Siege Engines?

[Forward Observer]

There was a nice Modern Marvels program on the History Channel on siege engines, night before last, I think. It featured just about everything from crossbows to modern artillery.

There were a lot of segments included that demonstrated full size and scale reproductions of trebuchets, ballistas, and catapults. It went on to show how consistently accurate a trebuchet was, if you used stones of the same weight and size. It was actually more accurate than the early primitive cannons of the period, given the non-uniform quality of the gunpowder of the day.

The fun part of the show was when they had a segment on a modern competition of siege weapons that is held somewhere in the US each year. You can use any materials available so long as you don't use explosives. The competition is to see how far and accurately your engine can throw a 9 or 10 pound pumpkin. Some of the devices ingeniously used compressed air, although most were copies of the trebuchet in some form or another.

Kind of on topic, so I put it here.

Cheers


P.S. I wouldn't worry about too much about artillery upseting the game balance of MTW. From the one screenshot that I have seen, the only cannon included was a highly immoble bombard that was only really suited to take down castle walls. Explosive shells that could do anti-personel dammage were were just a bit too sophisticated for the technology of the day, and real battlefield mobility of artillery was probably at least 100 years away. Of course if you were unlucky enough to be hit with one of these huge bombard stones it would probably ruin your day.

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Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl.



[This message has been edited by Forward Observer (edited 05-11-2002).]

[Kraellin]

F.O.,

i saw that show as well. i've really begun to be a fan of the History channel.

that contest is called the pumpkin chuckin or punkin chunkin contest. i believe it's held in texas or thereabouts and draws 30,000 onlookers and quite a few innovative contestants. i loved the trebuchet that used the stretched springs instead of weights for it's force; that thing could really hurl a pumpkin :)

that show is also where i heard the ranges of crossbows...380 yards! that's pretty impressive. the various siege engine ranges were also mentioned, but i forget what all of them were. i also never knew they used men's urine to 'crystalize' gunpower, making it faster burning and thus more explosive. amazing what you learn at times.

and just to keep this related to M:TW, one thing i noted was how long it took to reload that trebuchet. they had to insert wooden poles into a cranking mechanism, crank the thing, remove the poles, re-insert them in new holes, crank again, and so on. it was a pretty slow process to get that thing ready for another shot. it might also be interesting if M:TW used that other trebuchet as well, the one where humans provided the motive force rather than gravity. it was much quicker to load, but far less accurate. that one seemed to make use of an assortment of smaller stones and junk and multiple 'shot', somewhat likening it to the grapeshot and anti-personnel cannon that came later. i forget the name of that one...para- something?

if my old history classes in school had been anywhere nearly as interesting as the History channel, i might have stayed awake more.

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Hirosito]

i think were gonna find that the reloading will be a bit more 'gameplay' than 'realistic' which is prolly fair enough.

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Hirosito Mori

Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.