Postby joelthompson1 » Tue Feb 10, 2004 4:27 am
Trebuchets normally shared the battlefield with a variety of other siege engines. Whatever was thought necessary for a particular battle. Mangonels, ballistas, catapults, battering rams, towers, whatever. Trebs were invented and used by the East Asians (traction or man-powered trebs), and the Middle East folks engineered the counterweighted ones we're more familiar with. The technology was borrowed by the Europeans who basically just made them a lot bigger for attacks on castle walls. Unfortunately, no artifacts remain. So we're left to our own devices to make replicas based on artists renderings and the few plans that remain from the period.
And to answer the other post, yes we do in fact use bowling balls in our existing trebuchet. They are the standard by which we measure our accuracy. We can throw a ball 10 times and have it land in the same 3 foot diameter circle. This type of accuracy was very handy for repeatedly striking the same section of castle wall which could be from 5 to 10 feet thick with a center section made of loose rubble which tended to fill in any holes. Range and other targeting adjustments are surprisingly simple, consisting of changing the length of the sling, altering the trajectory of the sling ramp, and changing the angle of the release pin. I'm not sure what we're going to use for ammo in the larger one we're building now.
BTW, for you East coast people, we will be demonstrating our new trebuchet at Military Through the Ages in the Jamestown Settlement near Williamsburg, Virginia the 3rd weekend in March if you'd like to see one in action.
Joel
P.S. We will also be sneaking in some ARMA style swordfighting during the event.
