Does someone as info about catapults? Who and when used them for the first time? Are there sources about this?
Does someone as info about catapults? Who and when used them for the first time? Are there sources about this?
Um dia destes mudo a minha assinatura!
i think the first serious engines of war were developed by sicilian greek states in their wars against carthage way before the first punic war. if i recall correctly i think polybius mentioned some siege engineer working for a tyrant of syracuse, but i could be wrong.
indeed
I don't know the first thing about real catapults, but I DO know this looks like fun...
http://www.catapultkits.com/
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For the medieval period, Kelly DeVries book, Medieval Military Technology, will give you a start on the topic. It has a good bibliography. Trebuchets were first used in the Middle Ages, so if you want information on them, this is a good place to start.
I'm not so good on the ancient (torsion) catapults, so you'll have to get someone else to help you there.
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I think it predates the Sicilian Greeks. Didn't the Hittites use catapults to sack Nineveh?
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"Ancient Siege Warfare" by Paul Bentley Kern states that the clearest earliest known invention of the catapult was in Syracuse by an unknown person in the time of Dionysios I (~400 B.C. or a little later.) Diodyrous is the source for this. These earliest ones propelled arrows, not stones. The first mention of stone hurling is for catapults mounted on Alexander's siege towers at Halicarnassus (333 BC?) The book suggests that these would necessarily have been small anti-personnel devices. At the siege of Tyre in 332 BC is the first record of use of stone throwing catapults against the walls themselves, again by Alexander.
The book states that there is some suggestion that the Assyrians may have had some sort of rudimentary catapults during their heyday centuries before, but that there are no clear indications of such. The Assyrians were the first true masters of siege assault and siege equipment, employing ramps, rams, towers, and sapping among their known techniques at the height of their power in the 8th century BC. After their empire fell in the 7th century, assault siege warfare was in decline until it was revived in Siciliy in the late 5th, early 4th century BC. Prior to that investment with encircling walls and starving the enemy out were the primary techniques.
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The Hittite empire fell about 1180-1190 BC, and only a few alligned cities remained after that, such as Karchemish. The Medes and Babylonians united to destroy Ninevah in 612 BC. I'm not aware of reports of catapults at that time, but they did assault the walls and gates by some means--most likely employing standard Assyrian techniques. There are also accounts of a flood damaging the walls.Originally Posted by Don Corleone
Rome Total War, it's not a game, it's a do-it-yourself project.
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