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+--- Thread: Aitor Alert! Manuballista found! (/showthread.php?tid=1531)
Re: Aitor Alert! Manuballista found! - Arthes - 04-18-2006
Greetings,
when I saw this thread title it reminded me, I dreamt about ballista last night...don't ask me why...or what I did....I just remember the ballista... :roll:
regards
Arthes
Re: Aitor Alert! Manuballista found! - aitor iriarte - 04-19-2006
AFAIK. bows used by the Greeks since the Dark Age were composite and of double curvature.
Heron just says that the gastraphetes uses a bow so powerful that it cannot be tended by man's hand. The surviving copies of the ancient diagrams consistently show double curvature bows, which can only be composite.
As Bernard has duly pointed out, composite bows for heavy catapults were unwieldy, took a long time to be made and were very vulnerable to damp environments. Probably, there were also limits ito the size which ancient bow-makers could reach.
Machines using torsion springs (I wouldn't call them 'bows' :wink: ) solved all those problems and were probably more efficient than their non-torsion equivalents.
Aitor
Re: Aitor Alert! Manuballista found! - Eleatic Guest - 04-19-2006
Hello,
Quote: The surviving copies of the ancient diagrams consistently show double curvature bows, which can only be composite.
Dont want to be picky, but these diagrams could have been made by later authors who were familiar with the composite bow and just assumed thats what Heron is talking about. Similar to the anachronism in Part 2 of the Book of Chronicles (Chapter 26, verses 14 & 15) in the old testament of the Bible where a scribesman of the 2nd century BC replaced the original "battering ram" of the 6th century BC orginal with "ballista".
Quote:As Bernard has duly pointed out, composite bows for heavy catapults were unwieldy, took a long time to be made and were very vulnerable to damp environments. Probably, there were also limits ito the size which ancient bow-makers could reach.
But werent torsion springs even more vulnerable to dampness, and even more difficult to maintain? Take a look here how the ancient Chinese worked around the size problem: see here
Re: Aitor Alert! Manuballista found! - aitor iriarte - 04-19-2006
Stefan,
The diagrams were slavishly (subject only to progressive deformation to the hands of scribes who didn't exactly understand what they were copying... :roll: ) copied from original technical drawings with no room for embellishment.
On the other hand, non-composite bows would have been useless for the powerful engines described by Biton.
Composite bows are more easily affected by dampness than sinew or horsehair rope springs. The main problem with composite bows is the hide glue joining together sinew, wood and horn. There is no glue in a torsion spring and you only need to keep both springs balanced and twisted enough.
I feel that Greek and Roman engineers loved simple solutions to their problems (For example, Dionysos' repeating catapult described by Filon seemingly remained as a 'funny' and found no real success) and the Chinese multiple crossbow is really complicated...
Aitor
Re: Aitor Alert! Manuballista found! - hoplite14gr - 04-19-2006
I learned a lot.
Thanks Aitor
Kind regards
Re: Aitor Alert! Manuballista found! - aitor iriarte - 04-20-2006
Thanks to you, Stefanos!
We aim to please...
Aitor
Re: Aitor Alert! Manuballista found! - D B Campbell - 04-29-2006
Greetings, Bernard/Alus Cladius.
Quote:Wilkins books show artillery using very large Composite bows. They are about 15 feet wide the torsion artillery shooting the same size stone would be much narrower which would make it more convenient to use.I can't see much about the gastraphetes in Alan Wilkins' Roman Artillery (Shire: Princes Risborough, 2003).
Maybe you're thinking of my own Greek and Roman Artillery (Osprey: Oxford, 2003)?
In Plate A, I tried to reconstruct the two bow-machines described by Biton. You'll see from the Plate Commentary (p. 45) that "The description of Biton ... has been followed closely to give an alternative reconstruction to those of Schramm and Marsden".
Quote:A composite bow can take a year to make so imagine how long it would take to make a bow large enough for artillery.Exactly right -- I, too, made the point (photo caption, p.3) that "the manufacture of an authentic composite bow of this size [i.e. the 1.0m+ bow of the handheld gastraphetes] was a highly specialised business that might have taken up to a year to complete".
I'd be very interested to see your own version of the gastraphetes, Bernard. Can you post a photo?
Re: Aitor Alert! Manuballista found! - Eleatic Guest - 05-26-2006
Do you think the following pictures of a replica of a Roman manuballista are true to the literary and archaeological evidence we have of the weapon, especially the lock mechanism? Can I show these pics with good faith around?
From http://www.milites-bedenses.de/
![[Image: manu_2.jpg]](http://www.milites-bedenses.de/pix/manu_2.jpg)
Re: Aitor Alert! Manuballista found! - Eleatic Guest - 05-26-2006
![[Image: manu_1.jpg]](http://www.milites-bedenses.de/pix/manu_1.jpg)
![[Image: manu_3.jpg]](http://www.milites-bedenses.de/pix/manu_3.jpg)
Re: Aitor Alert! Manuballista found! - Eleatic Guest - 05-26-2006
Errr...the best pic about the lock mechanism is too large. Go to
http://www.milites-bedenses.de/
Militaer
--- manuballista
Re: Aitor Alert! Manuballista found! - Robert Vermaat - 05-27-2006
Stefan - great pictures! Thanks - laudes awarded.
Re: Aitor Alert! Manuballista found! - D B Campbell - 05-27-2006
That's a beautiful piece of workmanship, Stefan. Is it yours?
Quote:Do you think the following pictures of a replica of a Roman manuballista are true to the literary and archaeological evidence we have of the weapon?In my opinion, this machine would not be called a manuballista. I follow Marsden's logic, when he suggested that manuballistae were "very similar indeed to Heron's cheiroballistra" (Historical Development, Oxford 1969, p. 197; cf. Technical Treatises, Oxford 1971, p. 209: "cheiroballistra [was] equivalent to the Latin manuballista".)
The defining feature of the cheiroballistra is its iron frame. So, a manuballista ought to have the same construction.
What you have here is a small version of the classic catapulta or scorpio, which the Romans may well have called the scorpio minor (although we don't know precisely how small it had to be before it qualified as a "minor").
The defining feature of this machine is the one-piece timber spring-frame. (The stone-projecting ballista's spring-frame looked fairly similar, but was actually constructed in two halves.)
Quote:... especially the lock mechanismYour trigger mechanism looks fine. Most reconstructions follow this basic pattern which (I believe) was originally worked out by Schramm and followed by Marsden (and others).
The only feature I would argue with is the "shoulder rest". There is no evidence that any ancient machines ever had this sort of thing.
It seems to have derived from an early reconstruction drawing of the cheiroballistra by Dietwulf Baatz, which he quickly amended.
The cheiroballistra (which, remember, is a post-AD 100 design) has a semi-circular component at the rear. Baatz originally drew this in an upright arrangement (as in your example), but he (along with most commentators) is now happy to interpret this component as the stomach rest of a belly-bow.
It may well be that any hand-held torsion machine would require a stomach-rest to facilitate "spanning" the device.
Maybe some of our colleagues with experience of small torsion arms can comment on the need (or otherwise) for this feature?
Quote:Can I show these pics with good faith around?I would! It's a splendid machine. (Just hide the shoulder-rest!
)
Re: Aitor Alert! Manuballista found! - Eleatic Guest - 05-27-2006
Quote:That's a beautiful piece of workmanship, Stefan. Is it yours?
No, I would certainly like to, but all credit must go to the men from http://www.milites-bedenses.de/ , a verein for experimental practical archaeology. I was just concerned with the historical accuracy of the model, so as to show it around to other people with good faith as an example of mechanical Roman hand-held weapons.
BTW Milites-bedenses have a very serious online test on arrows vs. Roman chain/mail and the lorica segmentata, which was also published in the latest edition of 'Antike Welt', and which IMHO far outstrips most of the tests done so far in terms of scientific test conditions applied. The only thing I found puzzling was their conclusion, which I put to discussion in the forum here: http://www.romanarmy.com/rat/viewtopic.php?t=8167
Perhaps someone is interested in discussing the details of the test.
Perhaps we can even contact the group for further clarification.
Re: Aitor Alert! Manuballista found! - Tarbicus - 04-07-2007
Thought you might like to see this photo:
![[Image: torsionswaffe.jpg]](http://www.archaeologie-krefeld.de/Bilder/Geschichte/roemisch/torsionswaffe.jpg)
From this Krefeld site:
http://www.archaeologie-krefeld.de/leis ... hichte.htm
Re: Aitor Alert! Manuballista found! - Jeroen Pelgrom - 04-07-2007
This is my Manuballista, there are many like it but this one is mine.
:wink: