Artillery range, 1st Century AD

[Crispvs]

Backtracking here a little, going back to range versus accuracy.

That bolt shooting artillery was capable of accurately targeting individuals is demonstrated by both Caesar's reference to Gauls being shot one after the other as they tried to take burning brands against Caesar's siege ramp, and by the much later reference to the targeted shooting of a German chieftain as he rode by, which left him pinned to a tree.

With reference to possible ranges which could be reached with accuracy, the evidence from Hod Hill may be useful. A number of houses were identified in the excavation of the unploughed area of the hill fort. The largest house which was found had been surrounded by a fence of some sort and as this feature was absent from the other houses, it has reasonably been surmised that this may have been the chieftain's house. A number of artillery bolt heads were found embedded in the chalk and of these, virtually all were found within this 'chieftain's' house, with the remainder found in a pattern of a line curving away from this house, suggesting either targeting shots or wind drift. Clearly, the artillery shooting was directed specifically against this house, perhaps as an act of psychological warfare to demonstrate what the Romans were capable of doing to any point they chose to target in the fort (perhaps to encourage a quick surrender). Whatever the intention, it shows that they were capable of targeting a particular spot without too much difficulty.
Regarding the range they were shot from, it has been suggested to me by Alan Wilkins that the bolt shooters were placed on the rampart of the fort itself and the bolts were only shot from a range of about 150 yards. Certainly some of the heads were found embedded at quite a high angle. However, whilst in general I am a great respector of Wilkins' views, I am not convinced of this interpretation. I think that given the effort required to get the machines up onto the rampart, possibly under fire, even if they could be set up very quickly once up, infantry could have fought their way to the house well before the artillery was up and ready. Therefore I question the idea of the artillery having been placed on the fort's rampart. When I was there a few years ago, John Smith, the Dorset county archaeologist, suggested that the artillery was placed on the hill opposite at a point overlooking the hill fort. If this was the case (and to my mind, given the targeting of the house and my questioning of the rampart position, this is more likely), then the artillery would have to have been shooting with a good degree of accuracy over a distance of around four hundred yards.

Our testing of our own artillery, sprung with nylon rope, produced ranges of well over two hundred metres (the tape was metric). We have shot our cheirobalistra alongside Alan Wilkins' near identical cheirobalistra and have always had the impression that the horsehair used in his springing was more powerful than the nylon ours is sprung with. As we are led to believe that horsehair was considered vastly inferior to sinew as a springing material, how much better was sinew? 40% better? 60%? 100% better? If the 150 yard range is based on modern reconstructions of Roman artillery, how much more powerful and thus long ranged would the actual Roman ones have been?

Crispvs