11-26-2007, 05:38 PM
I'll just pop up to loose off a comment here and duck back behind the merlon before the return barrage of sarcasm, rhetoric, and scholarship reaches me.
You clear battlements with bolt-throwers the same way archers clear battlements: by firing enough missiles that the defenders are either killed or driven to cover. If the battlements were mud brick, as was common in antiquity, heavy bolt-throwers might even have pierced them.
I'd be surprised to see numerous effective stone throwers in the 350s, but I'll keep out of this debate otherwise.
Quote:The fact that they are not specifically mentioned, presumably! But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence...and you don't kill men behind battlements with arrow-shooters ( see [Diodorus] quotes ante)
You clear battlements with bolt-throwers the same way archers clear battlements: by firing enough missiles that the defenders are either killed or driven to cover. If the battlements were mud brick, as was common in antiquity, heavy bolt-throwers might even have pierced them.
I'd be surprised to see numerous effective stone throwers in the 350s, but I'll keep out of this debate otherwise.
Nullis in verba
I have not checked this forum frequently since 2013, but I hope that these old posts have some value. I now have a blog on books, swords, and the curious things humans do with them.
I have not checked this forum frequently since 2013, but I hope that these old posts have some value. I now have a blog on books, swords, and the curious things humans do with them.
