Gunpowder-less siege engines

Why weren't large ballistic siege engines necessary in East Asia?

Siege on, young trebber

siege on, young trebber

Cause China walled themselves in, not others out.

t. Cletus

>Comparing a siege of a medieval city of a few ten thousands to one of a modern city of millions

Don't be like No. 1715387

They did have large ballistic siege engines. The niggers invented the trebuchet, (albeit not the counterweight one, Persians invented that after being introduced the treb from China) for starters.

I mean, if anything, Classical Europe was the one without the large ballistic siege engines compared to contemporaneous China at the time. While hugeass fuck Lithoboloi existed, these were rarities, and the usual siege engine in the west was a regular ass stone/arrow projector, and the onager, which is the size of a large table. There's only so much you can throw lethally with a torsion catapult.

Whereass the early Chink trebuchets, not only are they cheap as fuck (i.e. you dont have to kill shitloads of cows for torsion sinews) you can throw just about anything just by adding more guys pulling on the rope.

Siege on, young Trebber

Nothing compared mongol counter-weight trebuchets,

500 meters, 300 kg

Used against the Song Dynasty

Siege on, young Trebber

This seems too heavy or too far. Source ?

>siege on, young trebber.

>the most common of the ancient world
Wasn't it mostly a roman thing?

Nope.jpg.

Torsion has been a thing in the Greek Classical World.

The only new thing the Romans added was the Onager, which is basically an attempt to save production costs (i.e. the Onager only needed one sinew torsion. Not two like the Lithoboloi).

No no no, the Romans considerably changed the torsion artillery.
- Replaced the wooden frame with a metal frame
- Which allowed catapults to have inswinging arms, like the ballista, increasing its power
- They added a cart, making the carroballistae, which were basically mobile artillery
- They also improved the portative artillery, with the cheiroballista, which was a complex a powerful crossbow-like weapon

This is a pretty good recreation of a carroballista

Also, it seems the onager existed already in greek times, but was probably rarely used. Apollodorus Damascus mentions it, and Philo of Byzantium, if I am not mistaken

Siege on, young trebbler

Thats the older Chinese design.

This is the real mongol counter-weight trebuchet designed by the Muslims (two iraqis) under the service of one of the general of Halagu

are there any records of when this was used?

Siege on, young trebber

Yes, mainly two.
The carroballistae appear five times one the Column of Trajan, pic related.

And Vegetius mentions them quite often while describing the imperial legion, for example :

Nam per singulas centurias singulas carroballistas habere consueuit, quibus muli ad trahendum et singula contubernia ad armandum uel dirigendum, hoc est undecim homines, deputantur. [ . . . ] In una autem legione quinquaginta quinque carroballistae esse solent

That's something like "One must give a carroballista to every centuria, and mules with them, which had to pull them. Also a contubernium, which is eleven men, who had to serve it and drive it. Thus there was 55 carroballistae in a legion.
(Veg. Mil. 2.25)

Oh, you meant "when" !
It probably appeared a little before the dacian wars (101 - 106 CE) (attested by the column of trajan), and were used for centuries after, maybe until the end of the fourth century (it seems a carroballista is depicted in the De Rebus Bellicis, and archaeology proves such technology still existed at that times - see the orsova or gornea ballista)

Siege on, young trebber.

Thanks

I would have figure something like highly mobile artillery would be make more of an impact, imagine these things in the battle of gaugamela or others, they would have made a huge difference.

It's almost like something worth having elephants for, an ancient times' tank

Siege on, young trebber