04-29-2009, 09:27 PM
Salve Dane!
Here we go again :lol: :lol: :lol: No, seriously though, I just can't accept the concept of hand (or belly) spanned torsion artillery as a combat weapon. Let's assume we are not talking about metal framed machines such as the manuballista, but a simple wooden Euthytone frame. This requires the use of metal washers and levers. Even for a 1" spring you are talking about almost 5 kg of metal components. Then there’s the spring frame, I don’t know but perhaps you could weigh the front of your machine but it's got to be more than 3kg. Including the stock and slider it's got to be another 5 kg. Now if you add in the rope who knows, you have a machine up to 20 kg or 40 lb's. That's a lot of weight to carry around. At best you could get 150 lb draw weight, and that's if you can use you weight vertically to span it.
Now consider the use of bow instead of torsion. You do not have to use a composite bow, there's only one reference to such bow's used for artillery in the past. So if a simple bow, of say 100 lb draw weight could be used you then end up with a much lighter and cheaper machine with lower maintenance, you've just removed one of the wearing components. You see, you would think that the first use of handheld torsion machines would have been by the Greeks after the gastraphetes, yet we have no evidence. Now when you start using metal form framing I think, that is to me, it becomes even more unlikely given fabrication costs. I know we have already mentioned fabrication time for composite bows, but the same is true of any technology unless a staged manufacturing process is used, and we know the Romans had many Fabrica in use.
This is an argument that we may never resolve, but who knows, some farmer in Northumberland may plough up an inward swinging hand spanned torsion machine tomorrow and I'll be forced to eat humble pie :lol:
Your right Crispvs, Alan and Bernard Jacob’s won’t be sharing Christmas cards anytime soon. You also mention the wobble of the bolts. This is a very curious phenomenon. I have seen the same effect with bolts shot from our manuballista, but only in the minority of shots. To make it even more confusing, it's not specific to any particular bolt :?
As for testing, well I'm probably the wrong person to give advice as I'm a bit Anal in that regard. There are two basic problems here. Firstly consistency of the target parameters and secondly repeatability of the shot parameters. This means there are two basic methods of testing open to you, imperical and qualitative. I go for qualitative testing every time but that just me and the pros probably outweigh the cons for this type of machine. To test qualitatively you would need to replicate all parameters for each test but this is probably impractical.
If I were going to do some basic testing on the penetrative properties of such a machine, I'd go to my local butcher and buy a side of pork (Ballistic gel is very expensive). Then I'd shoot some bolts at it and photograph the results. Not the most scientific method ever used but representative of the properties of the machine none the less.
Here we go again :lol: :lol: :lol: No, seriously though, I just can't accept the concept of hand (or belly) spanned torsion artillery as a combat weapon. Let's assume we are not talking about metal framed machines such as the manuballista, but a simple wooden Euthytone frame. This requires the use of metal washers and levers. Even for a 1" spring you are talking about almost 5 kg of metal components. Then there’s the spring frame, I don’t know but perhaps you could weigh the front of your machine but it's got to be more than 3kg. Including the stock and slider it's got to be another 5 kg. Now if you add in the rope who knows, you have a machine up to 20 kg or 40 lb's. That's a lot of weight to carry around. At best you could get 150 lb draw weight, and that's if you can use you weight vertically to span it.
Now consider the use of bow instead of torsion. You do not have to use a composite bow, there's only one reference to such bow's used for artillery in the past. So if a simple bow, of say 100 lb draw weight could be used you then end up with a much lighter and cheaper machine with lower maintenance, you've just removed one of the wearing components. You see, you would think that the first use of handheld torsion machines would have been by the Greeks after the gastraphetes, yet we have no evidence. Now when you start using metal form framing I think, that is to me, it becomes even more unlikely given fabrication costs. I know we have already mentioned fabrication time for composite bows, but the same is true of any technology unless a staged manufacturing process is used, and we know the Romans had many Fabrica in use.
This is an argument that we may never resolve, but who knows, some farmer in Northumberland may plough up an inward swinging hand spanned torsion machine tomorrow and I'll be forced to eat humble pie :lol:
Your right Crispvs, Alan and Bernard Jacob’s won’t be sharing Christmas cards anytime soon. You also mention the wobble of the bolts. This is a very curious phenomenon. I have seen the same effect with bolts shot from our manuballista, but only in the minority of shots. To make it even more confusing, it's not specific to any particular bolt :?
As for testing, well I'm probably the wrong person to give advice as I'm a bit Anal in that regard. There are two basic problems here. Firstly consistency of the target parameters and secondly repeatability of the shot parameters. This means there are two basic methods of testing open to you, imperical and qualitative. I go for qualitative testing every time but that just me and the pros probably outweigh the cons for this type of machine. To test qualitatively you would need to replicate all parameters for each test but this is probably impractical.
If I were going to do some basic testing on the penetrative properties of such a machine, I'd go to my local butcher and buy a side of pork (Ballistic gel is very expensive). Then I'd shoot some bolts at it and photograph the results. Not the most scientific method ever used but representative of the properties of the machine none the less.
MARCVS VLPIVS NERVA (aka Martin McAree)
www.romanarmy.ie
Legion Ireland - Roman Military Society of Ireland
Legionis XX Valeria Victrix Cohors VIII
[email protected]
[email protected]
www.romanarmy.ie
Legion Ireland - Roman Military Society of Ireland
Legionis XX Valeria Victrix Cohors VIII
[email protected]
[email protected]
