Aitor Alert! Manuballista found!

[Crispvs]

Just to clarify. On the occasion in question we only shot for two minutes and it was under our normal operating conditions - ie: two man crew for each machine, around 12 bolts per machine, normal safety precautions as employed during public displays and one officer supervising all four artillery pieces we were operating that day and their associated crews. So we had nine men, arranged into four artillery crews and one officer and we were shooting according to our normal method, only concentrating on shooting for speed rather than accuracy as we normally do. I was not designed as a proper scientific test. Rather, it was to demonstrate the capabilities of the Roman machines compared to the theoretical Hellenistic polyibolos which was being demonstrated at the same time.

I agree that a good supply of ammunition would be available to a genuine Roman catapult, purely on the basis that each artillery piece, large or small would be expected to travel disassembled on its own cart. With a smaller machine such as a trispithimus or manuballista a reasonable amount of spare ammunition would be able to be packed in next to the catapult, in addition to a further cart or carts loaded with ammunition (a little like the limber which was pulled behind a Napoleonic cannon). I was simply meaning in my last post, that it would not be possible to keep an unlimited supply, and even with a plentiful supply at a time of heavy use, such as an assault during a siege, a high rate of shooting might still not have been possible for very long, even allowing for extra ammunition.

Crispvs