Tod's new artillery piece - BALLISTA or CATAPULTA?

kind of late, but on the name note: In Polish Catapulta (or rather Katapulta) would be actually a general term for any machine that launches projectiles by the grace of "spring-back" energy. So in Polish Catapulta is both the arrow-shooting giant crossbow and the all-mighty trebuchet and everything in between.

Based on my understanding of a book on siege weaponry by this Russian dude, ballistae were extremely large devices that operated on the same principles as these smaller things, but were... very large. They did indeed shoot stones, but were replaced by onagers (what most people non-nerds mean when they say catapult). There were smaller models too; but the name of these weapons did not depend on the principles it operated on, but on more specific elements of it's construction. This thing you made strongly resembles a scorpion, but it doesn't really matter because it shoots sharp stuff and kills.

'This was sitting in my cupboard..'
WTF?

it would be fun to have this as a team sport

A tall rear sight? Like the flip up on a lee enfeild.

Apparently according to this one guy, THAT'S a scorpion with the secondary name being a ballista

I'm curious, would it be possible to measure the poundage of this, as you might a bow and arrow? I'm curious how powerful it is in comparison to what a man with a stick and string (Comically oversimplified bow and arrow) can produce.

I mean the fact that it scales it size is not really that alarming, bows are very similar in that long bows shoot way further than short bows. Because even tho this has a different mechanism than a regular bow, the energy that ends up affecting the bolt is pretty much identical to a bow.

the subtitles are so precious :)

Now you gotta test these against plate armor

this one can kill the dressed mail or armor man ？

wait, so if it doesn't work like a jumbo-jet which 3 times bigger won't be flying 3 times faster then how when scaled down or up it will always shoot 600 meters XD either English is so difficult or I can't speak it as well as I have thought.

Will making a penobscot style catapulta make it more powerful?

Wow... I always thought the ballista shot big arrows not balls, never even heard of a catapulta.

It looks fun!

If Tod was a baddie in a game what loot would he drop?

Is there a Todd NPC for D&D?

this was seriouslly useful for writing a scene. Thank you, I was pretty lost with this whole thing until I found this vid

Because the Romans used animal tendons, they could make the torsion weapons so strong. Maybe Dyneeme can do that too. Super what you make and shoot. I have sent you an email with a question

Let’s all love lain

init it a balista? not a catapult?

Keep your fingers off the rope when cocking the thing , and it's not period correct but maybe a 1/2 to a 1" hole right above the arrow for aiming

Don't accidentally kill yourself with that thing. I'd honestly wear a helmet and safety glasses.

where can I buy that book?

城堡守护者

thank you for clarifying, I was one of those guys crying Ballista, my wargames must have lied to me

Tod "I've rambled too much"
Me "P-please, don't stop"

The range doesn't seem that far. Was this weapon used in active combat or just in sieges?

I know that's a balista because of my video game! 😜

I would think the bolts would go further and penetrate better.

“Did my arrow, kill your pharaoh?”

Roman’s at war, on stones… “Those my balls in your face?” “Hope this stone, broke your bones” “Poor baby, did my rock hit your co**”

I've seen a few images of machines mounted on on wheels. Trebuchet throw further mounted on wheels, curious if being allowed to move throws further for darts too.

Κατα - down, into, against
Πελτα - a small round shield. When translated into Latin and French the "e" becomes a "u"

It's a catapulta because it shoots arrows/spears down through a shield. I believe Alexander the Great was actually tagged by one of these at one point.

What? No mangonels? You are talking about definitions of siege equipment and the most ubiquitous piece of siege equipment on the medieval battlefield doesn't get a mention. Of course, half the medieval scholars out there insist that "mangonel" is just another name for "traction trebuchet" and the other half insist that it is a generic word for any piece of medieval siege equipment and didn't refer to anything specific. I guess that is a discussion for another time...

Love it 👌🏻

For Dungeons and Dragons players we’ve for years called this type of device a ballista. Guess Gygax and his writing team didn’t do his research thoroughly…

I mean I don't really care what you call it because it doesn't really matter but your argument sort of fall apart when you think about how Romans and Greeks named things. I definitely agree with you that the "Ballista" that the Romans were referring to doesn't shoot bolts. The Roman Ballista shoots stones (small ones might have also shot something similar to sling bullets) they sort of look exactly like your design, but the slide doesn't have just a trigger it and surface to push a bolt. It would have a, sometimes pretty enclosed, cup structure to hold the stone. So that's all fine, but there are immediate problems with Roman nomenclature. Ballistarii/Ballistarius were crossbowmen using the "manuballista" and that very definitely shot bolts. The problem is twofold both ancient Greek and Latin have this issue (only because we have a modern need to categorize) where the words for stuff was just what it was and wasn't all that descriptive. "Gladius" just means "sword". "Spatha" also means "sword"(from Greek). Don't even get started on ancient Greek and "spear" they had a million terms for it and without context it's hard to know whether they meant spear, javelin, pike or shape pointy stick. So that's the first issue, second is we are talking about military terms and much like modern armies the Romans could be a bit traditional in how they named things. It's hard to desribe but the best example I could give is early Republican Roman "Hastati". "Hastati" means "spearmen" but while they did originally fight with spears, quickly switched to swords. They were still called "Hastati" even though they weren't "spearmen" anymore. I guess my point to all this is I am fine with you calling it a "Catapulta", but your reasoning doesn't really sit right with me. Yes, most of what you said was true and I very much followed your logic, but that doesn't mean the Romans did that. Also, I would argue it doesn't really matter as most of the ancient people we have sources on to tell us all this stuff are giving us secondhand information or their own interpterion (usually written in later periods when terminology changed as well) and not what the people that actually made and used the equipment thought.

Alan Wilkins taught me Latin in the early '60's. He was an excellent and very popular teacher and the youngest teacher of Classics at our school (by several decades). His lessons were always peppered with stories and anecdotes about how the Romans actually lived and we soon cottoned on that, if the mood was right, cunningly devised questions about the Roman army - and particularly the Roman army in Britain - could set him off on a fascinating tangent for ages.

I'm sure, with the wisdom of hindsight that he was aware of what we were doing, but he was so knowledgeable and enthusiastic about his interests. Top bloke.

English Longbowmen could easily carry the catapulta on their person and even knock the arrow just physically without the crank considering they were the strongest englishmen around.

I wonder when the dart shooting catapulta became a rock throwing catapult.

I love how one untrained man could prep, load, and fire in about 30-35 seconds a shot. So how fast could a trained team fire....terrifyingly awesome

Short summary: ballista/ball {ball}ista catapult pult sounds like bolt

Video games and movies have screwed up the terms for people. Myself included. I'd have referred to this as a ballista as well.

Tod rambling? I came here from Scholagladiatoria. Nothing Tod does is rambling in comparison. :)

Awesome channel man, can't believe I just barely found it.

If The difference in scale but all firing 600 meters!! sounds to me making one small that fires garden rakes 600m or one big that fires lamposts 600m, 🤔i must have this book.....

very nice, i'm no expert but looking at that fine piece of artllery to me it looks more like a scorpion (or a cheiroballista, but that is made mostly of metal, so pretty sure is the first i said), not a ballista. greay video anyway

So I guess it's similar to how we call some firearms guns, cannons, howitzers, mortars.

So much work just to shoot a slightly bigger arrow.