07-18-2007, 09:12 PM
OK, let's for the sake of the argument asume that a well trained crew could get off 4 bolts a minute. 5 for all I care. How many engines would you require to get of a decent long range barage? Moving the troops forward the distance you can cover in 15 seconds striding in formation(about 20 yards or meters) would really change the aim. With only 5 shots (the ultimate max as far as I am conserned) 100 meters will have been covered. The "rabble" being refered to was nowhere near as thick as we would like to presume. Yes, there was a technological gap when faced with artillary, but let's not forget these tribes were pretty fierce fighters. What really killed them was trying to penetrate a shieldwall of highly diciplined troops. The Romans suffered quite a few defiets when forced to do battle on the conditions impossed by their adversaries (when they could not opperate in a chosen field using trained formations). Using artillary for long range suppresive fire seems unlogical for torsion weapons due to firing rate (forgive me for sounding like Spock :lol: ). It really came into it's right at a flatter trajectory fire punching through advancing troups, killing all in its path, shield, armor, whatever. That would really knock the spunk out of you.
