to fire at the defenders.

===Sappers===
A good way to weaken enemy walls was to dig under them, weakening the foundation and making them more prone to fracturing and collapsing. What sappers would usually do is once they were certain that they were directly underneath the enemey’s walls, they’d stash a whole lot of flammable materials and douse it with pig’s fat (not live pigs, they’re significantly less flammable and more prone to running away) then set everything on fire to collapse the supports and cause a cave-in. It was a dangerous job, but it was effective, so long as the enemy didn’t catch on and start counter-mining. Would-be attackers would oftentimes be literally smoked-out and suffocate if they were discovered. Cave-ins were also rightly feared.

As modern cities typically have tunnel systems running through them (e.g. for subways, access to water pipes, smuggling), sapping and mining still see some use in urban warfare situations where a heavily fortified building needs to be brought down but anti-aircraft defenses prevent the use of bombers to do so.

===Petards===
Before people worked out how to make [[cannon]]s that were better at killing the enemy than whoever was using them, they would sometimes use Petards. Their job was to run up to enemy walls with barrels of gun powder or other primitive bombs, light the fuse and run like hell, letting the explosion take down the wall. Most of the time this ended up killing the Petard as well, hence the phrase "hoisted by his own petard"

===Hwacha===
A Korean gunpowder weapon used defensively against large armies. Take a bunch of long arrows, attach small rockets to each arrow, and fire all of them at once out of a portable box container on a fixed cart. A single launcher could fire as many as 200 arrows. Such overwhelming firepower made attackers think twice about charging defensive positions. While reloading them was a time consuming nightmare, they served as a good psychological deterrent and volley weapon from defensive positions.

===Named Historic siege engines===

'''Warwolf''': Thought to be the largest Trebuchet ever built, it took 30 wagons to transport it, putting at between 300–400 feet tall and it took over 50 people over three months to build it. Used in the Siege of Stirling castle by king Edward the scotts were so scared of the thing they tried to surrender, but the king was like "nope" and he wanted to see his weapon at work. Records show it threw over 300 pound stone balls and leveled a section of the castle's wall.

'''Helepolis''': not to be confused with "''Heliopolis''", or Suncity, the Helepolis was a greek seige engine who's name means "Taker of Cities". Actually it was a type of siege engine, but it was more then just a siege tower. It was tank! It was built like a siege tower only with multiple catapults at each level of the tower, it could roll up to a castle wall, firing all the while, while solider manning dart throws on top could clear the walls for soldiers in side to jump out of the moveable tower.

==Modern==
Seige Weapons are still useful into modern times. However they are used a bit differently than their middle age counterparts.

===Howitzer===
Originating in the 17th century after descending from early [[Cannon|cannons]]. The Howitzer is still the go to indirect fire weapon for infantry in the 21st, and will continue to be so until [[Gauss#Railgun|Railguns]] become smaller and more portable.

===Portable Explosives===
Comes in all shapes and sizes. A few of the more noteworthy types:
*'''TNT''': TriNitroToluene. Also known as dynamite. More powerful than gunpowder, more stable than nitroglycerin. Dynamite comes in sticks and and is ignited using an electrical charge from a plunger device. Just a few well-placed sticks can blast rocks with ease.
*'''Plastic Explosives''': Explosives made from a flexible material, such as C4. Can be molded into any shape and stuck on any surface with a bit of duck tape. Stick the primer in, then remotely detonate when you’re a safe distance away.
*'''Thermite''': this compound produces a jet of molten iron when ignited, rather than exploding outright. Great for cutting through thick surfaces, or destroying gun barrels/sensitive equipment.
*'''Detcord''': A type of plastic explosive that’s optimized for dynamic entry. Comes in a rope shape for easy bundling and placement; stick it on a wall in an outline of the hole you want to make, or sandwich a rolled up bundle between two bags of water to create a powerful door-knocking explosive.
*'''Shape Charge''': explosives placed around an inverted metal cone. When ignited, the cone collapses into a jet of molten metal, concentrating the explosive power into a fine point to punch through armor. Commonly used in anti-tank rounds, though portable versions exist.

===Bangalore torpedo===
These were explosives in a tube used mainly to clear obstacles such as mines, barbed wire, and barricades. They came in handy if you couldn't otherwise dismantle said obstacles properly, such as if you were storming an enemy position under fire and needed to create a clear path very quickly.

{{stub}}
{{Vehicle Warfare}}
[[Category:History]]

Siege Weapon

2020-03-13T01:34:54Z

2601:280:5B7F:85C4:ADBC:D0B2:1C7D:8365: /* Ballista */

Let's say you're a medieval lord with 5,000 knights, men-at-arms and peasant levies you've decided to attack and conquer a lesser lord who has 1,000 fighting men of similar abilities. If you line your guys up and fight out in the open, you'll crush him. But the coward/sensible leader does not do this and instead holds up in his [[castle]], which has high walls and heavy gates to keep people out, a large supply of rocks to drop on the heads of people trying to climb said walls, safe vantage points to shoot at attackers before they get to the walls and graineries, larders, wine cellers an cisterns which can keep his troops fed for months. You have several options available to you. You can try to storm the castle while your guys are shot and get rocks and burning sand dropped on them. You can try to starve them out, which is going to take months, suffer casualty's from raids and camp sickness, lower morale as people are away from the friends and family and incur massive opportunity costs as the peasant levies could be farming, or you could employ '''Siege Weapons'''.

Note that while most siege weapons were used offensively against fortifications, some could be used defensively, whether against infantry formations or to destroy enemy siege weapons.

== Types of Siege Weapons ==
==Historic==
===Battering Ram===
One of the oldest and simplest siege weapons, the Battering Ram is, at its most basic, a log that men use to try and break down a door or section of wall. Over time people got ideas like swinging it from ropes to make it easier to smash into enemy fortifications, an iron cap on the log to help it smash through tougher materials, and strong roofs to keep the men inside from being crushed by falling rocks, scalded with boiling oil or shot by arrows. Notably under Roman law, any defenders who failed to surrender after the first ram touched their wall were basically fair game. You could throw in the towel before then, but afterwards if the Romans won they would kill you, enslave your wife and loot everything you owned.

===Ballista===
One day a Greek man looked down at his [[crossbow]] and thought "what if I made it bigger?". They came with two designs: a ridiculously large''Oxybeles'' (which was essentially a larger version of the gastraphetes crossbow with wooden prods), later known as a ''scorpion'' (which was commonly used as anti-siege-weapon weapon mounted on fortifications) and an "even bigger mounted crossbow" called the ''ballista'' (which replaced used coiled rope for torsion rather than wooden prods). Adding a windlass turned chain and a hopper magazine resulted in the ''Polybolos.'' Contrary to popular belief ballista is not an oversized crossbow - as the tensions, stresses, and material resistances scale differently and cause huge wooden bows to break and huge metal bows to deform from straining under such pressure. Thus Greeks devised a system that uses twisted ropes in which bow arms are fixed to store energy to the point it can hurl spear-sized bolts with enough power to break gates and warship hulls.

* '''Polybolos''': roughly meaning “multi-bolt thrower” in Greek and also known as a "repeating ballista," the Polybolos more often resembles a big crossbow than a ballista since the arms are fixed to the "stock" and don't twist around to fire it; though some versions do use arms wedged into tense bundles of twisted ropes like regular ballista. The repeating ballista was fired by turning a wheel connected to a chain drive forward to cock it, then turning it the other way to load it again from a hopper on top of the stock and fire it. Turning the wheel at the back of the crossbow counterclockwise pushed a sliding plank called the mensa (like that from the Gastrophetes/Oxyboles) forward. Once driven forward sufficiently, the latch claws at the back of the plank are pushed up by a lug under the plank and hold the drawstring in place. Then, turning the wheel clockwise drew the drawstring back as the plank slides backwards. At the same time, the motion of the plank drives a screw threaded pole (in contact with the plank by a block with a sliding nut) to rotate and load a bolt (via a built-in notch on the rod) onto the body of the plank from the hopper on top. Pulling the wheel back to the very end will bump the latch on another lug that triggers the latch into releasing the drawstring and firing the bolt.

Serving as highly accurate artillery (multiple stories exist of single soldiers getting sniped by bolts), Ballista was used by both the Greeks and Romans and later through Medieval times, for a long time coexisting with early gunpowder artillery until development of cannon technology made it obsolete. Not only were cannon barrels relatively simple to cast and maintain, but they were not as finicky or vulnerable to humidity or weather compared to wood and rope.

===Catapult===
Using weights and levers, ancient and medieval people found they could throw rocks, balls of metal or whatever else they had handy into walls to knock them down. If they had dead bodies handy, they could fling them ''over'' the walls of an enemy city and wait for them to get sick and die, as the Mongols did. Alternatively, a pot of incendiary liquid or something soaked in oil being lit on fire and then thrown over the wall to start fires worked nicely, as did explosives.
* '''Mangonel''': One of the more basic types of catapult and probably what you think of when you imagine one. What actually constitutes a 'mangonel' is a little unclear, as there is not set historical definition for the type of weapon the name describes. They had an impressive range, able to hit targets over 1000 feet away.
* '''Onager''': A siege weapon commonly used by the Roman Legions, employing the torsional tension of twisted rope and the whip-lash effect of a sling to hurl very large projectiles. Onagers were mainly designed for attacking fortifications from within the confines of other fortifications (as in Roman-style siegecraft), and thus were quite short-ranged. Confusingly, some onagers are mangonels, but not all mangonels are onagers.
* '''Trebuchet''': The big daddy of catapults, it was the biggest, most destructive and longest ranged catapults in history. This was the go-to weapon for sieges until gunpowder became practical. Unlike most catapults, which used torsion to power their throwing arm, trebuchets instead used a weight and gravity to do the trick.
**'''Floating Arm Trebuchet''': A normal trebuchets when fired has a weight on short end of the throwing arm and a rock attached to a sling on the long arm, both ends swing in Arcs as its fired and the weight and throwing arm both curve. The Floating Arm Trebuchet on the other hand is very different. Unlike a normal trebuchet, the floating arm has the throwing arm attached to wheels that roll freely in a channel. The weight is lifted up, straight up (unlike a traditional trebuchet where the weight is moved along an arc), which pushes the throwing arm back on the channel. When fired the weight drops straight down, the arm rolls forward and the throwing arm is whipped forward as its weight makes it rotate on the axis very quickly. If your thinking "''Gee that sound complicated for medieval engineering''", then you're not wrong. The Floating Arm Trebuchet is a modern design used mostly as an engineering student project. It may not even be that practical a design on its own merits since '''Yankee Siege II''', A traditional Trebuchet design was the record holder in the 2013 "Pumpkin chunking contest" beating out multiple floating arm designs (although that may be because increasing the range requires a greater drop distance, which then risks damaging the track from the impact of the arm).

===Siege Ladder===
Sometimes the best answer to a large wall is to simply go over it. The siege ladder was invented with this in mind, allowing men to climb over the walls.

*'''Sambuca''': Like a siege ladder, only built for D-Day. They let roman soldiers on ships charge up onto the walls of enemy citys.

===Siege Tower===
If a Siege Ladder didn't work, the solution was to make it bigger and with protection. Siege Towers allowed men to climb up without having to worry about anyone attacking them from the sides or simply knocking the ladder over. There were also platforms on top to allow archers to fire at the defenders.

===Sappers===
A good way to weaken enemy walls was to dig under them, weakening the foundation and making them more prone to fracturing and collapsing. What sappers would usually do is once they were certain that they were directly underneath the enemey’s walls, they’d stash a whole lot of flammable materials and douse it with pig’s fat (not live pigs, they’re significantly less flammable and more prone to running away) then set everything on fire to collapse the supports and cause a cave-in. It was a dangerous job, but it was effective, so long as the enemy didn’t catch on and start counter-mining. Would-be attackers would oftentimes be literally smoked-out and suffocate if they were discovered. Cave-ins were also rightly feared.

As modern cities typically have tunnel systems running through them (e.g. for subways, access to water pipes, smuggling), sapping and mining still see some use in urban warfare situations where a heavily fortified building needs to be brought down but anti-aircraft defenses prevent the use of bombers to do so.

===Petards===
Before people worked out how to make [[cannon]]s that were better at killing the enemy than whoever was using them, they would sometimes use Petards. Their job was to run up to enemy walls with barrels of gun powder or other primitive bombs, light the fuse and run like hell, letting the explosion take down the wall. Most of the time this ended up killing the Petard as well, hence the phrase "hoisted by his own petard"

===Hwacha===
A Korean gunpowder weapon used defensively against large armies. Take a bunch of long arrows, attach small rockets to each arrow, and fire all of them at once out of a portable box container on a fixed cart. A single launcher could fire as many as 200 arrows. Such overwhelming firepower made attackers think twice about charging defensive positions. While reloading them was a time consuming nightmare, they served as a good psychological deterrent and volley weapon from defensive positions.

===Named Historic siege engines===

'''Warwolf''': Thought to be the largest Trebuchet ever built, it took 30 wagons to transport it, putting at between 300–400 feet tall and it took over 50 people over three months to build it. Used in the Siege of Stirling castle by king Edward the scotts were so scared of the thing they tried to surrender, but the king was like "nope" and he wanted to see his weapon at work. Records show it threw over 300 pound stone balls and leveled a section of the castle's wall.

'''Helepolis''': not to be confused with "''Heliopolis''", or Suncity, the Helepolis was a greek seige engine who's name means "Taker of Cities". Actually it was a type of siege engine, but it was more then just a siege tower. It was tank! It was built like a siege tower only with multiple catapults at each level of the tower, it could roll up to a castle wall, firing all the while, while solider manning dart throws on top could clear the walls for soldiers in side to jump out of the moveable tower.

==Modern==
Seige Weapons are still useful into modern times. However they are used a bit differently than their middle age counterparts.

===Howitzer===
Originating in the 17th century after descending from early [[Cannon|cannons]]. The Howitzer is still the go to indirect fire weapon for infantry in the 21st, and will continue to be so until [[Gauss#Railgun|Railguns]] become smaller and more portable.

===Portable Explosives===
Comes in all shapes and sizes. A few of the more noteworthy types:
*'''TNT''': TriNitroToluene. Also known as dynamite. More powerful than gunpowder, more stable than nitroglycerin. Dynamite comes in sticks and and is ignited using an electrical charge from a plunger device. Just a few well-placed sticks can blast rocks with ease.
*'''Plastic Explosives''': Explosives made from a flexible material, such as C4. Can be molded into any shape and stuck on any surface with a bit of duck tape. Stick the primer in, then remotely detonate when you’re a safe distance away.
*'''Thermite''': this compound produces a jet of molten iron when ignited, rather than exploding outright. Great for cutting through thick surfaces, or destroying gun barrels/sensitive equipment.
*'''Detcord''': A type of plastic explosive that’s optimized for dynamic entry. Comes in a rope shape for easy bundling and placement; stick it on a wall in an outline of the hole you want to make, or sandwich a rolled up bundle between two bags of water to create a powerful door-knocking explosive.
*'''Shape Charge''': explosives placed around an inverted metal cone. When ignited, the cone collapses into a jet of molten metal, concentrating the explosive power into a fine point to punch through armor. Commonly used in anti-tank rounds, though portable versions exist.

===Bangalore torpedo===
These were explosives in a tube used mainly to clear obstacles such as mines, barbed wire, and barricades. They came in handy if you couldn't otherwise dismantle said obstacles properly, such as if you were storming an enemy position under fire and needed to create a clear path very quickly.

{{stub}}
{{Vehicle Warfare}}
[[Category:History]]

Crossbow

2020-03-13T01:33:40Z

2601:280:5B7F:85C4:ADBC:D0B2:1C7D:8365: /* Types of Crossbows */

[[image:crossbow.jpg|thumb|300px|right|An Arbalast Crossbow with an iron prod. Note the iron stirrup ring on the front; which the user could use in this case to hold down with his foot when pulling back the draw string or mounting a gaffe lever to push the string back]]
{{topquote|'''I waste him with my crossbow!'''|Bob Herzog, ''[[Knights Of The Dinner Table]]''}}

The '''crossbow''' is named for its cross-shaped design, as it is basically a [[Bows and Arrows|bow]] (in technical terms, called a prod) on a stock (alternatively called a tiller) that uses a locking trigger mechanism to hold and fire either an arrow (called a bolt or quarrel) or a small spherical stone or lead bullet (the latter usually being used for hunting). Bolts are arrows with a shorter shaft, and could range from being lighter than an average arrow to several times heavier. It operates on the same principle as the traditional bow in that a tough bowstring is pulled back to store potential energy in the bow, which upon release of the string, transfers it to a projectile.

While historians are unsure who first made the crossbow, the earliest known crossbows were found in [[China]] around 700 to 500 BCE. During the Warring States period, crossbows became a preferred ranged weapon of Chinese armies due to ease of use for conscripts and the use of crossbows certainly aided in the rise of the Qin Dynasty and the beginning of Imperial China. The Greeks and Romans experimented with hand-held crossbows, but they never made extensive use of them, although they did make extensive use of ballista (basically a crossbow scaled up to the size of an artillery piece, and often shot stone instead of scaled up arrows). The [[Asians|Chinese]] of these times, on the other hand, had crossbows of all types and shapes: from one-handed repeater crossbows, capable of launching dozens of (fairly weak, but often poisoned) arrows per minute, to absurdly heavy ones, designed to be pulled by legs, rather than arms, and launch arrows the size of small javelin, later with gunpowder-filled bombs on the heading at range, only rivaled by siege engines, though later they passed out in favor of multiple rocket launchers (yes, you read it right). Crossbows began to see widespread use in Europe around 1000 CE, at this time emerged crossbows with steel bow sections, more commonly called arbalasts.

The difference between a bow and a crossbow is that a bow's string needs to be pulled back and held by the user while aiming, while a crossbow has a mechanism that locks the bowstring in a readied state and only requires the user to operate the trigger to release the bolt upon sighting their target. The trigger mechanism evolved over time, as did aids for drawing the crossbow's string. The weight or size of the crossbow certainly had an effect on the mechanisms involved, as light crossbows could be reset by hand, but heavier version could end up using levers or crank-operated windlasses to pull back and cock the string, and tended to use more robust release mechanisms due to the increased stress involved.

In fantasy settings, technologically advanced races who don't (or in limitation) employ [[firearm]]s as their go-to weapon typically make heavy use of crossbows. It is also the ranged weapon of choice for richer and more experienced mercenaries.

For some reason in a lot of fantasy and medieval fiction it seems to be the preferred ranged weapon of whoever the bad guys are. Examples include A Song Of Ice and Fire (where it seems to be the favorite weapon of [[brundlepenis|King Joffrey]]), The Lord of the Rings ([[Ork|Uruk-Hai]] marksmen use crossbows) and different settings of DnD ([[Drow]] poisoned repeater crossbows). This may have something to do with crossbows being less relying on the wielder's strengths, stamina and personal skill, and thus regarded as "unfair" weapon compared to bow, it was at one point banned by the pope for use on Christians, although due to it's usefulness on the battlefield this was largely ignored.

The crossbow is also the favored ranged weapon of [[dwarves]] in most fantasy fiction, though in this case it may be more than just aesthetics; while it would be fitting for a race known for their technical expertise to use a more complex device, also keep in mind that dwarves would have a harder time using regular bows. A bow's power depends on its draw length, and having shorter arms, dwarves can't get as much power out of a bow. They also need a weapon that can be used more easily in confined spaces, which disqualifies longbows right away. What they do have going for them, though, is great strength, making a crossbow's high draw weight less of an issue for them.

==Use in warfare==
A major advantage of crossbows over regular bows is that because they're fired using a mechanism instead of depending on human strength to hold the bow in a ready-to-fire position, user fatigue is no longer such a huge factor. Additionally, the heavier crossbows could generate more force than most humans thanks to the pulley systems used to cock the string, thus heavier bolts could be thrown, resulting in greater penetration of the target. Possibly its biggest advantage is that it was easier to train the use of a crossbow than bows since the weapon's operation is much less taxing.

Of course, the main drawback with crossbows is that they require a wider range of resources and skills to produce due to the mechanisms involved. Crossbows also generally have a lower rate of fire than bows. At best, a crossbowman can get off about eight shots a minute. More powerful arbalast crossbows that used windlasses could manage about three shots a minute, but could store more energy than a human could physically pull back with bare hands. For these reasons Crossbows excel in a siege situation where the ranges are long and you can duck into cover easily while you're reloading. And since sieges tended to be drawn-out affairs anyway, reload time wasn't as necessary.

That being said, despite crossbows being much more expensive than bows, they were much less demanding on user's skill and physique, meaning you can train as many crossbowmen as you have crossbows and replenish killed ones in just few months of training, while in order to train a bowmen you need to start with kids. So while a single bowman is much more effective than a single crossbowman, you can afford a half-dozen of crossbowmen for the cost of one bowman, and replace lost ones quickly as long as their weapon survives the battle. This is probably why they first took off in Warring States period China, where raising large conscript armies was the name of the game.

It should be noted that despite having much greater draw weights than contemporary bows (above 500 lbs in some cases), crossbows were not proportionally more powerful due to their very short draw length, translating into a much briefer energy transfer. More modern crossbows sometimes address this by using recurve bows, or even by using a bullpup configuration by turning the bow backwards and then pulling the string past the bow. Additionally, the reduced aerodynamic properties of crossbow bolts as compared to arrows mean that they very rapidly lose velocity after a relatively short distance, giving them great punch at short range but reduced effectiveness at longer ranges as compared to bows.

The fact that even relatively poorly trained men armed with crossbows could royally murder fully armored knights, made the crossbow one of the most hated pre-firearm weapons in the Europe, even more than the infamous flamberge. At some point it even came to the pope banning crossbows as unholy weapon not to be used on fellow Christians, but even then they remained popular among mercenaries, rich lords and Protestants. Proud knights could accept deaths from elite long/composite bowmen who like them were training from childhood, but not from some hastily drilled dirty peasant levies whose lord could afford few dozens of crossbows.

Finally, one of the most underrated uses of a crossbow was the psychological element. Those armies that weren't used to fighting against crossbowmen (and many who were) found themselves outranged, outgunned, and/or overpowered by crossbows. Many medieval armours and early modern ones were not capable of withstanding the sheer force that a crossbow shot could inflict, in comparison to many regular bows. This meant that the presence of crossbows on a battlefield could keep certain units away, due to them not being able to withstand that kind of shot. Indeed, we have medieval chronicles talking about the power of the crossbow:

<blockquote> ''This cross-bow is a bow of the barbarians quite unknown to the Greeks; and it is not stretched by the right hand pulling the string whilst the left pulls the bow in a contrary direction, but he who stretches this warlike and very far-shooting weapon must lie, one might say, almost on his back and apply both feet strongly against the semi-circle of the bow and with his two hands pull the string with all his might in the contrary direction. In the middle of the string is a socket, a cylindrical kind of cup fitted to the string itself, and about as long as an arrow of considerable size which reaches from the string to the very middle of the bow; and through this arrows of many sorts are shot out. The arrows used with this bow are very short in length, but very thick, fitted in front with a very heavy iron tip. And in discharging them the string shoots them out with enormous violence and force, and whatever these darts chance to hit, they do not fall back, but they pierce through a shield, then cut through a heavy iron corselet and wing their way through and out at the other side. So violent and ineluctable is the discharge of arrows of this kind. Such an arrow has been known to pierce a bronze statue, and if it hits the wall of a very large town, the point of the arrow either protrudes on the inner side or it buries itself in the middle of the wall and is lost. Such then is this monster of a crossbow, and verily a devilish invention. And the wretched man who is struck by it, dies without feeling anything, not even feeling the blow, however strong it be.''

Anna Commeno, ''The Alexiad'' </blockquote>

Crossbows are still occasionally used for military purposes; while a crossbow's bolts lack the stopping power of modern firearms, the bolts it fires are quieter than any "silenced" firearm and it can also be used for niche purposes such as launching grappling hooks or detonating tripwire-activated mines, and its lower projectile speed means it's much less likely to set off any worn explosives. While its comparatively lower ability to kill outright can be an issue you could use the same solution that the Indian Navy used for this problem and use Cyanide tipped bolts, or take the Rambo route and use bolts with explosive tips.

See Also: [[Katanas are Underpowered in d20#Crossbows are Underpowered in d20|Crossbows are Underpowered in d20]]

===Loading Mechanisms===
Because later crossbows were often too tough to simply pull back unaided, a number of devices were invented to allow the wielder rearm the crossbow via pulling back the string (in a process called spanning). The device used usually depended upon the draw weight of the bow, as heavier bows would require more advanced devices that required more time to pull back.

*'''Gloves and Stirrup''': Generally leather or some other material, good quality gloves (or some tough callouses) can save one some finger or palm bleeding from trying to pull it by the old fashioned way. Talking from experience, if one is to do it this way, put your entire upper back and arms into it, and pull. Either user placed both feet on the bow's span on each side of the stock or in the stirrup ring attached to the crossbow head. Most commonly associated way of reloading in popular culture besides the Cranequin and Windlass. First appearance: 700 to 500's BCE. Mechanical advantage: 1 to 1. Maximum draw weight: 150-300 lbs.
*'''Stirrup and Belt Hook''': Most crossbows you see have a stirrup ring towards the front end for putting your foot through to hold it steady. Combined with a belt worn around the waist with a hook attached to it, the wielder could use their whole body, rather than just their arms, to arm the crossbow. Could also use a belt-attached pulley configuration to lessen the strength to draw. First appearance: 1200's. Mechanical advantage: about 2 or 1 to 1 (depending on whether using pulley configuration). Maximum draw weight: 320-450 lbs.
*'''Goat's Foot Lever''': This was a fairly simple detachable metal lever that gave the user more leverage when pulling back the string. Composed of a rod attached to two curved prongs and two hinged hooks; it's shape had a resemblance to a goat's foot (obvious in the name). Mounts on two metal lugs on the body's sides near the trigger, pull drawstring back in one motion via two hinged hooks, place folded lever back on belt, load the bolt on the crossbow, and then shoot. This could arm the crossbow in a single smooth motion with the lever's curved prongs making the drawing force decrease as the spanning distance increases. Lighter versions can be spanned from horseback or while standing. The heavier ones would require you to put your foot in the stirrup while kneeling and bracing it against your shin as you pull the lever back. Very common for field portable bows and mounted crossbowmen. First appearance: Between 1300's to 1400's. Mechanical Advantage: from 5 up to 30 to 1 (depending on how far the lever is pulled). Maximum draw weight: 500-600 lbs.
*'''Gaffe Lever''': Derived from its older goats foot lever cousin, the gaffe lever consisted of a two piece wooden lever held by a hinge and attached to the stirrup ring via metal hook. User pushed down on the lever to push the drawstring into the trigger before removing. More associated with nobles hunting or shooting clubs than with military arsenals after the gunpowder weapons appeared in the 1500's during the Renaissance. First appearance: 1500's. Mechanical advantage: up to 30 to 1. Maximum draw weight: 400 lbs.
*'''Lever-Action''': Alternatively called "Self-Cocking" or "Self-Spanning" crossbows. These generally use hinged or sliding levers embedded into the crossbow body. The user unlocks catch holding the hinge firm before folding open the half of the crossbow body to catch the drawstring on a latch before pulling back to the trigger to arm the crossbow. Unlike the Asian equivalent in the Chu-Ko-Nu, these did not have a top magazine. This enabled users to aim after loading and pulling a trigger to shoot at the cost of having to load the bolt by hand. Besides the Scottish Border Reivers' latchet crossbow in the 1600's, two noted examples are Martin Löffelholz's armbrust in the Codex Löffelholz and Da Vinci's Balestra Veloce in the Codex Atlanticus (the balestra veloce). While [[Awesome|impressive]], lever-action crossbows were never mainstream or famous due to the transition to gunpowder weapons in the 1500's during the Renaissance. First appearance: 1500's. Mechanical advantage: up to 25 to 1. Maximum draw weight: 220 - 300 lbs.
*'''Windlass''': Alternatively called the "Winch." Like the Cranequin, this was a winding device, but it also came with a bulky pulley system that was mounted to the back of the crossbow. As a result, this was a tremendously powerful pulling system at the expense of needing a lot of time to arm. Along with the Cranequin, this was one of the strongest crossbow loading methods. Contrary to popular culture, it was more often used on large, heavy crossbows for stationary battles like trench warfare or sieges like modern anti-tank guns. On the other hand, usage on open battlefields (behind pavise shields) for support artillery wasn't unheard of. First appearance: 1400’s. Mechanical advantage: ~160 to 1. Maximum draw weight: 1500 lbs+ (limited by time and bow strength).
*'''Cranequin''': Also called the "Rack and Pinion," this device used gears and a crank to wind up the bowstring, requiring multiple turns to pull it all the way back. Device slid onto lugs mounted on the stock and was removed before firing. Along with the Windlass, this was one of the strongest crossbow loading methods. Contrary to popular culture, it was more often used on large, heavy crossbows for stationary battles like trench warfare or sieges like modern anti-tank guns. On the other hand, usage on mounted crossbowmen with lighter crossbows and by footmen on open battlefields (behind pavise shields) for artillery support wasn't unheard of. First appearance: 1500's. Mechanical advantage: ~600 or 840 to 1. Maximum draw weight: 2000 lbs+.

==Types of Crossbows==
As a general note, crossbows are not ballistas, despite their visual similarity. Unlike Crossbows which store energy in a set of arms which are bent back, Ballistas instead store energy in twisted rope that has a wooden beam pushed into it which is then twisted back farther before firing to store energy. That said, some ballistas are discussed here until a proper "[[Siege Weapon|siege]]" article is consolidated.

*'''Gastraphetes''': an early Greek crossbow, the Gastraphetes, or "belly bow", was cocked by resting the stomach on the bolt rest of the stock (which contained a sliding plank attached to the drawstring) and pushing down so that more energy can be stored then an archer could provide. The Gastraphetes worked slightly different from the classic crossbow, in that its arrow slot was two-piece, with the sliding inner plank attached to the drawstring. Thus, rather than drawing back the crossbow, you readied it by slamming it into the ground until the trigger catches onto a latch. While impressive, it was restricted to hip fire, was fired with a button-like trigger, and was more of a man portable siege weapon. A larger winch-spanned, tripod-mounted version, the Oxybeles, was in use as a stationary artillery weapon before being replaced by the ballista (which used less fragile torsion rope rather than wooden prods).

* '''Polybolos''': roughly meaning “multi-bolt thrower” in Greek and also known as a "repeating ballista," the Polybolos more often resembles a big crossbow than a ballista since the arms are fixed to the "stock" and don't twist around to fire it; though some versions do use arms wedged into tense bundles of twisted ropes like regular ballista. The repeating ballista was fired by turning a wheel connected to a chain drive forward to cock it, then turning it the other way to load it again from a hopper on top of the stock and fire it. Turning the wheel at the back of the crossbow counterclockwise pushed a sliding plank called the mensa (like that from the Gastrophetes/Oxyboles) forward. Once driven forward sufficiently, the latch claws at the back of the plank are pushed up by a lug under the plank and hold the drawstring in place. Then, turning the wheel clockwise drew the drawstring back as the plank slides backwards. At the same time, the motion of the plank drives a screw threaded pole (in contact with the plank by a block with a sliding nut) to rotate and load a bolt (via a built-in notch on the rod) onto the body of the plank from the hopper on top. Pulling the wheel back to the very end will bump the latch on another lug that triggers the latch into releasing the drawstring and firing the bolt.

* '''Chinese "Nu" crossbow''': the Chinese version of the crossbow is noticeably different from the European crossbow: which had a power stroke (drawing span) of about 7 inches, used a rolling nut latch held in place by a sear pushed by a long horizontal lever-like trigger mounted in the middle of the stock, and used prods (bow pieces) made from simple wood, composite, and later with metal. In contrast, the Chinese crossbow had a power stroke of about 21 inches, used a complicated two-piece vertical trigger at the very back of the stock (held together by tension and two pins at the very end of the stock) inside a pistol grip mount, and used wood or composite prods (often salvaged from recurve bows and constructed for conscripts to use en mass instead of drilling archery skills into them). Thus, due to the longer power stroke via the trigger being placed further back and assuming that all other factors are equal, the bolts fired by the Chinese bows (usually with draw weights of 380 lbs) were launched with comparable performance to an average European windlass crossbow (with a draw weight of 1,500 lbs). However, the Chinese crossbows themselves were rather large, cumbersome, and had to be reloaded with just stirrup rings, belt hooks, and/or gloves.

* '''Chu-Ko-Nu''': literally meaning “Zhuge’s Crossbow," classical legend associated it a Chinese noble named Zhuge Liang (2nd Century AD). Alternatively known as the "Lian Nu" (repeating crossbow), it's also known as the "Chinese repeating crossbow" and is one of the more common types of specialty crossbows seen in fiction. In reality, it was invented during the Warring States Period (4th Century BC) in the State of Chu. The term "repeating crossbow" brings to mind some bastard combination of Assault rifle and crossbow, which it kinda is and is not. Without doubt, this thing could fire quickly; trained soldiers could loose ten bolts in fifteen seconds before having to reload. Mechanically, it consisted of a stock that the user secured on their hip with the bowstring sliding through a slit on each side of the sliding magazine/bolt rest. By pushing and then pulling the lever that secures the magazine to the stock, the user catches bowstring on a notch at the back end of the slits while loading the bolt by gravity onto the bolt rest. Once the lever is fully compressed down, a sliding lug nut at the base of the magazine pushes the string up off the notches and propels the bolt out. However, because of the mechanism's design, the pumping action that pulled the string back also fired the bolt at the same time while the magazine is built on top of the bow. Due to that, you could not pull the string back and then aim. Chu-ko-nu's were limited to hip fire; giving you almost ork levels of accuracy in exchange for an appreciable volume of fire. In layman's terms, it's the same as being restricted to hip-firing a pump action shotgun with the trigger permanently welded in the fire position. Additionally because you were pulling the string back one handed, the bolts had a lot less penetration power than those of a regular crossbow. However, the bolts (which fell down onto the stock from a hopper mounted on top) were often poisoned to make up for that (as seen with the [[Drow]], who make use of the weapon extensively). While no matter how strong the poison on your bolt is, you're not gonna kill a man instantly with a scratch. However, on the battlefield causing enough pain to make a person go into shock is as good as killing them outright, and poison delivers the last one in spades. The downside was you had next to no luck piercing good quality armor or thick leather that an enemy is wearing while you're using it.

* '''Balestra Veloce/Löffelholz Armbrust crossbows''': First mentioned in Leonardo Da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus (1478 to 1519) and Martin Löffelholz's Codex Löffelholz (1505), both versions of the said lever-action design (which differ mainly by the arrangement of the trigger, latch, and sear mechanism) used a stock consisting of two wood and metal pieces on top of each other and hinged at the head of the crossbow. By unlocking a catch on the stock, the user can then swing forward the bottom half of the stock to extend a a latch housed in a sliding plank (like that on the gastraphetes) to catch the drawstring. Once the drawstring is caught, the stock is then closed; locking the stock back together and bringing the latch (which is held firm by a spring-loaded sear) back into contact with the trigger on the lower half of the stock. User then loaded the bolt and pulled the trigger to compress the sear; letting the rolling nut release the crossbow string. Whether the German or Italian version came first is unclear; though the rapid fire crossbow pages in the Codex Atlanticus are dated back to 1485. Either codex's blueprints can be found online via an online archive created by "The Visual Agency" media company or a pdf scan hosted by Krakow's Jagiellonian Library respectively. While firing and reloading more rapidly than the mainstream "goats foot lever" crossbows, it was not widely used due to possibly three reasons.
** First, the amount of expert craftsmanship to make it and the extensive training to use it was cost prohibitive for a relatively complicated and delicately structured weapon. This meant that it was likely more of a special luxury weapon that only wealthy people could afford rather than a mass produced weapon for conscripts (the same reason why breech loading rifles existed since the 16th Century for noble hunters but didn't replace muzzle-loading smoothbore muskets in mass use for militaries until the 1840's).
** Second, while quicker than spanning a crossbow with a goat's foot or gaffe lever, the draw weight is reduced to a mere average of 220 lbs. Being half of the maximum draw weight of gaffe and goat's foot lever crossbows, this meant weaker penetration and shorter ranges. This was likely to make the lever-action crossbow more easily rearmed without being too strong to either break the trigger lock or cock with your hands.
** Third, the introduction of gunpowder weapons alongside the volley fire from massed Pike and Shot square formations occurred during the Renaissance. Since these crossbows were developed right when gunpowder took over, this meant these lever-action crossbows already went obsolete the same way that heavy plate-armored cavalry and longbow archers did. Hence, this is why these crossbow types (as well as other related [[Combi-weapon|combination]] specimens preserved at Vienna's Kunsthistorisches and New York City’s Metropolitan museums) were usually hunting or city militia pieces rather than military arsenal pieces.

* '''Latch/Latchet Crossbow''': A light lever-action crossbow popular with Scottish border raiders called Reivers in the 1600's to 1700's, it worked via swinging an internal metal lever forward from the top to push a sliding latch forward to secure the drawstring after unlocking the catch. The user then pushed the lever back into the body to arm the bow before loading and shooting. Popular to the Scottish in the region for home defense and raiding as they were small, easy to use, easy to make, very quiet compared to the more finicky wheel-lock pistol, had a decent draw weight of about 250 lbs, and took only 10 seconds to reload. Their downside was their short range and being restricted to hip firing due to the trigger being a button on the top (a trade off to enable horsemen to fire one-handed from the saddle though you could tuck it into your armpit and adjust to aiming over your thumb).

* '''Bed Crossbow''': A Chinese peculiarity, where multiple crossbows mounted on a static frame were combined to create an increased draw strength. A precursor to the compound crossbow.

*'''Bullet Crossbows''': Also referred to as pelletbows, stonebows, and ballesters, these were essentially the same as regular crossbows or similar to a slingshot in crossbow form, except they fired stone or lead shot instead of bolts. Usually used for recreational shooting and small game hunting.

*'''Crossbow pistol''': Small crossbows designed to be fired from one hand, with modernized versions commonly featuring a more modern pistol grip and trigger. While these did exist in the past, they were nowhere near as lethal as battlefield crossbows as the draw weights were far smaller.

*'''Arbalast''': As European armor improved with the development of steel plate crossbows with wooden bow sections were just not cutting the mustard anymore, as such they began making that part out of steel. This meant that the bow could store more energy and launch a projectile farther and faster, significantly improving armor penetration but it also increased the amount of energy required to draw it, often requiring various leavers and cranking mechanisms to reset it.

*'''Slurbow:''' A crossbow with a cover over its barrel and a small gap used to draw its string back. Arguably influenced by the pistol, the slurbow was mostly used for firing unfeathered quarrels or darts.

*'''Sauterelle''': The last apparition of a crossbow-like weapon in a modern battlefield for frontline work. In WWI, soldiers had a problem: all the artillery that existed was big and unable to drop explosives accurately into a trench, especially at close range. And on the other hand, thrown hand grenades had the precision but too limited range. As an interim solution the French invented the ''Sauterelle'' (grasshopper in French): basically a big crossbow built to lob grenades at around 150 yards distance. Worked decently enough but later in the war they were replaced by small, two-man team infantry mortars that were just as easy to move around and use but had three or four time the range and a better rate of fire.

*'''Compound Crossbow''': the modern version of the crossbow, which is basically a modern compound bow on a rifle stock. Many of these also come equipped with telescopic sights modified with cross-hairs that compensate for the effects of gravity, wind, elevation, and other factors that might affect a bolt's accuracy. They are primarily used for hunting, sport and (unusually) home defense in Britain since everything else has been banned. Also finds military (specifically special forces, not frontline grunts), espionage and law enforcement utility by being used to fire ziplines or grappling hooks, explosive, incendiary, poisoned or gas releasing projectiles, or simply well made darts for a silent kill. Most use conventional spanning mechanisms but some more recent exotic ones combine various technological concepts from past and present (such as the ones build by hobbyists like Lacas Crossbows or cottage industries like GoGun's Cobra Adder; with those being a bizarre chimera between the Chu-Ko-Nu's hopper magazine (the latter's being detachable), the Balestra Veloce's lever action system, along with modern optics, grips, and compound, composite bow-pieces).

{{MedievalWeaponry}}