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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech stuff from how

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Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com, Hale and well met. This is

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Speaker 1: tech stuff and I am your host, Jonathan Strickland, senior

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Speaker 1: writer for how Stuff Works dot com. And many of

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Speaker 1: you know that in my life outside of the office,

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Speaker 1: I'm also the occasional Renaissance Festival performer. If you did

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Speaker 1: not know that, you know it now. I'm not ashamed

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Speaker 1: of this totally. I've actually even appeared as my Renaissance

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Speaker 1: Festival character on an episode of Stuff You Missed in

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Speaker 1: History Class. I'm not going to tell you the episode

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Speaker 1: title because I don't remember it off the top of

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Speaker 1: my head, but I do appear in it, so it's

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Speaker 1: a classic episode. I think might have been Sarah and

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Speaker 1: Dablina as the hosts back in those days. Anyway, I'm

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Speaker 1: performing at the Georgia Renaissance Festival this year season, and

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Speaker 1: the opening day for the Renaissance Festival is the day

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Speaker 1: after this podcast airs, so I thought, why not do

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Speaker 1: an episode inspired by ye olden times? And yes, I

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Speaker 1: know he is actually the We're going to go back

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Speaker 1: quite a bit before the Renaissance because today I'm going

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Speaker 1: to talk about siege engines. I thought it'd be kind

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Speaker 1: of fun and sort of in the theme of looking

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Speaker 1: back on history as I prepare to don my tights

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Speaker 1: and doublet I'm sorry for that mental image anyway. What

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Speaker 1: is a siege engine? While it's a device meant to

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Speaker 1: allow an attacking army to gain entry to a fortified space,

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Speaker 1: typically a fortified city or a castle, something along those lines,

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Speaker 1: they're they're used to penetrate or destroy fortress walls or gates,

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Speaker 1: and they tend to be enormous and they exert tremendous

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Speaker 1: force in their operation. I'm going to focus on siege

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Speaker 1: engines from ancient times to medieval history, but you should

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Speaker 1: know that siege engines continued to evolve even after medieval era,

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Speaker 1: even after the the invention of gunpowder and the distribution

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Speaker 1: of gunpowder. To be fair, gunpowder had been invented for

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Speaker 1: a very long time before anyone over in medieval Europe

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Speaker 1: figured out how to use it as a means for weaponry.

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Speaker 1: And uh also, gunpowder ended up making a lot of

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Speaker 1: the traditional city defenses ineffective. I'll talk about that more

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Speaker 1: later on in this episode, but siege engines were used

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Speaker 1: in both world wars. Actually, but I'm gonna save that

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Speaker 1: for a different episode. We're going to talk about the

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Speaker 1: old stuff, this kind of stuff you might see in

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Speaker 1: a movie about nights and royalty and stuff like that.

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Speaker 1: So siege weapons were necessary to penetrate a fortified position, typically,

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Speaker 1: like I said, a city or a castle. So why

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Speaker 1: would you lay siege to such a place at all. Essentially,

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Speaker 1: it's an effort to make the people inside surrender to

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Speaker 1: the people outside. It seems pretty simple. Usually the people

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Speaker 1: inside would include someone of importance who kind of had

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Speaker 1: the authority to hand over the rule of law for

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Speaker 1: that region to somebody else. And the word siege comes

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Speaker 1: from a Latin word sederre, which means to sit, And

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Speaker 1: that's pretty much what a sieging force does. It sits

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Speaker 1: outside a fortified area and it waits. It also usually

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Speaker 1: attempts to cut off supplies that are heading into the

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Speaker 1: fortified location, both food and water and other things, to

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Speaker 1: push the people inside to the point of desperation so

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Speaker 1: that they surrender. But sometimes a long wait just isn't convenient.

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Speaker 1: You've got places to go, people to meet, lands to conquer,

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Speaker 1: so you can't really wait around for people to eat

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Speaker 1: that last apple or to draw the last water from

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Speaker 1: the well. You've got to find a way to speed

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Speaker 1: things up a little bit. You've got to convince them

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Speaker 1: that they need to give up, and maybe force them

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Speaker 1: to give up, and that requires getting access to the

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Speaker 1: place that's fortified. Thus siege engines. Now, archaeologists have uncovered

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Speaker 1: evidence of fortified city walls from ancient cities all around

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Speaker 1: the world, and in a way, you could say that

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Speaker 1: human history is marked by innovations in ways to keep

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Speaker 1: a people safe and other innovations designed to overcome those protections.

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Speaker 1: It gets a pretty grim when you start thinking about

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Speaker 1: specifics and you get down to brass tacks, as it were.

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Speaker 1: But if ancient people had fortified walls, what did the

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Speaker 1: ancient attackers use to breach those walls. Well, there are

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Speaker 1: a couple of different tactics that don't involve siege engines

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Speaker 1: at all. For example, you might try and use fire

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Speaker 1: to weaken walls. You might tunnel under walls, either to

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Speaker 1: collapse the wall so that they just fall down, or

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Speaker 1: you end up just bypassing the wall entirely in tunnel

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Speaker 1: into the place that you're trying to get access to.

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Speaker 1: Or you might just use ladders to try and act

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Speaker 1: us the top of the wall and scale it. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: that could be dangerous if there are soldiers up at

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Speaker 1: the top of the wall to push the ladders down.

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Speaker 1: So you've got to hope that you can zerg rush

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Speaker 1: it use a whole bunch of people all at once.

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Speaker 1: If you don't know what a zer rushes, you need

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Speaker 1: to go listen to the tech Memes episode that published

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Speaker 1: not too long ago. So the ancients would start to

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Speaker 1: construct massive tools to break through barriers. These are the

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Speaker 1: siege engines. They're bigger than things like just a tunnel

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Speaker 1: or a ladder, and arguably the oldest version of the

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Speaker 1: siege engine is the battering ram. So I'm sure you're

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Speaker 1: all familiar with the concept, but just in case. A

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Speaker 1: battering ram is a large mass that can be swung

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Speaker 1: so that it has its impact against a surface and

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Speaker 1: that causes that surface to become damaged. In other words,

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Speaker 1: it's like an enormous hammer breaking through a wall or

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Speaker 1: a door, and an example could be just an enormous log.

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Speaker 1: And the earliest battering rams were held by people, but

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Speaker 1: that was problematic. People can only hold weight up to

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Speaker 1: a certain limit, and then it's just too heavy to move,

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Speaker 1: it slows them down and they remain unprotected and can

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Speaker 1: be picked off by archers or people with slings or

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Speaker 1: other projectiles. So you want to improve upon this idea.

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Speaker 1: So another example would be a log that is hung

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Speaker 1: from a wooden frame by various ropes, and the ropes

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Speaker 1: allow the log to swing horizontally so that the end

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Speaker 1: can crash into that vertical surface like a wall or

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Speaker 1: a gate. Uh. This would allow you to have a

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Speaker 1: much heavier battering ram than something you would have to

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Speaker 1: carry by hand, because you could put it on this

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Speaker 1: rope system and just swing it and as opposed to

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Speaker 1: having to lift it. According to ancient historians, the earliest

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Speaker 1: example of this technology was the brainchild of a certain

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Speaker 1: pe frasm No of Tire, and I apologize for absolutely

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Speaker 1: butchering the pronunciation of that name, because I'm certain I

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Speaker 1: did anyway. This particular engineer would have lived sometime between

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Speaker 1: five hundred and three fifty b C. And his His

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Speaker 1: main invention was suspending a cross beam from a transverse

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Speaker 1: beam for the purposes of swinging it as a battering ram.

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Speaker 1: In other words, that design I was talking about hanging

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Speaker 1: a wooden beam in a frame so that you can

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Speaker 1: bash down a wall or a door. Now, typically you

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Speaker 1: would also find that the frames holding these battering rams

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Speaker 1: would be shielded by a roof, and often that roof

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Speaker 1: would be covered with dampened animal skins. That would help

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Speaker 1: cut down on the potential for fire. If you're defending

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Speaker 1: city was using flaming arrows or burning oil or something

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Speaker 1: on those lines, it would it would reduce the possibility

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Speaker 1: that your brand new, shiny battering ram would just become

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Speaker 1: kindling and uh. You would also protect yourself from other

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Speaker 1: just basic projectiles and allow the operators of the battering

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Speaker 1: battering ram to continue hammering against the wall or the door. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: this was risky. You had to get access to the

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Speaker 1: actual wall and according to Vitruvius, who was an author

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Speaker 1: and engineer during the first century, the first person to

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Speaker 1: create a fireproofed roofed battering ram was Kros the Carthaginian

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Speaker 1: sometimes called Garross with a G the Carthaginian. Modern historians

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Speaker 1: believe this person was alive sometime around the fifth century

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Speaker 1: b C. And this was after the Iron Age that

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Speaker 1: had happened several hundred years earlier, so it was very

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Speaker 1: common for the attacking party to cap a battering ram

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Speaker 1: with a large iron or otherwise metal cap, often shaped

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Speaker 1: in the form of a battering ram like a literal ram,

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Speaker 1: like a goat's head with horns. Uh. The iron would

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Speaker 1: give the battering ram even more weight and resilience, and

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Speaker 1: it would make it more effective. The animals would and

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Speaker 1: you know it forms made it look more interesting. But

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Speaker 1: they also could help with bashing through the the material,

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Speaker 1: depending upon the shapes you were using, and uh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was a pretty effective means of knocking down your

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Speaker 1: basic city walls. Uh. They You also would see other

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Speaker 1: improvements like pulley systems that would allow the battering ram

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Speaker 1: to remain horizontal as it swung instead of tilting upward.

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Speaker 1: So imagine a swing set swing. You know, when you're

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Speaker 1: swinging on a swing, your feet tilt up in the

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Speaker 1: air instead of staying horizontal unless you're actively moving your

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Speaker 1: legs down. And uh, the pulley system would counteract that

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Speaker 1: dency so that way you wouldn't be hitting the wall

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Speaker 1: or door on an upward swing. It would be translated

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Speaker 1: into a horizontal motion so that that momentum that you're

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Speaker 1: transferring would be in the proper direction. And that's what

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Speaker 1: we're talking about. The working principle behind the battering ram

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Speaker 1: is the transfer of momentum momentum quick recap for people

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Speaker 1: who don't remember their physics. It's the quantity of motion

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Speaker 1: and a moving body. And the way you arrive at

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Speaker 1: the quantity of momentum is by multiplying the mass of

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Speaker 1: a moving body by its velocity, So that means momentum

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Speaker 1: of a small object that's moving very very very fast

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Speaker 1: can be the same as a large object moving much

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Speaker 1: more slowly if the numbers work out the right way.

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Speaker 1: But if something is really big and really fast, it

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Speaker 1: has a whole lot of momentum to it. And I've

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Speaker 1: got some funny stories about momentum. I had to explain

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Speaker 1: this to a friend of mine. Uh. At the Renaissance Festival,

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Speaker 1: there was a moment in a dance dance in which

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Speaker 1: it is possible to steal the partner of another person um,

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Speaker 1: in which I was trying to steal the queen from

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Speaker 1: the king. The king being played by a guy who

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Speaker 1: looked an awful lot like Henry the Eighth, including Henry

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Speaker 1: the Eighth impressive mass, and this fellow collided with me.

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Speaker 1: He gave me a little hip check, and he wasn't

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Speaker 1: moving fast, but he did outweigh me by a significant amount,

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Speaker 1: and so I went flying, and thus the transfer of

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Speaker 1: momentum was demonstrated in a very real and ultimately painful way.

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Speaker 1: I have since forgiven him. It actually was pretty funny,

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Speaker 1: but I did sprain both my wrists and my ankle

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Speaker 1: in that incident. So with battering rams, your desired outcome

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Speaker 1: is to have a very large mass, and you wanted

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Speaker 1: to move really quickly so that you can result in

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Speaker 1: this large amount of momentum that transfer to a stationary

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Speaker 1: object like the wall or the gate, and thus caused

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Speaker 1: damage to it. So once battering ram started getting better,

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Speaker 1: obviously cities needed to respond, and they began to reinforce

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Speaker 1: their walls, making them thicker at the base and trying

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Speaker 1: to create new strategies to repel battering ram assaults. My

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Speaker 1: favorite battering ram is actually a fictional one. I like

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Speaker 1: grond Grand was the battering Ram and Lord of the Rings.

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Speaker 1: It was from Suron's army. They used it in the

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Speaker 1: siegeen mins Tira, and it was ont long and had

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Speaker 1: a metal cap that was shaped like a wolf. And

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Speaker 1: the most of the depictions I've seen the wolf is

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Speaker 1: also got some sort of fire or lava coming out

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Speaker 1: of its mouth, making it pretty intimidating. Awesome image. Really.

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Speaker 1: Another ancient season gen similar to this in the sense

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Speaker 1: that you had to get super close to your target

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Speaker 1: was the siege tower. This is a pretty simple concept.

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Speaker 1: It's usually it's like a tower that's on wheels, and

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Speaker 1: you push this tower up against the city wall that

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Speaker 1: you want to uh you want to get past, and

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Speaker 1: you have a gang plank at the top of the

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Speaker 1: tower that you lower so that it rests on the

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Speaker 1: city wall, and then your your force just goes through

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Speaker 1: the siege tower, across the gang plank and into the city.

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Speaker 1: Then you bipass the wall. Entirely very basic idea. Uh. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: things could go wrong. The tower if it were set

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Speaker 1: on fire, could end up causing you to lose quite

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Speaker 1: a few of your men. Uh. And also there are

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Speaker 1: lots of different ways to create obstacles to make it

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Speaker 1: more difficult to get the tower up against a city wall.

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Speaker 1: One of those would be moats. So your basic moat

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Speaker 1: around a castle was really a defense against siege engines

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Speaker 1: like this. Uh. It meant that it was much harder

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Speaker 1: to get something like a siege tower up against the

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Speaker 1: castle walls, because he had to get across the moat first,

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Speaker 1: and the moat might either be dry or it could

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Speaker 1: be filled with water. Not all moats were water. In fact,

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Speaker 1: most of them weren't. Most of them were essentially just

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Speaker 1: a very big ditch around the fort fortified area, so

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Speaker 1: you would have to find a way to bridge that

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Speaker 1: gap if you were an attacker, to allow your siege

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Speaker 1: engine to roll over the moats, you had to build

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Speaker 1: like essentially a temporary bridge to allow the siege engine

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Speaker 1: to roll over it and get access to the city wall.

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Speaker 1: And another defense was to redesign city walls in the

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Speaker 1: first place. Engineers began to make walls that were very

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Speaker 1: thick at the base and would slope from the top

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Speaker 1: down to the base, and that slope meant that the

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Speaker 1: top of the wall would be further away from a

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Speaker 1: tower than the base of the wall. You know, it's

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Speaker 1: because it sloped away from the out side. So that

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Speaker 1: meant that your gang plank had to be longer in

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Speaker 1: order to reach from the siege tower to the top

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Speaker 1: of the city wall. And gang planks were really the

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Speaker 1: weak points of the siege towers. Assuming that you've major

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Speaker 1: siege tower as fireproof as you can manage, which again

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Speaker 1: mostly involved putting the hides of animals on the outside

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Speaker 1: of the tower and wetting them down, you know, drenching

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Speaker 1: them in water as as much as you possibly can. Then,

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Speaker 1: once you set down the gang plank and you have

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Speaker 1: attackers going across, their most vulnerable when they are on

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Speaker 1: that gang plank there standing over the height of the wall.

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Speaker 1: There's probably a moat below them. The gang planks probably

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Speaker 1: not incredibly sturdy or or stable. So the further away

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Speaker 1: the top of the siege tower is from the top

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Speaker 1: of the wall, the harder it is for the attackers

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Speaker 1: to get over. So that was just a basic defense mechanism,

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Speaker 1: was to build these sloping walls for cities to help

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Speaker 1: protect against siege engines. Now, both siege towers and battering

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Speaker 1: rams were made obsolete by the invention of cannons later on.

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Speaker 1: I'll talk about cannons towards the end of this episode.

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Speaker 1: Cannon's actually made those high city walls obsolete. In the

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Speaker 1: first place. Higher walls were more vulnerable to cannon fire,

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Speaker 1: and so the design of city fortifications had to completely change.

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Speaker 1: Once those became a major element in warfare. At that point,

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Speaker 1: those siege engines began to fade into history. You didn't

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Speaker 1: really see them anymore. But I'll get more into cannons

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Speaker 1: a little bit later in the episode. And I'm sure

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Speaker 1: you've already noted that the major disadvantage to both battering

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Speaker 1: rams and siege towers is that you have to get

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Speaker 1: close to your target for them to work. If the

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Speaker 1: defending city has set up other defenses like those trenches

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Speaker 1: or pits or spikes, and they have stuff like hot

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Speaker 1: oil or flaming weapons, getting close isn't terribly attractive. You

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Speaker 1: would much prefer to batter the city from a distance,

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Speaker 1: and so attackers began to design new engines, things that

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Speaker 1: could allow attacks from much further away. So next I'll

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Speaker 1: talk about some of the massive projectile weapons that were used.

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Speaker 1: Uh and they relied purely on mechanical physics to hurl

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Speaker 1: objects at walls. They're pretty cool. Before I do that,

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Speaker 1: let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. So

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Speaker 1: the first projectile siege engine I really want to talk

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Speaker 1: about is the ballista. And if you were to take

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Speaker 1: a casual glance at a ballista, you might think it's

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Speaker 1: an enormous crossbow, and it does resemble a crossbow. But

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Speaker 1: they crossbow and the ballista work on two different principles,

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Speaker 1: two different two different types of tension. Uh, the operation

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Speaker 1: of the ballista depends upon two torsion springs, whereas the

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Speaker 1: crossbow depends upon the natural tension of the bow itself.

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Speaker 1: So let's talk about torsion springs. Torsion springs work by twisting.

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Speaker 1: They store mechanical energy when you twist the torsion spring,

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Speaker 1: and when you release the spring, it unleashes that mechanical

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Speaker 1: energy through untwisting, so it's winding and unwinding. When you

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Speaker 1: wind it up, you've got the mechanical energy, and when

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Speaker 1: you let it go, it unwinds itself and releases that

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Speaker 1: mechanical energy. To make a ballista, you need a pair

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Speaker 1: of torsion springs that you can twist tightly so that

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Speaker 1: when you release them, they unleash that mechanical force in

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Speaker 1: such a way as to throw a projectile, typically a

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Speaker 1: large dart with an iron tip at a target. Now,

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Speaker 1: in ancient times, a torsion spring might look like a

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Speaker 1: loop of some stretchy elastic material. That material was often

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Speaker 1: either hair from animals sometimes humans, all woven together to

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Speaker 1: make really strong ropes, or sometimes it was ligaments and

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Speaker 1: other tissue that was turned into this kind of elastic

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Speaker 1: material and then looped around a frame like a skein

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Speaker 1: that's inside a frame. So imagine a loop of material.

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Speaker 1: In fact, just imagine a rubber band, and imagine that

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Speaker 1: you've got two pegs that are a few inches apart

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Speaker 1: from each other. They're further apart than the length of

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Speaker 1: the rubber band, so you have to stretch the rubber

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Speaker 1: band a little bit two loop either end over the

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Speaker 1: two pegs. Then you put more rubber bands that are

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Speaker 1: the same length over those two pegs, so you've got

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Speaker 1: a few of them, maybe four or five. These rubber

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Speaker 1: bands represent an unwound torsion spring. If you then inserted

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Speaker 1: a throwing arm, what would be considered like the shaft

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Speaker 1: of a throwing arm, into that gap the middle of

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Speaker 1: all those rubber bands, and then use it to twist

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Speaker 1: the rubber bands in a circle, either clockwise or counterclockwise.

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Speaker 1: You would create the hortion. This this twisted tension. You

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Speaker 1: look them over and over again. You can do this

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Speaker 1: with a pencil. So again, just have a rubber band.

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Speaker 1: You can even have maybe someone stand in front of

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Speaker 1: you putting their two thumbs up, and you loop the

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Speaker 1: rubber bands around their two thumbs so that they're stretching

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Speaker 1: them together. You put a pencil in there. You twist

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Speaker 1: the pencil around a few times so that it's it's

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Speaker 1: twisting the rubber bands, and you'll start building up that tension.

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Speaker 1: If you let go of the pencil, then it will

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Speaker 1: unleash all that mechanical energy and it will make the

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Speaker 1: pencil flip around like crazy. Make sure you use an

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Speaker 1: unsharpened pencil and be very careful with this sort of

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Speaker 1: stuff because it might fly up and hit you in

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Speaker 1: the face. But this is the basic principle of the ballista. Now,

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Speaker 1: with the ballista, you have two of these torsion springs,

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Speaker 1: and that meant that they're actually vertically aligned, not horizontally aligned.

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Speaker 1: In other words, you would have imagine you have one

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Speaker 1: thumb higher the the other thumb directly in front of you,

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Speaker 1: and you put the rubber bands on so that you

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Speaker 1: were holding the loop that way. That's the way the

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Speaker 1: ballista torsion springs are aligned. You have to have those

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Speaker 1: that vertical alignment and they're parallel to each other, and

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Speaker 1: between the two torsion springs you have your stock or channel.

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Speaker 1: That's where the projectile moves through. So with a crossbow,

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Speaker 1: this would be where the bolt would slide through as

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Speaker 1: it's being launched from the crossbow. Same sort of thing

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Speaker 1: with a ballista. It's got that stock with the channel

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Speaker 1: in it. That's where the projectile moves through it, and

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Speaker 1: it's between these two vertically aligned torsion springs. So you've

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Speaker 1: got your enormous dart loaded into your ballista, and you've

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Speaker 1: got your two vertically aligned torsion springs. In each torsion spring,

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Speaker 1: you have a throwing arm. Now, the torsion spring on

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Speaker 1: the left side is wound counter clockwise if you were

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Speaker 1: looking at it from above. That means that when the

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Speaker 1: tension releases, it's going to spend its throwing arm in

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Speaker 1: a clockwise direction. The torsion spring on the right side

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Speaker 1: is the opposite. It's wound clockwise, so that when you

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Speaker 1: release the tension, it will spin the throwing arm counterclockwise.

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Speaker 1: And on the opposite end of the throwing arm, you

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Speaker 1: have a line attaching the two together, a rope if

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Speaker 1: you will or string this rope is looped around the

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Speaker 1: end of your projectile. This is the thing that's going

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Speaker 1: to transfer the force to the projectile and make it

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Speaker 1: fly at your target. So just imagine you've got this

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Speaker 1: crossbow looking thing in front of you. The two arms

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Speaker 1: of the ballista in its rest position you haven't wound

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Speaker 1: it yet, are extended outward to the side. So the

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Speaker 1: left one is is almost parallel with the front of

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Speaker 1: the ballist, of the right one is almost parallel with

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Speaker 1: the ballista, and you have a device called a wind us.

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Speaker 1: The windlass is what allows you to crank back those arms.

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Speaker 1: It's creating tension in those torsion springs, so it starts

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Speaker 1: to twist the torsion springs and as a result, the

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Speaker 1: two throwing arms start tilting back towards you. It's that

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Speaker 1: they've bend backwards, although the torsion the throwing arms themselves

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Speaker 1: are not bending. It's just the torsion springs are are

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Speaker 1: rotating as you're twisting them. Uh, so they've been backward.

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Speaker 1: Now that means that you start getting slack in that

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Speaker 1: rope that's between the two ends of the throwing arms.

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Speaker 1: You can use that slack to put it behind your projectile,

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Speaker 1: and when you release the tension on those torsion springs,

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Speaker 1: they untwist that pulls the throwing arms forward, and that

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Speaker 1: pulls that that rope forward as well, transferring the energy

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Speaker 1: to your projectile and shooting it at your target. It's

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Speaker 1: a pretty cool to see this, I mean, it's interesting

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Speaker 1: to see this as two torsion springs as opposed to

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Speaker 1: a crossbow, which would just use the tension of the

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Speaker 1: material itself, the wood, if you will, of the bow.

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Speaker 1: It's all due to mechanical physics. You don't need any

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Speaker 1: chemicals to do this kind of siege engine, and you

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Speaker 1: could also just build this thing when you needed it.

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Speaker 1: In fact, most siege engines were constructed at site where

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Speaker 1: the siege was happening, because they were so big and

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Speaker 1: heavy that moving them from one place across country to

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Speaker 1: another place was not really practical. So usually we just

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Speaker 1: go to the closest forest, cut down some logs, and

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Speaker 1: have some workers start to build siege engines right there

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Speaker 1: on site, wheel them in a place so that they're

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Speaker 1: generally pointed at the thing you want to shoot at,

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Speaker 1: and then you start firing. Uh. And the blister was

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Speaker 1: an early version of that the earliest ones were in

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Speaker 1: the BC era. Uh you would later see them go

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Speaker 1: all the way up through the Middle Ages. They were, however,

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Speaker 1: not terribly mobile. You could put wheels on the cart

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Speaker 1: for a ballista so that you could at least wheel

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Speaker 1: them into place, but it wasn't It's not like you

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Speaker 1: could easily move them once you planted them. They were

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Speaker 1: pretty much stationary once you were firing, and that meant

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Speaker 1: that they were pretty attractive targets. They were very accurate,

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Speaker 1: but they didn't hurl things at incredible distances. You could

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Speaker 1: get a decent distance with them, but they fired in

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Speaker 1: a very low arc like essentially, it was a straight

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Speaker 1: line from the ballista to the target. Um it kind

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Speaker 1: of came out horizontally that way. It didn't fire in

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Speaker 1: an arc the way catapults and tributches did. And it

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Speaker 1: also did comparatively less damage than catapults and tribushes, largely

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Speaker 1: because the projectiles it fired didn't have a lot of

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Speaker 1: mass to them compared to the rocks that you could

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Speaker 1: fire from a catapult or a tributsche. And like I said,

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Speaker 1: crossbows or bows in general work in a very similar way,

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Speaker 1: but this case it's just tension of the material itself

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Speaker 1: as opposed to a tortion spring um so it's your

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Speaker 1: basic spring action, but it's the actual tension of the

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Speaker 1: wood itself. Torsion springs are also very important in other

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Speaker 1: types of seige engines, particularly different types of catapults. Now,

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Speaker 1: the nomenclature here gets a little confusing because a lot

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Speaker 1: of people use the word catapult to refer to a

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Speaker 1: very specific type of siege engine, and other people use

431
00:26:32,800 --> 00:26:37,080
Speaker 1: catapult to describe an entire family of siege engines, including

432
00:26:37,080 --> 00:26:41,399
Speaker 1: Ballista in some cases. But essentially, catapults were meant to

433
00:26:41,440 --> 00:26:44,919
Speaker 1: hurl massive objects through the air. So in order to

434
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:48,960
Speaker 1: avoid confusion, I'm going to talk about the Manganell and

435
00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:53,000
Speaker 1: the Tribuche, which are often both lumped under the general

436
00:26:53,040 --> 00:26:57,760
Speaker 1: category of catapult, but they operate in very different ways.

437
00:26:57,800 --> 00:27:00,560
Speaker 1: So let's start with the Manganell, which was that before

438
00:27:00,600 --> 00:27:03,680
Speaker 1: the Tribute. The Mangonell was a siege engine of the

439
00:27:03,720 --> 00:27:09,840
Speaker 1: Middle Ages, so it came to into development after the Ballista.

440
00:27:10,119 --> 00:27:12,760
Speaker 1: Ballista we're still being used in siegeons at that time,

441
00:27:13,800 --> 00:27:16,040
Speaker 1: and it's kind of like a one armed ballista but

442
00:27:16,119 --> 00:27:20,640
Speaker 1: popped on its side, So the ballista looks like a crossbow,

443
00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:24,399
Speaker 1: which you know has the horizontal bow, but if you

444
00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:27,879
Speaker 1: were to wield an actual bow, like the kind you

445
00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:30,919
Speaker 1: fire arrows from, you would hold it vertically. Well, the

446
00:27:30,960 --> 00:27:34,040
Speaker 1: manganell is like that. It's vertical, but it only has

447
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:36,480
Speaker 1: one arm. You don't you don't have a lower half

448
00:27:36,520 --> 00:27:39,800
Speaker 1: to it. Uh, there's just the throwing arm and the

449
00:27:39,840 --> 00:27:43,439
Speaker 1: torsion spring, and the torsion spring is aligned horizontally instead

450
00:27:43,440 --> 00:27:45,760
Speaker 1: of vertically. So it's like that first example of the

451
00:27:45,840 --> 00:27:47,639
Speaker 1: rubber bands I was talking about, where you're holding your

452
00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:51,720
Speaker 1: thumbs side by side as the torsion spring. Same thing

453
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:55,040
Speaker 1: with the mangonell. So the throwing arm when it's in

454
00:27:55,119 --> 00:27:58,639
Speaker 1: its rest position is vertical. More or less. There's actually

455
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:02,959
Speaker 1: typically a stop so that it can't go completely vertical.

456
00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:06,440
Speaker 1: It will usually be at a pretty high angle. When

457
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:09,960
Speaker 1: you wind the torsion spring, you pull the throwing arm

458
00:28:10,040 --> 00:28:14,560
Speaker 1: back until it's practically horizontal, and then you latch it

459
00:28:14,680 --> 00:28:17,600
Speaker 1: in some way so that it stores that mechanical energy.

460
00:28:17,640 --> 00:28:22,119
Speaker 1: It doesn't just release it. You load your manganel typically

461
00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:26,439
Speaker 1: with heavy stuff, and then you release the torsion spring

462
00:28:26,720 --> 00:28:30,280
Speaker 1: and that twists back to the rest position, which means

463
00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:34,600
Speaker 1: the throwing arm goes vertical and releases its projectile. So

464
00:28:34,640 --> 00:28:37,399
Speaker 1: a mangonel could have this bowl like end to it,

465
00:28:37,480 --> 00:28:40,280
Speaker 1: and that's where you would put your various projectiles. They

466
00:28:40,320 --> 00:28:43,560
Speaker 1: might be rocks or firepots, or, at least according to

467
00:28:43,600 --> 00:28:47,440
Speaker 1: some accounts, dead stuff. The dead stuff was meant to

468
00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 1: hurt defenders in two ways. First, it's pretty psychologically devastating

469
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:56,960
Speaker 1: to have corpses thrown at you, true story. Second, it

470
00:28:57,040 --> 00:28:59,800
Speaker 1: was thought of as a way to introduce disease into

471
00:28:59,840 --> 00:29:04,080
Speaker 1: a fortified location, so it's a kind of biological warfare.

472
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:08,320
Speaker 1: You just throw bloated corpses into a city. It's pretty gross.

473
00:29:09,160 --> 00:29:11,600
Speaker 1: And the whole idea was just to weaken defenses and

474
00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:14,800
Speaker 1: also increase the chance that the defenders would just give up,

475
00:29:15,200 --> 00:29:17,640
Speaker 1: like they're throwing dead stuff at us. Let's let's just

476
00:29:18,280 --> 00:29:22,560
Speaker 1: run up the white flag and stop this. The manganell

477
00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:26,800
Speaker 1: fired projectiles at high velocity and at a low arc,

478
00:29:27,120 --> 00:29:30,240
Speaker 1: so it was a higher arc than the ballista, which

479
00:29:30,320 --> 00:29:32,800
Speaker 1: again was pretty much a straight line, so there was

480
00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:35,800
Speaker 1: a slight arc to it, but it was still fairly low.

481
00:29:35,960 --> 00:29:40,440
Speaker 1: It would aim stuff at walls, not typically over walls.

482
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:44,800
Speaker 1: It could hurl heavier and therefore more devastating projectiles than

483
00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:47,360
Speaker 1: the Ballista. But it was also less accurate than the

484
00:29:47,360 --> 00:29:52,400
Speaker 1: Ballista was uh. It was meant to destroy defensive structures

485
00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:54,480
Speaker 1: rather than go around them. If you look at the

486
00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:57,880
Speaker 1: arc of projectiles from siege engines, Ballista are the lowest,

487
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:00,560
Speaker 1: Manganelles would be next, and then Tribute Chase would be

488
00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:04,280
Speaker 1: nice high arcs Now, according to the resources I looked at,

489
00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:08,680
Speaker 1: Manganelles could hurl projectiles as far as feet, which is

490
00:30:08,720 --> 00:30:11,240
Speaker 1: a pretty fair distance to throw a massive stone using

491
00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:15,120
Speaker 1: pure mechanical power. And like other season Jin's, the real

492
00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:18,120
Speaker 1: genius by the manganell was that it was pretty simple

493
00:30:18,160 --> 00:30:20,800
Speaker 1: to construct. You could again just build it on location.

494
00:30:22,800 --> 00:30:25,960
Speaker 1: Next I will talk about tribouches and then lead it

495
00:30:26,360 --> 00:30:29,600
Speaker 1: with some cannon talk. But before I get into all

496
00:30:29,640 --> 00:30:32,880
Speaker 1: of that, let's take another quick break to thank our sponsors,

497
00:30:41,120 --> 00:30:43,240
Speaker 1: and now to talk about the Tribute Shade. It was

498
00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:47,480
Speaker 1: a very different beast than the Manganel. It was named

499
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:50,800
Speaker 1: after a word an old French which means to throw over,

500
00:30:50,960 --> 00:30:52,760
Speaker 1: and that's kind of what the Tribute Shade did. It

501
00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:55,920
Speaker 1: through projectiles in a high arc, they could be used

502
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:59,120
Speaker 1: to attack defensive walls, or just bypass the walls completely

503
00:30:59,120 --> 00:31:03,680
Speaker 1: and hurled pload into fortified cities. Having massive rocks raining

504
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:06,240
Speaker 1: down on your homes as a powerful motivator when it

505
00:31:06,320 --> 00:31:10,720
Speaker 1: comes time to consider surrender. The Tribute shade didn't depend

506
00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:15,040
Speaker 1: upon torsion springs the way Ballista and Mengonells did. Instead,

507
00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:19,200
Speaker 1: it used a massive counterweight to provide the mechanical force

508
00:31:19,240 --> 00:31:23,000
Speaker 1: to hurl payloads. So it's essentially a lever. Or if

509
00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:26,440
Speaker 1: you prefer a see saw, so think of a seesaw,

510
00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:28,600
Speaker 1: but it has a long end and a short end.

511
00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:31,880
Speaker 1: The counterweight is on the short end and the long

512
00:31:32,040 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 1: end is what hurls the payload. So seesaws are pretty

513
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:38,360
Speaker 1: good analogy. If you have a seesaw balanced in the center,

514
00:31:38,720 --> 00:31:41,880
Speaker 1: too identical weights will balance out. You put two kids

515
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:44,520
Speaker 1: on there the way the same the seesaws right there

516
00:31:44,520 --> 00:31:48,400
Speaker 1: in the middle, they should even out and just balance

517
00:31:48,440 --> 00:31:52,640
Speaker 1: each other. But if you move the seesaw so that

518
00:31:52,680 --> 00:31:56,960
Speaker 1: the pivot point is off center, then the equal weights

519
00:31:57,280 --> 00:32:01,800
Speaker 1: on either end will change the of the actual orientation

520
00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:04,520
Speaker 1: of the seesaw. The shorter end will end up sticking

521
00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:07,120
Speaker 1: up in the air, and the longer end will rest

522
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:10,880
Speaker 1: against the ground. Now, because your typical tribute she uses

523
00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:14,800
Speaker 1: a short arm to hold the counterweight. That means, by

524
00:32:14,840 --> 00:32:17,840
Speaker 1: this little experiment we just talked about, you would actually

525
00:32:17,880 --> 00:32:21,000
Speaker 1: need a lot more weight in the counterweight than you're

526
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:23,880
Speaker 1: going to have in the payload. Otherwise, your payload just

527
00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:26,000
Speaker 1: is gonna sit on the ground and the counterweight would

528
00:32:26,080 --> 00:32:28,440
Speaker 1: just dangle in the air. It would not have the

529
00:32:29,240 --> 00:32:33,600
Speaker 1: weights sufficient enough to pull the lever so that it

530
00:32:33,840 --> 00:32:38,360
Speaker 1: flings your payload at your enemy. The counterweight was also

531
00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:42,640
Speaker 1: typically hinged, meaning that it could swing around on the

532
00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:47,800
Speaker 1: end of this short side of the the tribute shay

533
00:32:47,800 --> 00:32:52,120
Speaker 1: beam that allows that to swing around so it doesn't

534
00:32:52,240 --> 00:32:54,800
Speaker 1: risk hitting the ground and mucking everything up. It's kind

535
00:32:54,800 --> 00:32:57,400
Speaker 1: of like a ferris wheel ride. The compartments on affairs

536
00:32:57,440 --> 00:33:00,120
Speaker 1: wheel are hinged so that people inside the right are

537
00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:03,400
Speaker 1: always in an upright orientation with regard to the ground.

538
00:33:03,920 --> 00:33:06,360
Speaker 1: The same is true for tribute shay counterweights, at least

539
00:33:06,360 --> 00:33:10,600
Speaker 1: with most of them anyway. Now, the huge throwing arm

540
00:33:10,800 --> 00:33:15,120
Speaker 1: hurls payloads that are placed in a sling, so it's

541
00:33:15,160 --> 00:33:17,600
Speaker 1: not like it has a bowl at the end of

542
00:33:17,640 --> 00:33:19,960
Speaker 1: it the way a mangonel did, at least not your

543
00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:23,920
Speaker 1: typical tribute shay. Typically you would use a sling instead.

544
00:33:24,320 --> 00:33:27,520
Speaker 1: So if you don't know what a sling is, imagine

545
00:33:27,720 --> 00:33:32,200
Speaker 1: a pocket and you have two sides of this pocket

546
00:33:32,480 --> 00:33:35,880
Speaker 1: with cords coming from those two sides, one chord on

547
00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:39,080
Speaker 1: each side. Uh And typically the way you would use

548
00:33:39,120 --> 00:33:42,720
Speaker 1: a sling, as you put a rock in the sling,

549
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:46,120
Speaker 1: you swing the sling around your head. You let go

550
00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:48,960
Speaker 1: of one of the chords while holding onto the other one,

551
00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:52,760
Speaker 1: and that releases the rock, slinging it at your target

552
00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:56,440
Speaker 1: hopefully and not behind you unless you're me, in which

553
00:33:56,480 --> 00:33:58,280
Speaker 1: case it goes wherever it wants to go, because I

554
00:33:58,320 --> 00:34:02,480
Speaker 1: can't use a sling in a tribute shame. One of

555
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:06,160
Speaker 1: those two chords is permanently attached to the long end

556
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:09,680
Speaker 1: of the arm, So you've got one end of the

557
00:34:09,719 --> 00:34:14,880
Speaker 1: sling permanently affixed to the tribute shay. The other chord,

558
00:34:15,040 --> 00:34:19,279
Speaker 1: the other end, has a large ring at the very

559
00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:22,799
Speaker 1: end of it, and on the very end of the

560
00:34:22,800 --> 00:34:26,680
Speaker 1: throwing arm itself, there's a little projection called the finger

561
00:34:27,160 --> 00:34:30,759
Speaker 1: that extends outward at a certain angle from the end

562
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:32,480
Speaker 1: of the beam. And by certain angle, I mean you

563
00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:35,200
Speaker 1: determine what the angle is when you build the tribute shame,

564
00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:39,680
Speaker 1: so if you like it, you should have put a

565
00:34:39,760 --> 00:34:41,440
Speaker 1: ring on it. So that's what you do with the

566
00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:45,720
Speaker 1: tribute shay. You slide the slings ring over the finger.

567
00:34:46,719 --> 00:34:48,920
Speaker 1: So when you want to fire a payload, you have

568
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:52,040
Speaker 1: to raise the counterweight into the upright position and lock

569
00:34:52,120 --> 00:34:55,400
Speaker 1: it in places. Typically you have a mechanism there to

570
00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 1: keep it from sliding back down or to swinging back

571
00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:01,879
Speaker 1: down is the better way to say it. And then

572
00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:04,799
Speaker 1: you load your sling with whatever your payload is, like

573
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:09,479
Speaker 1: a giant rock. You then take the ring that's on

574
00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:13,040
Speaker 1: one end and you slide it over the finger of

575
00:35:13,080 --> 00:35:19,400
Speaker 1: the throwing arm. When you fire the tribute shay, you

576
00:35:19,480 --> 00:35:22,959
Speaker 1: remove the block that allows the counterweight too, or locks

577
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:25,040
Speaker 1: the counterweight in place. I should say this allows the

578
00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:29,879
Speaker 1: counterweight to fall. It forces the short end of the

579
00:35:30,480 --> 00:35:35,359
Speaker 1: lever down. The long end is forced upward, and as

580
00:35:35,440 --> 00:35:39,320
Speaker 1: it moves upward, centrifugal force, which is not really a force,

581
00:35:39,360 --> 00:35:43,800
Speaker 1: but never mind that centrigal centrifical force pushes the sling

582
00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:49,239
Speaker 1: outward um and so then as the arm moves through

583
00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:52,760
Speaker 1: this arc, the ring on the end of that finger

584
00:35:53,440 --> 00:35:57,480
Speaker 1: slips free. Once it hits the proper angle as you

585
00:35:57,560 --> 00:36:00,440
Speaker 1: determined when you were building the tribute shape. When it

586
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:04,000
Speaker 1: slips free of the finger, it releases the payload, throwing

587
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:07,280
Speaker 1: it in that high arc, and it sales majestically overhead

588
00:36:07,320 --> 00:36:10,839
Speaker 1: towards your target. And because the counterweight is heavy enough,

589
00:36:11,680 --> 00:36:15,799
Speaker 1: it descends very quickly, so the this means there's a

590
00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:19,399
Speaker 1: very high increase in linear velocity for the throwing arm

591
00:36:19,480 --> 00:36:22,920
Speaker 1: and thus the payload. The release angle of the payload

592
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:27,000
Speaker 1: is dependent upon the angle of the finger. That little projection,

593
00:36:27,440 --> 00:36:30,240
Speaker 1: relatively little projection at the end of your tribute shape.

594
00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:33,880
Speaker 1: So if you want to change the release angle, you

595
00:36:34,040 --> 00:36:36,520
Speaker 1: change the angle of the finger, and then the ring

596
00:36:36,560 --> 00:36:39,360
Speaker 1: will come off at a different point in that arc,

597
00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:42,520
Speaker 1: and thus the payload will fly in a different arc

598
00:36:42,560 --> 00:36:45,440
Speaker 1: towards your target. Of course, you're probably not using perfectly

599
00:36:45,520 --> 00:36:51,600
Speaker 1: uniform stones, so it's not an exact science. You might

600
00:36:51,640 --> 00:36:54,600
Speaker 1: be using stones of slightly different weights, which means that

601
00:36:54,600 --> 00:36:57,880
Speaker 1: that's gonna change the arc as well. But still the

602
00:36:57,880 --> 00:37:03,680
Speaker 1: principle is fairly sound. And then we get to the

603
00:37:03,719 --> 00:37:08,640
Speaker 1: invention and more importantly, the employment of gunpowder in siege weaponry.

604
00:37:08,680 --> 00:37:12,040
Speaker 1: Gunpowder was actually invented in Asia centuries before it became

605
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:16,040
Speaker 1: a useful tool in warfare. But it really wasn't until

606
00:37:16,080 --> 00:37:18,760
Speaker 1: about the fifteenth century that you would see massive artillery

607
00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:22,200
Speaker 1: guns regularly utilized in medieval Europe. There were a lot

608
00:37:22,239 --> 00:37:25,440
Speaker 1: of earlier examples and a lot of historical accounts that

609
00:37:25,480 --> 00:37:30,120
Speaker 1: at least say that cannons were in use, although the

610
00:37:30,160 --> 00:37:34,319
Speaker 1: definition of cannon has changed dramatically over the centuries, so

611
00:37:35,239 --> 00:37:40,640
Speaker 1: some of those accounts are difficult to um verify, simply

612
00:37:40,680 --> 00:37:44,200
Speaker 1: because the cannon that's being referred to in one battle

613
00:37:44,640 --> 00:37:47,680
Speaker 1: maybe a significantly different kind of weapon than one from

614
00:37:47,680 --> 00:37:54,879
Speaker 1: another battle. Uh. There's definitely some evidence of cannons being

615
00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:57,279
Speaker 1: used in sieges though, and in the Hundred Years War

616
00:37:58,200 --> 00:38:02,160
Speaker 1: in northern France. England employed some cannons in a battle

617
00:38:02,160 --> 00:38:05,719
Speaker 1: in thirteen forty six. How many cannons, well, that kind

618
00:38:05,760 --> 00:38:08,239
Speaker 1: of depends upon which historical account, and you believe it's

619
00:38:08,280 --> 00:38:11,759
Speaker 1: somewhere between five and twenty six. And the English won

620
00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:14,440
Speaker 1: the battle. So was that because of the devastating power

621
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:20,120
Speaker 1: of their fully operational death stuff. I'm sorry, cannon's probably not.

622
00:38:20,360 --> 00:38:23,040
Speaker 1: In fact, the English cannons likely did very little actual

623
00:38:23,200 --> 00:38:27,080
Speaker 1: damage against the Genoese mercenaries. They were fighting the Genoese

624
00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:30,560
Speaker 1: mercenaries were fighting on behalf of France, but it really

625
00:38:30,560 --> 00:38:33,520
Speaker 1: scared the pantaloons off those guys because the Genoese were

626
00:38:33,960 --> 00:38:37,719
Speaker 1: really rattled by those loud, smoky weapons and they were

627
00:38:37,760 --> 00:38:40,920
Speaker 1: soundly defeated. But the actual defeat came at the hands

628
00:38:41,040 --> 00:38:45,360
Speaker 1: of traditional English soldiers wielding stuff like swords and axes

629
00:38:45,360 --> 00:38:48,800
Speaker 1: and bows rather than the cannons. And besides, that's not

630
00:38:48,840 --> 00:38:51,120
Speaker 1: even really a siege, so I'm not really gonna talk

631
00:38:51,160 --> 00:38:55,440
Speaker 1: anymore about it. By sixteen seventy, you'd actually see the

632
00:38:55,480 --> 00:38:59,080
Speaker 1: word cannon being used to describe specific types of guns.

633
00:38:59,120 --> 00:39:03,279
Speaker 1: Mounted guns, typically stationary ones like you could roll them

634
00:39:03,280 --> 00:39:07,000
Speaker 1: into place, but they weren't meant to be moved around rapidly.

635
00:39:08,160 --> 00:39:11,080
Speaker 1: The biggest one at that time was called the cannon Royal,

636
00:39:11,600 --> 00:39:15,480
Speaker 1: and typically cannon Royal would weigh around eight thousand pounds

637
00:39:15,600 --> 00:39:18,960
Speaker 1: or three thousand six ms if you prefer and it

638
00:39:19,040 --> 00:39:23,439
Speaker 1: could fire cannonballs weighing at around sixty three pounds or rams.

639
00:39:23,520 --> 00:39:29,040
Speaker 1: That's massive. Then you had whole cannon and dimmi cannon guns.

640
00:39:29,440 --> 00:39:32,920
Speaker 1: Those were of decreasing size and weight and could fire

641
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:36,640
Speaker 1: smaller cannonballs, and by smaller I mean that the smallest

642
00:39:36,640 --> 00:39:39,479
Speaker 1: gut down to be about twenty eight pounds. They're still

643
00:39:39,800 --> 00:39:42,080
Speaker 1: really heavy, particularly if you compare them to the types

644
00:39:42,120 --> 00:39:44,719
Speaker 1: of cannon you'd find on sailing ships a century later.

645
00:39:45,680 --> 00:39:51,440
Speaker 1: Eventually we would refer to cannon by the the weight

646
00:39:51,560 --> 00:39:54,520
Speaker 1: of the shot they fired. What kind of cannonball would

647
00:39:54,560 --> 00:39:57,919
Speaker 1: they fire? So if you hear about a ten pound gun,

648
00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:01,440
Speaker 1: it meant that the shot it fired aired weight ten pounds.

649
00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:04,440
Speaker 1: The gun itself didn't weigh ten pounds, it weighed weigh

650
00:40:04,480 --> 00:40:08,279
Speaker 1: more than that, but the cannonballs weighed ten pounds. So

651
00:40:08,280 --> 00:40:11,000
Speaker 1: if you're about a twenty pounder, that meant that the

652
00:40:11,040 --> 00:40:14,480
Speaker 1: cannonballs weighed twenty pounds. So the bigger the pound edge,

653
00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:17,920
Speaker 1: that just means the heavier the shot, and thus the

654
00:40:17,960 --> 00:40:20,520
Speaker 1: more damaged the cannon would do if you hit what

655
00:40:20,640 --> 00:40:24,760
Speaker 1: you were aiming at. Well, the cannon made earlier city

656
00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:28,680
Speaker 1: defenses completely useless. High walls were not good protection against

657
00:40:28,760 --> 00:40:31,680
Speaker 1: cannon fire, which typically fire in a pretty low arc

658
00:40:31,719 --> 00:40:37,800
Speaker 1: at a very high velocity, so instead new defenses were invented. Essentially,

659
00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:40,360
Speaker 1: new walls were built, and these were lower walls and

660
00:40:40,480 --> 00:40:44,840
Speaker 1: thicker walls. Defensive walls were made to withstand high impacts

661
00:40:44,840 --> 00:40:48,360
Speaker 1: from cannon fire, and because defenders would often have guns

662
00:40:48,360 --> 00:40:51,680
Speaker 1: of their own, traditional methods of breaching walls were pretty

663
00:40:51,800 --> 00:40:54,080
Speaker 1: bad choices. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense

664
00:40:54,120 --> 00:40:59,200
Speaker 1: to wheel a siege engine slowly toward a wall. If

665
00:40:59,200 --> 00:41:02,839
Speaker 1: you're being fired pawned by cannon, you'd be a sitting duck.

666
00:41:03,640 --> 00:41:08,319
Speaker 1: So it completely changed warfare from that moment forward. You

667
00:41:08,400 --> 00:41:12,719
Speaker 1: also saw other changes as well, from armor to swords

668
00:41:12,800 --> 00:41:16,680
Speaker 1: and all sorts of stuff, all because gunpowder had entered

669
00:41:16,719 --> 00:41:20,000
Speaker 1: the scene. Cannons themselves are fascinating all the way, from

670
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:23,120
Speaker 1: the early bronze guns to the steel guns that redefined

671
00:41:23,160 --> 00:41:26,360
Speaker 1: warfare yet again, but that warrants its own episode. For now,

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00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:29,399
Speaker 1: I need to say farewell, and I need to get

673
00:41:29,400 --> 00:41:32,280
Speaker 1: ready for the Renaissance Festival. If you're in the Atlanta area,

674
00:41:32,320 --> 00:41:34,120
Speaker 1: you should really come out and see us. It's pretty

675
00:41:34,200 --> 00:41:36,799
Speaker 1: entertaining day out. And if you guys have suggestions for

676
00:41:36,880 --> 00:41:39,239
Speaker 1: future episodes of tech Stuff, you should write me and

677
00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:42,160
Speaker 1: let me know about them. The address is tech Stuff

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00:41:42,280 --> 00:41:44,600
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com, or drop me a

679
00:41:44,640 --> 00:41:47,040
Speaker 1: line on Facebook or Twitter. My handle at both is

680
00:41:47,080 --> 00:41:50,080
Speaker 1: tech stuff h s W now talk to you again

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00:41:50,760 --> 00:41:58,800
Speaker 1: really soon for more on this and thousands of other topics.

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Speaker 1: Is it how stuff works? Dot com W