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Notes about trebuchet
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The Trebuchet was a devastating siege weapon that was used all across the world in the Middle Ages. The trebuchet was a highly destructive siege engine that caused the fall of several castles and thousands of soldiers of all various armies. In this essay I will be talking about the materials used to construct this siege engine, the countries and empires in which this siege weapon was used and the types of people that used this device.
The Trebuchet was a very advanced siege engine that was used in the middle ages, it helped destroy several castles. The Trebuchet is a type of catapult that was used as a siege engine in the middle ages. The Trebuchet is a highly advanced device in terms of its engineering and it was built by engineers with exceptional designing and building skills. The advanced engineering of the trebuchet allowed the trebuchet to “sling” rocks, soil etc. to a target, thus allowing the trebuchet to destroy and weaken the castles walls and defences. These points link back to the focal statement that the trebuchet is a very advanced siege engine
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The Trebuchet achieved its deadly accuracy due to the components that made up the trebuchet. The materials used to build a trebuchet were often fairly common, but the materials were used in bulk and this made the trebuchet costly to build in terms of resources. The materials often used were wood, sand and stone, it often took engineers and builders days to build the trebuchet. The heavy nature of the trebuchet made the device very difficult to move; therefore mobility was a massive issue in using trebuchets in the middle ages. However only one trebuchet was needed to damage an entire wall of a castle due to the high accuracy associated with trebuchets. It is estimated by historians and statisticians that trebuchets had an 84.56% success rate. These points link back to the main statement that the trebuchets were highly accurate siege
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.
Another type of catapult is the Onager. Onagers were used right up to the middle ages with the Trebuchet, when gunpowder and the Cannon were invented and eventually replaced the catapults.
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.,
At the beginning of the Middle Ages, battle was still fought by men usually with swords, spears, and axes because they fought so close to each other. In medieval times, there were many different weapons, which were used for many different reasons. Some reasons would be for war, hunting, farming and building. The same types of materials were used, but they designed into different types of weapons and armor. As you read, you will learn how as time pasted that either the armor or the weapons changed to be more protective and or more powerful. I will be covering in this paper the many types of weapons, a specific weapon, and last the armor they used to protect themselves.
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.
Mortars have a very pronounced arc of flight. They have a relatively low muzzle velocity and are unsuitable for direct fire. Their principle value comes from being able to lob shells behind an obstacle such as a fort or a hill. Unlike modern mortars, those used during the Civil War were bulky devises and mounted at a fixed angle usually between 45 and 50 degrees. They were not very accurate and depended solel...
In this essay, I will uncover the countless insights that can be learned about the characters in Beowulf, as well as the society as a whole, based on the weapons the characters choose to use in battle. During the Anglo-Saxon time, roughly between 400 and 1066, swords were considered the most precious weapon someone could own. Although it is not certain who wrote Beowulf, and when, many people believe it was composed in the middle to end of the Anglo-Saxon period. Analyzing the different weapons, and significance of each, in Beowulf, and comparing them to the weaponry at the time, provides the readers with a great deal of insight into the society during this period. The use of weapons in Beowulf not only provides the readers with insight into
Crossbows can vary a lot in design and construction. They range from 50 to 400 lbs. in draw weight. They can be very small hand held pistols or rifles, which can fire rapidly and accurately with pinpoint accuracy up to 60 yards and kill ranges up to 100 yards. The larger bows with 400lb. draw weights could have ranges of over 400 yards they could fire large arrows, rocks and other types of projectiles accurately while staying well out of range of most enemy fire. These bows were built of large beams and sat on wheels so that 2 men could change the position of the bow easily. These bows were very powerful but were also very slow in loading and firing. They had mechanical winches, which were hand cranked to draw the bowstring back. It took two men to run these bows called siege machines.
In this essay, I will uncover the countless insights that can be learned about the characters in Beowulf, as well as the society as a whole, based on the weapons chosen to use in battle by the characters. During the Anglo-Saxon time, roughly between 400 and 1066, the most precious weapon someone could own was a sword. Although it is not certain when, and by whom, Beowulf was written; many people believe it was composed in the middle to end of the Anglo-Saxon period. Analyzing the different weapons, and significance of each, in Beowulf, and comparing them to the weaponry at the time, provides the readers with a great deal of insight into the society during this period. The
...orking trebuchet of medieval design today is at Warwick Castle, which is used as a tourist attraction and is fired by members of the public under professional supervision. It stands 19m tall and uses a 6 ton counterweight to fire 15kg stone balls distances exceeding several hundred feet. A modernly designed trebuchet, called T-Wrecks, can throw pianos weighing 250 kg over 100 m. In England a group of farmers threw a car close to 122 m and a 55 gallon drum filled with gasoline over 300 m.
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
The trebuchet was one of the Medieval siege weapons used during the Middle Ages. They initially appeared in Asia during the 7th century. The Trebuchet was an invaluable weapon which was utilized for flinging hefty stones in order to destroy city or castle walls. The earliest trebuchets were very similar to catapults. History clearly displays the trebuchet as one of the most proficient and deadly siege weapons of all time, and the cleverness of thousands of ancient engineers led to its progress.
The drawbridge There were many different designs for the drawbridge, the most common design most people these days know of is the a large wooden plank, attached to the side of the castle and lowered down on chains but this design was actually a late medieval invention. Other designs were used for a long time before this. Like an unsecured piece of long wood, which was removed when attackers were nearby or a see saw type arrangement, with a complex counterweight on either side to draw one side up whilst the other went down. Attacking a castle Attacking a castle took a lot of resources and time to prepare because attacks could last days, weeks, months and sometimes