Has anyone seen an actual weapon like this?

[gewing]

A week or so ago I was thinking about slingers, and how Slings are rather limited in armor penetration, even if sling bullets have points on each end. So as an idea for an option for the slingers, I got thinking about projectiles with serious penetration.

 

First thought: how would you throw a double ended spike with a lead weight cast around the center?

 

second thought: WOuld a weapon formed by a point heavy spike, on the end of a length of cord be feasible? Sure, an opponent could through it back at you. But if YOU are an expert with sling style weapons...

A bladed point like a heavy broadhead could probably work too.

 

Then I got wondering... I can't think of anything quite like this in historical weapons. Am my blanking one out? Did I miss something in my reading (In some ways I love to find out that happened, more to read)? Am I just thinking ludicrous thoughts?

 

The closest thing that springs to mind is the Chinese rope dart, and That is used more as a melee weapon, afaik.

Greg

[Markdoc]

Re: Has anyone seen an actual weapon like this?

 

Pretty much anything that you can think of has been used by somebody as a weapon, somewhere. People used to make iron throwing ducks, fer pete's sake.

 

Anyway, the item you are wanting is Greco-roman and called a plumbata or martiobulli.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]44163[/ATTACH]

The whole thing is about 14 inches/40 cm long. You hold it by the end (behind the fletching) and kind of flick it at arm's length. With the lead weight at the end, just behind the barbs, it was heavy enough that you could apparently flick it out to about 90 metres - further than you can throw a javelin - and it was still heavy enough to do so serious harm. Late Roman legionaries used to carry 8 of them attached to the back of their shield.

And of course,you figure that some guy is going to try to improve the range. Polybius and Livy describe macedonians using slings to fling the things, and possible reconstruction looks like this:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]44164[/ATTACH]

The Greek version apparently didn't have the lead weight, but an iron shaft ahead of the fletching.

 

cheers, Mark

[Greywind]

Re: Has anyone seen an actual weapon like this?

 

Nowadays, they call them "lawn darts".

[gojira]

Re: Has anyone seen an actual weapon like this?

 

'Cept the gov't took them away from us.

[assault]

Re: Has anyone seen an actual weapon like this?

 

I wouldn't have considered a chunk of relatively high velocity lead 'limited in armor penetration'. If anything, I would imagine a sling bullet being better at applying kinetic energy to an armoured target than an arrow. Banging somebody with a rock hurts, even if it doesn't actually break through their armour.

[Markdoc]

Re: Has anyone seen an actual weapon like this?

 

I wouldn't have considered a chunk of relatively high velocity lead 'limited in armor penetration'. If anything' date=' I would imagine a sling bullet being better at applying kinetic energy to an armoured target than an arrow. Banging somebody with a rock hurts, even if it doesn't actually break through their armour.[/quote']

 

Given that most armour of the time was relatively flexible (cloth, mail or scale) you're right: the Romans considered slingers more effective against heavy troops than archers and deployed them accordingly. One problem with a sling though: compared to a bow or crossbow, they're very short range, which makes deploying slingers a tactical challenge - too far away from your support troops and they can get ridden down by cavalry, or shot up by archers. Slings fell out of favour as rigid armour go better. A sling bullet had more momentum than an arrow, but also a much larger cross section, so that they lacked penetrating power and against rigid armour that mean they did little to no damage. So as armour improved, the Romans, for example, gradually switched their slingers out with crossbowmen.

 

On the other hand, a sling is an ideal weapon for an adventurer. As long as you have rocks, you have ammo, you can carry more prepared ammo than an archer, and your weapon folds up and goes in a pouch.

 

cheers, Mark

[Cancer]

Re: Has anyone seen an actual weapon like this?

 

That "Crossbows" Markdoc mentions includes one-man torsion catapults according to Catapults: A History by Tracy Rihll (which was a Christmas present book I got seven months back), at least when you're talking Classical antiquity.

 

Such catapults shoot sling bullets (which were standard things, it seems), don't take anywhere near as much training to learn to use adequately, and were well suited to fixed-point defenses. Using a sling takes a lot of room, and even most curtain wall walkways are too limiting to use a sling safely. The one-man torsion catapults are much like crossbows in a lot of ways but they shoot sling bullets instead of darts/bolts.

[gewing]

Re: Has anyone seen an actual weapon like this?

 

Pretty much anything that you can think of has been used by somebody as a weapon, somewhere. People used to make iron throwing ducks, fer pete's sake.

 

Anyway, the item you are wanting is Greco-roman and called a plumbata or martiobulli.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]44163[/ATTACH]

The whole thing is about 14 inches/40 cm long. You hold it by the end (behind the fletching) and kind of flick it at arm's length. With the lead weight at the end, just behind the barbs, it was heavy enough that you could apparently flick it out to about 90 metres - further than you can throw a javelin - and it was still heavy enough to do so serious harm. Late Roman legionaries used to carry 8 of them attached to the back of their shield.

And of course,you figure that some guy is going to try to improve the range. Polybius and Livy describe macedonians using slings to fling the things, and possible reconstruction looks like this:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]44164[/ATTACH]

The Greek version apparently didn't have the lead weight, but an iron shaft ahead of the fletching.

 

cheers, Mark

 

as is obvious, I have read on weapons a lot. I don't remember ever running into that one. THANK YOU!

[Markdoc]

Re: Has anyone seen an actual weapon like this?

 

Such catapults shoot sling bullets (which were standard things' date=' it seems)[/quote']

 

Just an amusing note on this - we've found sling bullets with messages either cut into them or actually moulded in, saying things like "Aha!" This is for you" "Take that!" or - my favourite - a moulded message saying "To the enemies of Rome"

 

cheers, Mark