sling vs bow

[hoplite14gr]

I buy the clay filled with burning substance.

Slingstones covered with clay to create a "frag" effect have benn found in Sesklo Greece and Middle East. Somewhere I read that Romas covered their catuplt stones with clay for similar reason.

Kind regards

[Paullus Scipio]

....actually, the reason for enclosing a catapult stone was not so much to create a 'shrapnel' effect, but rather that to chip a stone into a sphere took much time and effort - a much simpler, quicker and easier course was to coat it with clay, and let the clay dry into a spherical shape. The downside of this was inaccuracy - the centre of gravity was different from stone to stone, which is not a desirable characreistic when you are trying to create a breach by pounding the same bit of wall.....!

[D B Campbell]

Maybe what is being described are clay projectiles [i.e. pots] filled with some sort of burning substance.

I agree that pots would be more sensible, but Caesar definitely refers to glandes (i.e. bullets).

Slingstones covered with clay to create a "frag" effect have benn found in Sesklo Greece and Middle East.

That's interesting, Stefanos. Are they published somewhere?

When I explored Hatra in 1984, amongst dozens of catapult stones I came across one (about the size of an orange) that had been coated in something that looked like bitumen. The coating had mostly flaked off, but I would estimate the original thickness at about 1cm. At the time, I wondered if it might've been some kind of incendiary missile.

[D B Campbell]

Found a (poorly scanned) slide. The ball on the left appears to be coated with bitumen.

[hoplite14gr]

The near eastern finds are here:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8472

Professor Theodorides report on Sesklo in "Archeologiki Efhmeris" for the Greek finds. Samples exist in Volos Museum

Kind regards

[D B Campbell]

The near eastern finds are here:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8472

Thanks for the link, Stefanos.
The New Scientist article says that "The smaller bullets were deformed upon impact, which suggests they were manufactured in the heat of battle and were still soft."
Interesting implications for Caesar's "hot" clay bullets.

[PMBardunias]

The question is: how do you "melt" clay so that it is hot enough to set fire to a thatched roof?! And how do you sling a red-hot bullet, anyway?
(Rice Holmes suggested a metal-lined sling pouch. I suppose that might work.)

A metal lined pouch only passes the problem to whatever is backing the metal since it transfers heat so well. What you need is something like water that absorbs the heat. Wet leather might be able to withstand the heat long enough for a quick underhand throw- I wouldn't stand next to anyone spinning this over his head. You can boil water in a leaf over an opened fire since the water takes up the heat so well.

Straw, if dry, ignites at a fairly low temperature, not much over 300 f degrees.

[aureliuscensus]

Hello , everyone . I have some information for you .
Firstly , Persian bows have longer range than Cretan bows . However , Roman bows have longer range than Persian bows . This is one passenger of Procopius describe one battle :
"...After Azarethes also had uttered these words of exhortation, he stationed the phalanx opposite his opponents, assigning the Persians the right wing and the Saracens the left. Straightway both sides began the fight, and the battle was exceedingly fierce. For the arrows, shot from either side in very great numbers, caused great loss of life in both armies, while some placed themselves in the interval between the armies and made a display of valorous deeds against each other, and especially among the Persians they were falling by the arrows in great numbers. For while their missiles were incomparably more frequent, since the Persians are almost all bowmen and they learn to make their shots much more rapidly than any other men, still the bows which sent the arrows were weak and not very[33-38] tightly strung, so that their missiles, hitting a corselet, perhaps, or helmet or shield of a Roman warrior, were broken off and had no power to hurt the man who was hit. The Roman bowmen are always slower indeed, but inasmuch as their bows are extremely stiff and very tightly strung, and one might add that they are handled by stronger men, they easily slay much greater numbers of those they hit than do the Persians, for no armour proves an obstacle to the force of their arrows. Now already two-thirds of the day had passed, and the battle was still even..."
Vegetius gave 600 Roman feet ( 178 m ) for almost common archer . However he wrote :" ...Archers are sure shooting a millitary target and slinger sometimes hit a target... "
Roman bows is strongest bows in ancient time ( stronger than Scythian , Persian and Hun bow ) however even Mongol bows ,English longbow and Turkish bow stronger than Roman bows very much .