Slings

Greeting all.

I have been following EB2 for years, usually post on the TWcentre forum. Great mod,amazing team and I wait in patient anticipation for the release.

I am a slinger. That is I construct slings and practice slinging. I try to braid slings from non modern materials as historically correct as possible.

I noticed the slings pictured seem to have the glande(sling bullet/stone) in the pouch in the wrong orientation.

https://img18.imageshack.us/img18/35...gerweapons.png

The Sweboz slingers stone should sit across the pouch split, not sit in it(becaue it would fall through!). When he releases the release knot the rugby shaped stone should face forward and "rifle" like a bullet giving it accuracy and reduce air resistance.

In this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TDvGpgY4Qo you can see how the tennis ball with a line drawn across it illustrates the rifle spin in flight, and why if it were lead or baked clay it makes for such a devastating projectile weapon.


I know this is a small thing in the grand scheme of such a beautiful mod which is so bang on in terms of historical accuracy and unbiased portrayel but as a slinger it just was obvious to me.

Also for anyone interested or for more info including lots of historical sources on slinging go to www.slinging.org

That's very interesting, thank you for posting it. I shall have to have a close look at all that when I have time.

This was not meant to be a criticism thread, I just read over it and it may have seemed that way!

History, Europa Barbarorum and Slinging are three of my favourite things, and they all combine in one amazing mod. I just hope slingers in the mod will have the punch they deserve, being the primary missile troops of most of the western factions. I have slung 4oz rugby ball shaped lead glandes and believe me they bury themselves in their target, flattening as they enter much like a musket ball. I have also slung baked clay and granite egg shaped 4oz rounds against modern metal plating. The blunt force trauma caused is devastating.

A really interesting site, thanks for the link. I don't think it came off as criticism. I have to say that I feel much better about my slinger heavy EB campaigns now. I wondered if they were over-powered against reality; it seems, from what you have posted, not at all.

When I play the Romani I use only 2 units of accensi per full stack. Roman accensi were not natural slingers( although not sure about latin slingers) because they didnt use their slings as shepherds or in games and hunting like the Gauls, Lusotannan etc. When I play "Celtic" factions I include 4 per full stack, seems historically sound due to the prevalence.

It would be fantastic if it were possible to vary the ranges of different types of slingers too. Xenophon tells us(150 years before EB) that slingers in Persia Armenia and Pontus have shorter ranges because they use heavier stones than his Rhodians and also shorter slings. Balearic slingers used a heavy stone, approx 8oz when the enemy got within charging range. A Hastatus tasking that force close up is going to be replacing his scutum afterwards thats for sure!

I also like slings and slinging, but simple physical facts cannot be ignored. You know that most lead sling projectiles found in connection with ancient use are in the 20 to 50 g range, most often about 30 g. That is far from your 4 oz / 113 g glandes. In fact the usual glans weighted not much more than an 17th to 19th c. AD musket ball. The difference is that a musket ball had an energy of about 1500 Joule and a sling projectile of about 50 to 150 Joule. That is a huge difference. There are some descriptions of 18th/19th c. AD battle participants about musket balls hitting them and dropping of at the end of the trajectory. Those guys were not killed or injured beyond bruises. Happened f.e. to king Frederic II. of Prussia. Slings were surely rather effective against unarmored people at certain distances and we read about the high markmanship of the slingers who were able to hit the head and not the man (they needed to because of the low energy of the projectile).

Unfortunately there is this one hint in Vegetius (who also sells us the story that late Roman infantry wore no armor, together with other funny stuff) telling us that sling bullets were more effective against armored soldiers than arrows. However, more effective does not necessarily mean very effective in itself. The shield crushing by the Balearic slingers that took place at Eknomos was against Greek troops. When I look at scutum replicas I doubt that such a shield was useless after one hit. Should be tested. The source also tells us that the slingers even killed some soldiers, a rather strange remark for a weapon.

A last one: there is usually no blunt trauma against rigid defenses. Only if the rigid armor is bent so much that the body is touched we can speak of a blunt trauma. Otherwise there is no magical energy transfer trough the defense. Blunt trauma is mostly connected with bullet behaviour against soft armor, foremost modern aramid fibre bullet"proof" vests, where the bullet presses the material into the body without penetration. I was hit very hard (harder than any sling can achieve) two times in my life on a helmet (rigid defense) and I can tell you, there was no blunt trauma; instead the helmet hits you with the energy that is transferred to it by the projectile, albeit with a much much greater surface so that your body can cope with the energy.

I never claimed it to be magical. Many slingers used baked clay which is dense and hard and certainly 4 oz or more dependent on the slingers preference. This is enough to concuss a soldier with a helmet. My point about armour is that in particular bronze will crack before it dents. The fact is most warriors did not have good body armour in EB time period. A scutum may not be rendered unusable after a hit from a 10oz stone but it certainly will have the desired effect of breaking a Hastati charge, that was my point. Hoplites or Roman troops in tight formation will not take many casualties from slingers head on, it is when they are disrupted or spread out or are hit from side or behind they are in trouble.

You cant compare a sling to a musket, there is 10000 years of history between the development of the two!!! I said that lead will flatten when fired from a sling, just like from a firearm.

Most slingers throughout history used biconical or round stones or 4oz or more, I for example use them most frequently. A stone is just as effective as lead imho. Lead has a flatter trajectory and has a point.
Do you sling?

Yes and no, I used to sling when reenacting ancient Greek soldiery, but recently I'm having not so much opportunity to practice due to different reasons. I'm however busy since 25 years with ballistics of modern and ancient weapons and the abilities of the sling had interested me for long, partly because I like the simple and ingenious principle of the weapon and partly because there are so many under- and overestimations of sling performance in literature and on the Internet.