Roman Artillery?

[Vibius Tiberius Costa]

Thanks guys

 

vtc

[caldrail]

From The Roman War Machine by John Derrie.

 

There is continuing debate about the manner in which these weapons were deployed. According to Vegetius there were ten onagers to each legion, a scale of one per cohort, and one carroballistae per century, but it is militarily difficult to believe that they could have been usefully handled individually in this manner; the distribution provided by Vegetius may perhaps simply represent a legionary scale of entitlement. The principles of of concentration of force and firepower would by themselves have demanded that weapons of this category be 'brigaded' (used together - Caldrail)...

 

Again, in the set-piece battle, as we have seen above (discussing Caesar, Vespasian, & Arrian - Caldrail) , it was frequently mustered with the reserves, to the rear of a mass of infantry, or deployed to protect the flanks. Thus, in each phase of roman war, in columns of march, in defence, in set-piece battle, in siege warfare, and in the assault, artillery weapons were grouped for operations, an entirely logical arrangement, since it is not easy to judge that a solitary carroballistae could have offered much benefit to the century

[Pertinax]

As a side note I have posted a small blog album offsite at my MSN home link (click below) "The Polybolus of Dionysus" , this shows some further technical details that may be of interest to the mechanically minded.

[Pertinax]

A link from a chum of mine in California, who was nearly knocked off his bicycle by missiles from this apparatus:

http://www.trebuchet.com/

 

I jest ye not.

[Gaius Octavius]

A link from a chum of mine in California, who was nearly knocked off his bicycle by missiles from this apparatus:

http://www.trebuchet.com/

 

I jest ye not.

 

Even for kali4kneeya, that was terrible!