A little thing I'd like to see in sieges...

[Sarcasm]

Unfortunately, I had to read translate large chunks of it from Latin in high school.

So I'm pretty well aware of the original Illiad :-/

Hmmm...well I guess it is a matter of taste then. I love epics.

About Siege Engines, in the Iberian peninsula campaigns, for example, in the siege of Numantia, more than 300 Catapulta (smaller, bolt or small stone-throwing engines) and at least 50 Ballistae (heavier stone-throwing engines), were used to protect a stone wall, that Scipio ordered built, which forced the city to starvation. While the smaller ones were positioned all over the wall and towers, the larger ones had their own emplacements.

There are also records of Siege towers, constructed by Greeks and Carthaginians that carried a lot of siege engines, some of really great size.

When Scipio took control of New Carthage, on the Eastern coast of the peninsula, it is reported, he captured 120 large catapults, 281 smaller catapults, 23 large ballistae and 53 ballistae of smaller calliber. And at the end of the 3rd Punic war, more than 2000 siege engines of various types were taken from Carthage itself. So siege artillery was probably more prevalent, when defending cities or fortified positions, than we may think, at first.

There are records of stones of 900g for the smaller catapults and from 12kg to 70Kg for the larger Ballistae, and ranges of at least 300m for the smaller engines.

I've actually seen a small oxybeles fire, and it's surprisingly accurate up to 50m or so, capable of hitting particular parts of a dummy. Farther than that or with heavier engines I do not know. Also it should be significantly more accurate to fire from an elevated position (i.e a tower) than from the sieging position.

Let's get this thread back on track!