Our new cheiroballista...

[M. Demetrius]

She must have loosed 6 bolts and every one landed within the red and yellow zone with two striking the inner yellow ring. She totally out shot us

Recruit her at once! Make her a duplicaria!

[D B Campbell]

Firstly the Romans would have called this machine a Manuballista, Cheiroballistra is Greek.

Actually, it's Alan Wilkins who calls it a cheiroballistra. Some of us have our doubts! :wink:

There is no denying that you've got a beautifully crafted machine (kudos, Len Morgan), but its design owes as much to Alan Wilkins as it does to Ps-Heron! But that's another story ...

Perhaps you would be so good as to elaborate Duncan?

Didn't want to de-rail your thread, Martin. We pretty much covered this topic over on another thread.

(Please don't misunderstand: I have immense respect for Alan as a friend and colleague; but I believe he has taken too many liberties with the cheiroballistra text.)

[Nerva]

Salve Duncan!

I have read your Other Post but see little detail in your argument. Perhaps you can elaborate?

[Nerva]

Martin. It appears to me that your bunch are like a load of kids with a new toy at the moment but come on guys don't let the girls beat you.
I have to say that trip you made was realy my pleasure it's a shame you have such a full calender at this time for there is so much more I would love to show you along that route. Infact next time we shall go get that huge ornager ball on that three lane Roman road.

D D D D D wink: As for the Women, well I think they already have us conquered :roll: :roll: :roll:

You are dead right about our calendar. Just like last year we've taken on far too much, my fault as there's no place on earth I'd rather be than in northern Britannia. I will be over in June again to see more of your wonders.

[marvises]

very beautiful

[JVL]

I cannot begin to compare with that craftsmanship! Very nice! My metalframed ballista will be ready soon too...

Can you PM me about the cost, I'd want to know that.

[Cheyenne]

If I remember, our Ballista made by Len, which looks virtually identical to this one was a draw weight of approx 760lb - range, John C will know - unless of course he hasn't found a patch of land quite big enough to let it rip - I know we don't draw back to full tension when displaying as its just far too powerful...

[fasta]

If I remember, our Ballista made by Len, which looks virtually identical to this one was a draw weight of approx 760lb - range, John C will know - unless of course he hasn't found a patch of land quite big enough to let it rip - I know we don't draw back to full tension when displaying as its just far too powerful...

Well as you know apart from carrying the thing and the odd cleaning I stay away from ours as its far to dangerous for my liking. But I was told that it has been fired at full power on York Racecourse and its closer to if not just over 800lb.I found this out at the start of the year at a games fair we attended. Range depends on a lot of things,not to mention the bolts and crew.I'm sure Victor will correct me if I'm wrong.

I've only seen one small difference and it doesn't effect firing at all. Len must be turning these out at a speed now :wink: All we need now is 29 more :lol:

Now we are down Marcus this season due to the fact he is in Rome,we will have to train up a new crew member for Victor :lol:

[Salvianus]

Who would judge it?

I was definitely not serious, frater lol:

[marvises]

i thought those were called Scorpions

[Salvianus]

Salve Ste!

The target was 35m away but I must stress that this was a pure fluke of a shot. My others went all over the place :oops: There was one marksman, or should I say markswoman at the event. She's normally an archer and by Jupiter she could fire that Cheiro! She must have loosed 6 bolts and every one landed within the red and yellow zone with two striking the inner yellow ring. She totally out shot us :roll: :roll: :roll:

Modesty too! :wink:

Good luck on signing your balisteria up!

[Salvianus]

Not just sharpshooting Ste. But run the full crowd line with the disassembled weapon,set it up and then hit the target everytime :lol:

I only noticed one minor difference between the two so it should be a fair contest and we can always have a female as part of the crew :wink:

Ah, just like the Edinburgh Miltary Tattoo! We'd need obstacles! :lol:

Maybe a live uplink via bluetoothed laptops would allow us to stage a simultaneus event?

[Nerva]

Salvete Omnes!

Ste, I'd say there's very little between our Cheiro's except we can pull ours back to 801lb's :lol: :lol: :lol: Seriously though, we will testing ours on the week end of May 9th and 10th at the Curragh race course near Dublin. We have a ballistic radar and a ballistic optometer to record projectile velocity, a strain gauge calibrated to 500kg to measure pull back and a laser for distance measurement. I'll make sure all results are published here.

[John Conyard]

I've just come across the thread. It's very good to see such a beautiful machine. Congratulations. I've even checked the garage to make such ours is still there

I fear I'm not the best person to comment on Roman artillery. I lost interest when I realised I couldn't mount it on the front of my saddle. However I have had to repair our machine a few times and know it quite well. Our's arrived in 2006, and it's called "Constantine".

[attachment=0:1yx0zdar]<!-- ia0 Heavy ballista.jpg<!-- ia0 [/attachment:1yx0zdar]

It shoots an 85g bolt around 210m, which I would suggest is half the distance of a 4th century machine. James raised the possibility that at Dura different sizes of bolt could have been deliberately used, the finds naturally falling into bands of 290-300mm, 330mm, 350-365mm, 385-400mm and 430-435mm long, from the tip of the tail to the beginning of the iron socket. This seems very likely. It would mean that using a ballista at constant power, varying distances could be achieved by using bolts of differing lengths. For maximum distance the Comitatus ballista shoots bolts with a shaft of 190mm. A shaft length of 400mm reduces the range on average by 20m. But the greater weight of the longer bolt of 100g insures greater penetration of the target. In effect the operator of the ballista could select different bolts for different tasks.

I do enjoy using birch from my local wood to make bolts of various sizes. Our blacksmith makes the heads. Indeed, it was almost a year ago whilst watching semi-drunk legionaries trying to repair bolts in the dark with very sharp blades, that I first became interested to constructing the bolts and attaching the flights. I have a 400mm bolt taped to a large rocket with a blank .22 shell under the iron head. I suspect it will not work, but the theory is you light the blue touch paper, shoot the bolt from the ballista, watch the rocket kick in, hit something, and the shell shoots the head into the target. The length of the rockets tail is very important. It's a dream.

We generally use the machine at full or very near full tension. After two years the copper alloy claw sheared. We now use steel. Last year the winch rope broke. I tried using climbing rope stressed to just over 800lb, but it broke before we reached full tension. We change the arms regularly just in case. In fact I carry spare parts to every show.Despite the semi-humorous tone of this message, safety is always the prime concern. It pays to have an experienced member standing back just watching what the crew are doing. Just in case.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I thought the length of bolt was directly related to the size of the machine, John?
But nice lookinhg machine, is it one of Lens?