Well there’s a scarey concept.

Into the Mind of Murray Hill

Be there or don’t!

Sunday 1pm, Te Manawa Museum, some street or other, its next to the book place off the square. I dunno, ask a cop if you can find one.

I’m making my play for the most arse numbingly dull presentation of the year award with a one hour talk about catapults, flinging rockes, smashing stuff, throwing arrows 300 meters, stuff like that.

Donations are invited.
Wood for trebuchet                           $500
Custom milled throwing arm            $150
Patonk set from Trademe                  $15

Smashing a wall with a steel
ball on the first throw                  Priceless!

When essay season runs amok.

Do re-enactors have a place is reconstructing history?

Some notes on the operation of the Ballista and

conflicts with accepted academic interpretation.

 

 

The ballista is a very powerful arrow or stone throwing machine descended from the grastrophetes invented in 399BC. Its power is derived from a pair of twisted ropes or skeins that drive two throwing arms in unison as with a crossbow. And therein lays the key. In “unison”.

 

If the arms are not rotating in unison the string and/or sling will be pulled to one side as the machine releases resulting in an uneven launch line. The missile can smash into the frame of the machine causing alarm and despondency amongst the crew who are inside the splinter range of disintegrating arrows. 

 

  

 

Bad release, bolt angled        Clean release, bolt in line

 

 

 

During the American Civil War one inventor came up with the idea of firing two cannon together with the shells linked by a chain. This would – he predicted – cut down whole swaths of enemy in one shot. Well any gunner could have told him that this idea had one teeny tiny flaw. It’s bollocks. You cannot get two guns to fire together as, due to the vagaries of burning powder, there will always be a difference in the exact time that the guns discharge.

 

The resulting spectacle of one gun firing and the other having an impromptu game of “tether ball” may be entertaining but its military applications are severely limited not to mention hard on gun crews.

 

We face a similar problem with a machine that requires two arms to rotate at the same speed, but we do have ways of “tuning” the machine to get the result needed. That being to get an arrow or stone moving at high speed and which represents a greater danger to the target than the crew.

 

In his exhaustive work on [1]siege weapons and warfare Konstantin Nossov describes the ballista as being tuned “musically” via tapping the skeins to literally tune them in by matching the notes they produce. Unfortunately I do not have the benefit of Konstanins extensive academic education having wasted my youth shooting at things and wandering the high country aimlessly with a pack the size of a small town on my back. Consequently I need a method that is more “grunt friendly”.

 

Some experimentation has revealed one. To recreate this experiment you will need one (1) Greek ballista. Lay the ballista face down on the ground and pull the centre of the string. The hypotheses is that if the arms BEGIN to rotate back when the machine is being drawn they will return the same way. In unison.

 

To perform this check in the field – which would equate to the more modern headspace and timing check of a .50 calibre machinegun – you simply hook up the string to the trigger and begin to draw the arms. If they move together you’re good to go. If one moves before the other then you tighten up that skein until they match.

 

 Trigger hooked on                 Bad draw                       Good draw     

 

 

This method may be more pedestrian than the musical one, but from experience grunts are not known for their musical ability or perfect pitch. Expecting a legion to find in one in ten of legionaries musicians of good ear is somewhat over optimistic. Soldiers are simply not choirboys and while it might be nice to carry a Haley Westenra in your range box, it’s not always practical.

 

However after field testing the “give it a pull and look” method does seem entirely functional.

 

 

On the 27^th of April 2008 the ballista pictured (Scipio) threw an arrow 160 meters with a three arrow grouping of 30mm at 100 meters range after being tuning using the method described. This machine had been completed the day before.

 

 

Scipio has produced no audible note at to date beyond “thunk”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

[1] Konstantin Nossov Ancient and Medieval siege engines – A fully illustrated guide to siege weapons and tactics The Lyons Press 2005

Free Trebuchet Plan

Ok here is an updated plan of Tiny that is free2u.

You will note the little copywrite symbol on each sheet. You may use this plan - free-tiny - to build your own catapult for a school project of personal use. You may not employ it in any comercial manner whatsoever. If you do the copywrite laws apply, but they wont save you because I’ll get to you first.

Enjoy.

Oh yeah there’s a couple of details missing that I’ll give you when you email me for them. Important safety tip, good manners cost nothing. Escpecially when you’re the one with the need, not me.

Update: Well I can see you’re all have a good time making my counter spin and downloading like mad. Evidently some of you have found a use for the plans. Feel free at any time to help continue the R&D of my machines by making a donation.

 

Right I’m off for the weekend.

Feel free to drop by. I’ll be here.

 

Why I want to be Ron Toms when I grow up.

Although the two might be mutually exclusive.

So, I’ve been searching, negotiating, analyzing and going generally crazy, but FINALLY, I just closed a deal for a big empty field in rural Texas, where I’m going to start building a Catapult themed park.

Catapult Park will be a place to come see real, authentic, working, life-sized models of Trebuchets, Onagers, Ballistae and more. And you won’t have to go all the way to Denmark or Warwick to do it! It’ll be right here in the middle of Texas. I might even re-build T-Wrecks!

Ok now Tom started out in the catapulting world hand cutting catapult kitsets in his garage. Now hes blown his wealth of a bit of land so he needs more cash for building the park. So go and shop. The kits a good quality, educational and fun.

All your flinging needs can be met at the following links

Catapult plans
Trebuchet kits, books and simulators
Onager kits and stuff
Ballistae and stuff

If you’re a retailer and are interested in stocking anything drop me a line and I’ll pass you Rons details.

Lets get historical!

If you can’t get to Palmy to see the display you can just play this youtube vid while you’re looking at pictures below.

At this point I would like to mention that its not too late for anyone to sponser the event or even the next one in November.

Me have one of dose 2

Johns.

Mine. 

(Mine get more visitars!)

Speaking of which if you happen to be in Palmerston North why not stop by Te Manawa and take a look. They’ll be on the range at Gladstone over Anzac weekend with other machines then back in the museum the following week.

Meet Katie..

Katie is an Aries of mixed pine and Dutch Elm descent who likes sitting really still and then smashing stuff from a distance. Although the “new kid” in the game Katie is in fact the biggest machine of her type who can claim a real 13th Century pedigree.

Katie is joining veteran machines Chucky and The Dragon along with another newbie Scipio the ballista at an exhibition at Te Manawa starting on the 7th April. After this they will all be heading off to the Wairarapa where stuff will be smashed, blown up, shot and possibly set fire to if everything fails to go according to plan.

If you are interested in sponsoring Katie or any of the other machines in the exhibition naming rights are available just drop me a line for details.

Its only a water pistol Steven.

Steven Den Beste has been out scouring the blogosphere to find something to challenge me with.

All he found was this “water squirter”. Feh, not worth my time.