08-06-2012, 08:50 PM
Quote:I'm sure it must have been effective or it wouldn't have been used - but how? What does a ballista bolt do on an ancient battlefield that a man-carried bow or crossbow does not?As others have said, they kill from further away, and more emphatically. That means they also give an army a strong psychological edge. It's one thing to face an anonymous arrow storm or a close-range javelin-throw - when that happens you are close enough to do something about it, such as charge back. This is hard to do when you are skewered to a wall from 400m away. I don't know if the bolt would be visible in flight, but that would add an extra kick.
Roman bolt-throwers could be used with devastating accuracy (their operators could aim for and hit individuals), so their use should be compared more to sniper fire than to high explosive artillery of gunpowder-era heavy weapons. That's a significant advantage considering the relative inaccuracy of other ranged weapons used at the time. That said, they would only really be useful in set-piece battles or seige situations, given the long preparation time they would need to use and their very static nature.
