Roman crossbow

[Thomas V.]

In case of size, maybe this relief could help. It is possible to build parts according to arm length after taking a average value of human arm.

The drawing of the relief isn't a good representation of the real relief. The photo in Baatz' article is much better. Baatz suggests a bow length of c. 130 cm (tip to tip when being in the brace height state). If you take a look at said photo and consider the fact that 130 would be a possible length of composite bows, you will see that Baatz' sugesgestion is plausible. When i suggested 120 cm in one of my previous posts, I just "eyeballed" the measurements. After I have read Baatz' article, I used a 130 cm long mock-up and came to the conclusion, that the proportions fit the ones of the Saint-Marcel relief. This sketch corroborates Baatz' suggestion: [hide]http://www.atarn.org/chinese/images/xbowdiag.JPG[/hide]. Right now my point of view is that the arcuballista contained an (symmetric :? ) composite bow (c. 130 to c. 140 cm tip to tip when beeing in the brace height state) that didn't differ from the hand-held composite bows. If you would attach a "normal" composite bow to a stock, you would be abled to fulfill the criteria mentioned by Baatz: Using arrows that are of about the same lenght as the ones for hand-held bows (B. bases this assumption on the quiver of the Saint-Marcel relief) and achieving a long draw length (as the nut is placed at the end of the stock, B assumes that the draw lengt was longer than the ones of later crossbows; using arrows that dont differ lengthwise from the ones used for hand-held bows is another indicator for a draw length not different from the ones of said bows, by the way).