Used by castle commanders during times of peace to hurl roses to ladies during tournaments, trebuchets proved a deadly weapon in the field of ancient warfare. Flinging a wide variety of objects hundreds of yards, the trebuchet became the weapon of choice for laying siege to a castle. Its incredible range could often place it beyond the effectual defense range of the castle archers, thereby permitting the besiegers to destroy the defender's walls with little interference. During extended sieges, trebuchets were often used to hurl large quantities of dung, dead animals, and other such items to encourage disease throughout the besieged city.
Trebuchets earned a reputation for being much more accurate and precise than their onager and catapult counterparts. Not only was this accuracy a benefit, but being based on rotational motion and leverage rather than torsion (spring power) and lacking in a throwing arm stop, the trebuchet proved a much safer alternative for the personnel operating it. Onagers and Mangonels would literally explode on occasion when the torsion proved too great or a crack developed in the throwing arm due to the rapid stops it experienced.
All in all, the Trebuchet was a fearsome weapon of mass destruction during the Middle Ages, a force to be reckoned with. Trebuchets only lost favor when cannons emerged, and the primary benefit of the cannon that the trebuchet lacked was not in fact power, but rather mobility. Smaller, more maneuverable cannons rapidly overran the position of the trebuchet in most armies across the world.
Warwolf, the legendary trebuchet built by the English Army to destroy Castle Urquhart, which was located in the Highlands of Scotland, on the shores of the also infamous Loch Ness. Par...
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...elease and a more horizontal trajectory, with higher velocity.
In an attempt to better understand the components of the trebuchet and to permit the viewer a better idea of the manner in which the firing of a trebuchet occurs, a trebuchet constructed entirely of K-nex was built this past week. The counterweight consisted of 5000 steel bb's wrapped in plastic and duct tape, while the sling itself was made of duct tape and twine. The remaineder of the trebuchet, including the throwing arm, were constructed purely from K-nex.
Standing some 3 feet tall, this trebuchet could repeatedly launch a 2-3oz object in excess of 20 feet.
Lengthening the sling proved valuable, increasing velocity and range considerably. However, a point was reached at which the sling length could be said to be optimized, and lengthening it further only created unpredictable release angles.
The Met museum said that the most popular used weapons were “spear, sword, axe, and the bow and arrow.” These weapons and tactics of fighting then became the backbone of weapons today, such as guns. Spears, bows and arrows allow knights to fight from a distance, such as hand grenades and guns used in today’s military.
This is a brief paragraph or two on each of the major siege weapons. For the not just the besiegers but also the defenders. Please note most of these weapons were not used alone and often had many different versions of the same weapon.
During the Revolutionary War, the Artillery assets that were available were a combination of cannons, mortars and howitzers. There were two types of cannons used at this time. The Field Guns, which were lightweight and easier to move, and the Siege Guns, which were much heavier and less mobile. The cannons utilized three different types of rounds. The rounds were solid shot, grapeshot, and canister. The solid shot rounds were used for structures, buildings, and ships. The grapeshot, which was a canvas bag of lead or iron balls, was ideal for long range personnel. The canister shot was a wooden cartridge carrying iron balls and when fired would explode like a shotgun for shorter range personnel. The cannons were mostly low trajectory as opposed the mortars which were high trajectory and fire bomb shells. The mortar was based on a wooden platform and a wedge of wood was used to incline the front of the barrel. There were land service mortars and sea service mortars. The land service being more mobile and the sea service much heavier and were permanently positioned on ships. By the time of the Revolutionary War there were nine types of land service mortar and four types of sea service mortar. They ranged from 4.4 to 13 inches. The rounds fired out of mortars were designed to fire at a high trajecto...
First the energy of conservation. The setting of the trebuchet before firing is shown in Fig 1. A heavy counterweight of mass (M) (contained in a large bucket) on the end of the short arm of a sturdy beam was raised to some height while a smaller mass (m) (the projectile), was positioned on the end of the longer arm near or on the ground. In practice the projectile was usually placed in a leather sling attached to the end of the longer arm. However for simplicity, we shall ignore the sling and compensate for this omission by increasing the assumed length of the beam on the projectile’s side. The counterweight was then allowed to fall so that the longer arm swung upward, the sling following, and the projectile was ultimately thrown from its container at some point near the top of the arc. The far end of the sling was attached to the arm by a rope in such a way that the release occurred at a launching angle near the optimum value ( most likely by repeated trials) for the launch height. The launching position is shown in fig.2 where we have assumed that the projectile is released at the moment the entire beam is vertical. In the figures: (a)=height of the pivot, (b)= length of the short arm, (c)= length of the long arm, while (v) and (V) are the velocities of (m) and (M), respectively, at the moment of launching.
According to Chevedden et al., (2002) the Latin word for trebuchet was “ingenium” and those who designed, made and used them were called inginators. These early engineers kept modifying the trebuchet to increase the range and impact force. One of the improvements engineers made was varying the length of the sling ropes so the shot left the machine at a ? angle of 45 degrees to the vertical (shown in the figure above), which produces the longest trajectory (Chevedden et al.,
Lerner, Adrienne Wilmoth. “The Bow in Medieval Warfare.” Science and Its Times. Ed. Neil Schlager and Josh Lauer. Vol. 2: 700 to 1449. Detroit: Gale, 2001. 339-341. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.
...e went into motion. Possible projectiles of the trebuchet were living prisoners, jugs of Greek fire, rocks, and animals. Another large weapon of siege was used primarily in storms, the battering ram. In its early stages, the ram was no more than a hefty beam with a mass of metal attached to the end. Men would hoist the cumbersome boom onto their shoulders and run into a wall or door as many times as needed until the surface under attack gave way. In the Middle Ages, it was developed into more of a machine, for the ram hung from the center of a tent under which the men operating the ram could hide. The ram could be swung like a pendulum much more easily than having to constantly run back and forth. Also, castle guards often poured hot oil or other things onto the ram and its engineers. The tent, which was on wheels, protected the men and the battering ram as well.
Soldiers in medieval Europe used a variety of weapons. A soldier's choice of armor depended on the time during which he lived, the type of fighting he did, and his economic situation. For hand-to-hand combat soldiers typically used swords, axes, clubs, and spears. Crossbows, bows, and javelins served as projectiles for most of the medieval period, though firearms had begun to appear toward the end of the era. Siege weapons such as catapults helped armies break into castles and towns. Many soldiers wore armor to protect them from opponents' weapons. This armor evolved from mail made of metal links to full plate armor as projectile weapons improved.
The trebuchet, following the catapult, the trebuchet was capable of launching 400 pound projectiles hundreds of feet. This engine of war was created for one purpose, lay siege to an enemy castle. Recent discoveries indicate that the first trebuchet could have been invented as early as 300 BCE in what is now China, this version is thought to have been a rope based trebuchet with groups of military men using upper body strength in order to lob the projectile. The trebuchet reached Europe approximately 700 years later in 400 CE and was used mostly by the French as opposed to the Anglo-Saxons (Trebuchet). This was when the rope pulled design was improved into the counterweight system.
The trebuchet is used with a long wooden arm refreshed on a hinge point, which acted as a big level. A bullet was placed on one end and soldiers in this earlier form of the trebuchet pushed on slings devoted to the other end to fundamentals swing the arm around and throw the
Whenever people think of a trebuchet or any catapult for that matter, they typically think of stones being launched from them, but that isn’t completely true. Stones may have been thrown from them but other items such as darts, balls of fire, super hot tar, burning sand which got inside of the target's armor and caused severe injuries, pots of Greek fire, dung (AKA poop), dead or injured bodies, body parts, dead animals, or anything that was rotting. Trebuchets were great for having objects thrown and launched at enemies that you had a lot of distance from and they got a lot of momentum on the objects that were thrown from it (if built correctly). While it might have a few perks to it, it also consisted of a lot of cons. It was a very complex machine and therefore required a person with designing and building skills to put one together and build it. It was also very difficult to transport it from battle to battle, and when you did finally get the trebuchet relocated, you had to find a super strong person to load the machine as well as launch objects from the machine while having to dodge missiles, bows, arrows, etc. being launched at them because they were under attack. During battles, if the enemy got brave they would come over to attack and would burn the whole trebuchet down to the ground and you’d basically be defenseless aside from a few
A trebuchet a simple machine from the middle ages when attacking the opposing side. The Chinese invented the trebuchet in 300BC, the French were using trebuchet more than anyone.
What exactly is a catapult and what were they used for? "A catapult is a mechanical device that is kind of a bigger version of the slingshot" (Stephen Rampur, 2011) The dictionary definition of a catapult is a ballistic device used to launch a projectile a long distance without the help from explosive devices. This means that people would arm the catapult with various non-explosive articles such as rocks or logs, or anything that people found. In medieval times, people used catapults primarily in warfare. The soldiers would fire various objects over the castle walls to attack and harm the enemies. This was a very effective way in which to harm the enemies because it was quiet and they would not know when it was coming.
Armies throughout the ages from ancient Greeks to modern armies on the battle field today all vie for technological and tactical advantages. One technological advantage brought to the battle filed time after time winning small skirmishes to wars is artillery, the king of battle. Modern filed artillery has a vast history in war. As early as the 1st century BC. Artillery was used by the ancient Roman armies to not only create divisive victories on the battle filed but all so to break sieges (www.ancient.eu/article n.d). In 322 BC. Andrews, E. (2013) said that, Alexander the great lay siege to the city of Tyre. This primitive form of artillery took several month to eventually take the city and its 150 foot walls. The King of Battle has stood the test of time by undergoing some major technological and tactical changes throughout history and will continue to be a threat on the battle filed in the future.
In this assessment of the projectile motion of an object, I found that it can be applied to many useful situations in our daily lives. There are many different equations and theorems to apply to an object in motion to either find the path of motion, the displacement, velocity, acceleration, and time of the object in the air.