http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkCtNaO1W6Q

Interesting claims - piercing bronze armour at 160 meters?

Allow me to put on my pedant's cap.

Cerigotto / Antikythera is one of the sites that have produced lots of sling bullets (some published e.g. by the Greek archaeologist and collector Rhosopoulos in the late C19th, some published by Clive Foss). Those marked "BASILEWS"-- might date to 330 BC, the Persian counter offensive against Alexander the Great (so says the military historian N. Sekunda). Others might date to the Rhodian anti-piratical expedition to the island (possibly in v. late C4th). The new excavations (and we're listening to the Greek guy digging there, if I understand rightly) are turning up more of them.

I do wonder about the figures given. The litt. evid. for ancient Greek slinging is pretty minimal (Thuc, on the Akarnanians especially, on Rhodians; Xen. on the Anabasis; Diod. on Baleares; Polybios on the Achaians; lots of casual references of the type "... and 500 slingers".

Thuc. says that getting sniped at by slings (with stones) was so bad that you had to walk around in armour.

Xen., the Anabasis passage, which has been discussed often in this forum (3. 3. 16–18; 3. 4. 16), says that slingers shoot lead twice as far as archers, so apparently 400m.

Livy reproducing Pol says that sling bullets sink into unprotected flesh.

-- but breaking or penetrating bronze armour at 160m ? That sounds like the sort of thing a lecturer says to impress, but not completely thought through; at least, I can't think of any evidence (and I've done a fair bit of work on Greek sling bullets).

I also noticed the gentleman repeats the claim that sling bullets heated up in flight, presumably repeating the ancient claims of them actually melting. As you know I consider this claim entirely fantastic. Even if all the kinetic energy was  converted to heat the temperature rise would be minimal, only a few degrees at most.

However the claim that they pierced bronze armour could be tested fairly readily by building a small rubber band powered catapult/ballista and shooting lead bullets at a sheet of  metal. Bronze may be hard to get but sheet copper should give a reasonable approximation. With such a fixed device aiming and velocity measurement would be greatly simplified. Don't know if you can interest anyone in academia to fund such an experiment but it shouldn't cost more than a couple of hundred quid. :)

BTW who's doing the interviewing? Sounds like one of my countrymen.

I think we should remember the fact that lead glandes have very little air resistance so they lose very little kinetic energy over long distances.I would "guesstimate" 15-20% depending on weight (heavier ones retaining velocity better of course) at 160m.It sounds realistic for me that lead glandes slung by ancient slingers could pierce through bronze armor,if I assume correctly that bronze armor had a thickness of 1-2mm.I would love to try slinging at bronze sheet,at maybe 20m so I can hit it...but I don't have any bronze sheet.Anyways I'm going to try on a steel\iron sheet someday on a right spot.Playing with the calculator I found out that well slung sling bullets can reach the kinetic energy of a 9mm bullet at around 350 J. Even if we take 200 J of energy that would definitely pierce through a 2mm bronze sheet,but I wouldn't try to guess how much energy it would be left.

Thearos wrote on Mar 1^st, 2011 at 7:38pm:

Thuc. says that getting sniped at by slings (with stones) was so bad that you had to walk around in armour.

This, for me, disproves the armour-piercing claim. Also, if armour piercing sling bullets were possible then we would have seen Agincourt-style battles where large bodies of armoured men were destroyed by companies of slingers.

When a lead bullet hits bronze armour, the lead will deform and the bronze will dent. It wont get through.

I mostly have to agree with Aussie, but copper wouldn't be a great substitute for bronze, as it's a lot softer. There was a reason the ancients went all the way to the "tin isles" to bring back the alloying agent. Maybe a sheet of a hard alloy of alumin(i)um would be a good approximation.

I'm not sure what the loss in velocity with a lead glande would be at 160 meters but the 9mm bullet would lose a fair amount. And remember that energy varies as the square of velocity. A 10% loss in velocity translates to 19% in energy.

I understand that copper would be a lot softer than bronze. But it still might give an indication, if it doesn't work with copper it sure won't with bronze. Have no opinion on the aluminium, just don't know enough about it's resistance to punching shear. Of course sheet steel should also be tried.

I follow all your calculations about KE but there's more to it than that. KE is only one factor. Sure lead is softer than copper or steel but that doesn't preclude its penetrating a sheet if the velocity is high enough. (When I was a kid my old airgun would happily punch lead pellets through two sheets of roofing iron when the spring was still new.)

It wouldn't be necessary to shoot at 160 m, the bullet doesn't know how far it's gone only how fast it's travelling when it hits. To reach 160 m, a lead bullet would have to have been launched at a min. velocity somewhat over 40 m/s, assume 10 % loss, so shoot from closeup at a velocity of 36 m/s and see what happens. With a rubber band powered catapult and a chronograph like those slingshotters use controlling and measuring speed should be relatively easy.

40m\s is a relatively low velocity for slingers slinging lead glandes.I'm not not an ancient slinger trained from boyhood and I measured about 70m\s at 20m.

jlasud wrote on Mar 4^th, 2011 at 3:57am:

40m\s is a relatively low velocity for slingers slinging lead glandes.I'm not not an ancient slinger trained from boyhood and I measured about 70m\s at 20m.

I agree that 40 m/s is a conservative estimate, based only on the minimum speed needed to achieve a 160 m range. But if that works then even faster is going to be even better!

How did you measure your slinging speed?

Hi Everyone,
My name is John, I live in Sydney, Australia but help Greek archaeologists organise digs in Kythera & Antikythera in July & August.

I took this video, I'm the guy with the Aussie accent you can hear behind the camera.

I'm not an archaeologist but learn a lot from helping organise digs.

It's probably easiest to explain in point form...

Background
* Antikythera is a small island, strategically located in Mediterranean shipping lanes; North/South from Greece (technically Europe) to Africa & the Middle East, and East/West from modern day Turkey as far as Gibraltar. Type Antikythera into Google Earth to see.

* Due to its strategic location it was the home to pirates from perhaps around 400BC, to about 90BC.
It definitely functioned during Alexander the Great's time. It is thought that the Persians were involved, but their actual role is yet to be proven.
At this stage the hypothesis is that Antikythera operated as a Pirate's Lair and/or Persian Naval base. The Persian influence is thought to have diminished after the initial phase of establishing the fortress.

* The fortress has a circumference of about 1000m, with walls that stood up to 9 metres in height. This would have been very expensive to build, another signal re. a tie with the Persians (perhaps financing construction, at a minimum).

* The pirates who occupied Antikythera for several hundred years are thought to have come from/retained ties with Phalasarna in North Western Crete.

* The main business model of such pirates was a bit like the way the Somalians work today, capturing ships for ransom.

* Lots of evidence of conflict has been found by the archaeologists.
They believe that the population was wiped out in approx 89BC when the Romans attacked them to stamp out piracy in the Med. There is also evidence that the Rhodeans also attacked - most likely in retaliation for shipping losses etc. as they were a significant shipping power during the period.

* Lots of lead sling bullets, arrow heads, catapult stones (a headless statue was once found and the archaeologists told me it's head was probably used as a catapult missile at some stage) etc.

Sling bullet references
* I don't know where Aris, the archaeologist interviewed in the video got the figure of piercing armour at 160m. Will ask him when I speak to him in a couple of weeks.
Don't forget though, soldiers/pirates using sling bullets at the time were professionals, perhaps with skill levels that are very rare today. And it's almond shaped lead projectiles that we're talking about.

* One of the references in the interview was to Ovid, the Latin poet, saying in a poem that someone's heart was likened to the heat of a sling bullet thrown by a Balearic slinger.

* The reference to a Vasseleos (sp?) means a king... that some sling bullets found in Antikythera & other places have had king's names inscribed on them.

* They have found sling bullets in Antikythera with inscriptions on them, saying something along the lines of "from the Phalasarnanians"

* In Cyprus, a sling bullet has been found with an inscription that roughly translates to "we are entering (screwing) you, become pregnant". A bit like how pilots write on bombs with chalk.

* They found and excavated a grave in Antikythera, were a sling bullet was found next to the buried person's skeleton. The assumption is that this sling bullet was lodged in the guys body when he was buried.

* Velocity wasn't the only thing that made lead sling bullets lethal, heat was too. Have heard a couple of different explanations from engineers & archaeologists but they agree, heat affects the destructive force upon impact. Don't quote me on this, I'm not an expert.

Other
I had an interesting chat with some Australian re-enactors, who simulated the advance of Hoplites into Persian arrow fire during the Battle of Marathon - which helped produce a little qualitative data that being showered with arrows, probably didn't produce many fatalities.
Slings bullets, if used instead (which isn't the case) would have had the potential to inflict greater damage.

I'm no expert but after trying on replica Corinthian helmets, I get the impression a sling bullet hit to the head in full flight would have caused a pretty major concussion, if not much worse.

Antikythera Field Research
Never know, if anyone from this forum is keen enough, there might be opportunities to volunteer to go and dig with the archaeologists in Antikythera in August - perhaps helping Greek  archaeologists find more ancient sling bullets from in the dirt.

Below is a link to a research paper in Greek re. sling bullets in Antikythera.
Sorry my written Greek isn't good enough to translate it.
http://www.krg.org.au/antikythera-horos.pdf


Cheers,

John

Welcome so slinging.org!

If you are interested, I have two videos of biconical clay sling bullets being launched with the axial 'rifle' spin that gives maximum range and lethality:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2atj_FM0AjA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1JPTA5TaHM

Note that the name 'Greek style' given to some types of throw is hypothetical, based on the many coins & vases etc that depict the starting position. There is no text from that period that describes how the Greeks actually used the sling. It is a good style though, fast and powerful and in the vertical form it does not need much space around you. I have slung in rank with guys two paces to each side of me  without whipping either of them.

I agree that 40 m/s is a conservative estimate, based only on the minimum speed needed to achieve a 160 m range. But if that works then even faster is going to be even better!

How did you measure your slinging speed?[/quote]
By measuring out the 20m distance from the point of slinging to the target,slinging,filming and watching the hundreds of a seconds on a video editing program.It was with a long sling (40-50") and a 57g lead biconical.This method isn't the most precise one but fairly accurate,at least for me.40m\s is more fitting for shorter slings and heavy stones.But here we're talking long range lead slinging.

Putting an even larger pedant's cap on--

the Cyprus sling bullet is mentioned in P. PERDRIZET, Inscriptions de Chypre, BCH 20, 1896, 336-63, quoted at 356— no. A2 (priv. collection). The article is available on various sites, e.g. Cefael or persee. It reads KYE, which means "be pregnant". But it could also be something else, e.g. Kye(ston), the name of an ethnic group; or something else; or a fake. The "picturesque" iscirbed bullets are actually pretty problematic ("catch that", "blood",etc). Though the sling bullets saying DEXAI, "receive" are in fact well attested archaeologically (from Athens)  

jlasud wrote on Mar 4^th, 2011 at 10:47am:

This method isn't the most precise one but fairly accurate,at least for me.40m\s is more fitting for shorter slings and heavy stones.But here we're talking long range lead slinging.

I wasn't doubting you, I've seen your videos and don't doubt you could sling at that speed, merely curious about the measuring method. And I think that reviewing video is quite an accurate one, I suspect within 10% or so.

Quote:

* Velocity wasn't the only thing that made lead sling bullets lethal, heat was too. Have heard a couple of different explanations from engineers & archaeologists but they agree, heat affects the destructive force upon impact. Don't quote me on this, I'm not an expert.

Okay lets put this to bed for once and all.
Lead is very soft with a very low melting point - much much lower than bronze or copper.

Lead bullets do not heat up in flight - they however do heat up a ON IMPACT (noticeably so but nt enough to get 'hot' or melt). THis is because lead is soft and deforms on impact, it is the compression from the deformation that heats the lead up not friction from flight.

Now assuming the preceeding FACT is wrong and lead bullets do get red hot in flight - what you then have is a mass of molten lead. All this will do against ANY armur is splatter. Hot led is just about the worst missile you could use if you wanted to penetrate armour.

So if the fact that glandes don't heat up in flight doesn't convince you then maybe the fact that hot lead is much too soft to penetrate even thin armourn should.

Cold lead might conceivable shatter thin bronze armour.
And that's all that anyone can say in reality.  

And to put this into ultimate perspective. lead bullets fired from guns reach much higher velocities and spin rates than sling bullets and while bullets are hot - they do not get glowing read hot or even hot enough to deform in flight.

This myth is totally busted - let's move on to reality shall we ?

Just a couple more things to really nail it.

Not only does lead have a low melting point, it has a low specific heat of 0.13 kJ/kg.degree. All this means is that it heats up quickly. However the only energy available to do this heating is the kinetic energy imparted during the throw so any energy converted to heat means speed loss and consequent loss of carry distance. But even so if all the kinetic energy in a gland thrown at 50 m/s were somehow to be converted to heat it would raise its temperature less than 10 degrees.

Also this supposition totally ignores the fact that at slinging type speeds the passing air would be a cooling factor not a heating one. Any thrown hot missile is going to arrive at the target colder than it started, not hotter. Sure meteorites burn up in the atmosphere but their speeds are thousands of times faster than those of sling bullets; the analogy doesn't hold.

The only time where heating sling ammunition may be of some effect is when hot stones were thrown onto thatched rooves with the aim of igniting them. I admit I've never done any experimentation with this but even this sounds pretty farfetched. I just can't see a stone being heated hot enough to ignite straw after having flown through cooling air for 100m or so. It might work with a large iron missile which can be heated far hotter than lead.

Aussie,I haven't done any experiments either with heated shot but I imagine that stones can be heated to 800 degrees C,if so it will be probably still really hot when it embeds itself in a 20" layer of thatching.The more dense and bigger mass the stone the better it holds the heat.The air would cool it's surface during it's 5-8 sec of flight but if embeds itself in a thatched roof it quickly gets really hot inside out.I think it's possible.And lead surely doesn't heat up during flight,only gets warm by impact(experienced it).Oh and an idea just came to test the heated shot:heat a dense sling stone,take it out from the fire,blow it with a powerful fan for 8 sec than drop it on a segment of thatching in a way like it would penetrated it,and see if it ignites it.This takes out the need for a fireproof sling and a thatched house to ignite and the accuracy to hit it from hundreds of meters.I don't how did they resolve the problem of a sling capable of holding heated shot...

The heated stone thing was done for a TV program about conquistadors. A folded bit of cotton protected the sling pouch and was replaced for each shot.

Yes it COULD work but still very iffy. It would be far easier to merely sling small jars of already ignited flammable substance ala Molotov cocktails. The chances of a suitably heated stone, etc. landing in just the right place to transfer its heat and start a fire are definitely low.

I also agree that leaden projectiles do heat up from the deformation due to impact - slightly, but nowhere near enough to melt. It's a physical impossibilty.

David Morningstar wrote on Mar 7^th, 2011 at 3:06am:

The heated stone thing was done for a TV program about conquistadors. A folded bit of cotton protected the sling pouch and was replaced for each shot.

Yes indeed I read it somewhere on the forum that cotton soaked in pitch? was wrapped around the heated shot and when slung it would burst into flames.It sound good and realistic,the hard part would be that somehow the cotton must be tied to the stone really good,and the hot stone would probably make the pitch smoke and ignite quickly I think.I know that you wrote about another version when you place a piece of cotton on the pouch as a "sabot" so the hot stone doesn't ignite the pouch.If you know a link about that TV show,could you post it ?I've looked after it but found other shows.If you can't find the link ,the name of the show would help too.

C.A.
I entirely agree with you...  The idea of a lead glande heating up in flight is completely absurd!!!  I do wonder though...  Who came up with this idea, and how did it become so pervasive???

Science is wonderful, but scientists do not have all the answers, they only make educated guesses, and education may be flawed...

There were probably two reasons that ancient peoples though sling bullets melted in flight. One, lead deforms a lot when it hits something and looks like a motion capture image of a splash of liquid. Two, the lead does heat up a little during flight from friction and on impact from adiabatic heating. Together they make it seem like the lead heated and melted in flight, but cooled off after hitting the target.

Masiakasaurus wrote on Jun 30^th, 2011 at 11:56pm:

There were probably two reasons that ancient peoples though sling bullets melted in flight. One, lead deforms a lot when it hits something and looks like a motion capture image of a splash of liquid. Two, the lead does heat up a little during flight from friction and on impact from adiabatic heating. Together they make it seem like the lead heated and melted in flight, but cooled off after hitting the target.

Come on now Masi, what difference does it it make if the slinger is a diabetic or not? ;)

I had a batch of clay glandes in the kiln that I wanted to cool quickly, they were too hot to touch but not as hot as when I fired them, I dropped them in the dog water bucket.  They hissed as they hit the water and made some small bubbles but seemed to cool quickly.  I picked one out, it was wet but rapidly evaporated the water and pretty quickly got too hot to hold comfortably.  I think that if you heated it red hot and wrapped it in something to protect the sling, it would still be hot enough to start a fire when it got there.  Bill

Bill Skinner wrote on Jul 1^st, 2011 at 2:16pm:

I had a batch of clay glandes in the kiln that I wanted to cool quickly, they were too hot to touch but not as hot as when I fired them, I dropped them in the dog water bucket.  They hissed as they hit the water and made some small bubbles but seemed to cool quickly.  I picked one out, it was wet but rapidly evaporated the water and pretty quickly got too hot to hold comfortably.  I think that if you heated it red hot and wrapped it in something to protect the sling, it would still be hot enough to start a fire when it got there.  Bill

Try it and see. You don't have to actually sling it, merely lift it out of the fire wait 30 seconds or so and place it on a pile of dried grass or leaves. Let us know if it works - I'm just basing my supposition that it won't on how hard it can be to light a fire even with a full flame.

I think clay would be much better for starting fires than lead because clay and ceramics hold heat for longer than metals can.

Masiakasaurus wrote on Jul 1^st, 2011 at 8:48pm:

I think clay would be much better for starting fires than lead because clay and ceramics hold heat for longer than metals can.

Again, I invite you to do some experimenting; bound to be worth any amount of theorizing.

I think I have a lead sinker or two that could be improvised fire starters. I just have to make sure I have enough to equal a glans. The 4th of July is coming up, and it is traditional to light fires (or fireworks)...

I had actually never heard of shots heating up in the air, but the discussion is interesting...  Just one comment on that, if the below quote is true and the bullets supposedly only get as hot as a human heart (if I am reading that right), then It really wouldn't be that hot, they could conceivably get that hot on a hot day.  I've burnt myself on rocks that were left out under the sun.  Perhaps these tales stuck around not because the heat made a real difference in fighting, but because it was just really intimidating to pick up a shot that was just fired at you and find it to be hot...

AussieJohn wrote on Mar 4^th, 2011 at 10:08am:

* One of the references in the interview was to Ovid, the Latin poet, saying in a poem that someone's heart was likened to the heat of a sling bullet thrown by a Balearic slinger.

One other thing, remember that not all metal of the time was created equal.  Slight differences in thickness and composition could make or break a breastplate (so to speak).  Also, the angle at which an 'almond' shaped bullet hits the metal could also factor in...
That's all, Eo out.

Also keep in mind that specific heat is measured in heat/mass, and lead is very dense, comparing heat/volume between lead and clay might be interesting, however, you could heat clay much hotter than lead due to its low melting point.

I had two small cups in the kiln this morning, they were glowing when I turned the kiln off.  I walked the dogs for about a mile, (2km-), about 15, 20 minutes.  I came back and put the cups in a metal pot with some green leaves to blacken them and put a top on to keep the oxegyn levels low.  The leaves smoked heavily and would have burst into flame if the top wasn't on the pot.  I have no idea how you would sling something that hot but a clay gland will hold heat nicely.  Bill

Could you perhaps make a sling pouch from metal rings, like maille or some such?

A friend of mine used to knit wire, she knitted beads into it and made necklaces, perhaps that would work?  I would try it myself but I can't knit.

Sadrice wrote on Jul 4^th, 2011 at 3:18pm:

Could you perhaps make a sling pouch from metal rings, like maille or some such?

yes, I believe douglas the black made one a few years ago - he was a little obsessed with slinging fireballs  ;)

(slowly reading through a lot of old subjects)

A few suggestions/comments for various posts in this thread:

• Keep sling from burning, when slinging heated projectiles: Dip sling with leather pouch or (wool)cloth lining in water, drop in projectile (not in the water ;)), sling. If done fast, cooling is negligible.
  
• Slinging heated stone wrapped in tarred cloth: Make a small bag with a string closure. Drop in the heated shot into the bag, draw strings closed, sling. For delayed ignition, line the bag with damp cloth, moss or other fiber. Takes two or three persons to operate. Quite feasible.
  
• Piercing bronze armor: Bronze is brittle. Some bronze alloys (without lead or silicium) are more brittle than others. Less brittle than cast iron, but still. A look at Wikipedia also mentioned a form of corrosion called "bronze disease", caused by copper chlorides. That would weaken the armor further. Also, when you work out the dents in the armor with a hammer, it the bronze becomes more brittle. May be possible.
  
• Metallic slings: Form the pouch from chain mail.
  

i'm not too sure on how well a sling burns, but my thickly braided rockman's can take a decent amount of fire with a little amount of actual damage. while playing around etc burning off hairs from my sling i learned to hang my slinging on a hook, or for some extra fun on your finger with the loop at the top. light the bottom of the sling (should be where a whip cracker is) and the whole thing catches on fire and dies out after a second if it's a really hairy sling. the fire lights at the bottom, and quickly rises up. if it's really hairy and you really get it lighted it looks like the whole sling is burning, if it isn't a sisal yeti monster then the flame will quickly rise up. no damage at all too the cords.

after seeing that i decided to do even stupider stuff. when you burn it this way, the pouch slightly catches around the edges (rockman, thick straps), but not the actual pouch itself. so of course i needed to do something potentially dangerous to remove the hairs on the pouch. well i couldn't figure anything out  ;) so i just did it normally, light the area, wait for it to burn. unfortunately, the pouch was pretty hairy and there wasn't enough air to set it on fire correctly. so i had to hold the lighter there for a few seconds before it burned right. no damage at all

long story (with many grammar mistakes) short, after a few seconds of intentional burning and no protective equipment the sling took no damage at all, minus a few hairs. so i doubt any serious methods would be needed to sling flaming ammo or hot ammo once or twice. if the sling isn't allowed to cool off after each toss then i guess some adjustments would be needed.

i don't think submerging the sling in water is a good idea. if the slings were wool then the sling might shrink or felt after some long use. if the cord has glue/resin in it then it will become hard and stiff in water (at least thats what i think makes a sling using modern materials stiff when dunked in water). i don't think a metal sling is viable either, it's much too heavy, expensive and possibly dangerous. i wouldn't want to be hit by the release cord of the sling.

a jax/thomas captive release caulk tube design using ancient materials sounds like a viable method.

if i had to do this i would like someone to load for me so that i can immediantly sling it when i drop the ammo.