Gastrophetes

[Cimon]

it would be interesting to see how they fare against the romans, seeing how the rome vs han is constantly debated/argued to hell...

Different weapons, though, I'm afraid. My understanding is that the Han crossbow was a hand-held, more "modern" crossbow, such as the type we generally think of existing in the European Middle Ages. The ancient Greek version was a larger, more siege-oriented one that would be quite bulky and unwieldy in a pitched battle. Consequently, I would assume that the gastrophete probably packed a much bigger punch, but also caused the user to be very vulnerable, which is why they were more likely used in sieges.

This is just a general sense of it, so if someone knows otherwise and/or has more specificity, please say so; mine is a very minimal knowledge, so a more studied "expert" would be most welcome.

[russia almighty]

The gastrophete seems like an M249 or something. Sure, it can be used in a mobile fashion, but it works best when you can rest it on something and fire away.

[Celtic_Punk]

if used in the field it required a wooden stand. you needed to rest it on something inorder to fire, due to its incredible length. (WATCH THAT VIDEO THAT WAS POSTED IT GIVES YOU A GOOD IDEA)

[Foot]

What? Its called a belly bow for a reason. It was pushed against the stomach for support when firing, but the only situation that it was used, iirc, was in a single siege. There is no other reference to it. Its something that CA would add, but it lacks the evidence required to include it in EB. Not because it didn't exist (it did), but because the only reference to it was outside our timeframe, in one particular situation, and was never mentioned since. There's no "hmmm foot, the point of the Gastrophetes was that it WAS NOT a specialist weapon.", limitations mean that it is far down the food chain and really is not a viable unit for EBI or EBII.

Foot