Quote:Do they just line up and fire oodles of ammo at each other, then done ? Or is it a more deliberate, directed sort of fight, with small bodies of men sniping, aimed shots, sometimes massed volleys, moving back and forth, a loose firing line trying to provoke the other side into loosing off all their ammo, sallies and threats, trying to bully the line out of the way, until stalemate is reached and each line has drawn off the other's sting ?
I'll buy that, to a certain extent
But you just can't draw an analogy between slings and pretty much any other projectile weapon.
The way I usually put it is: most projectile weapons are 'idiot' weapons. So called because any idiot can use one with reasonable success after a very short practice spell.
Classic examples of 'idiot' weapons would be: guns, crossbows, bow and arrow (to a certain extent). Any weapon that can be sighted and easily aimed.
Conversely slings are NOT idiot weapons. It takes years of practice to develop sling accuracy to the point where you can compare it to even a novice bowman or rifleman.
So while any army would certainly possess a small number of slingers as snipers. The majority would be broad section slingers. Capable of getting a missile a certain distance and within a pretty broad target area.
In a way this cuts down their effectiveness as tactical fighters - but given their ability to put a lot of mass into the air for long periods of time I think they would be used far more for a debilitating and suppressing bombardment rather than surgical strikes.
The average roman legionnaire would have been a bombardment slinger with a few small units - like the balearic slingers of old - who would have been your specialist 'shooters'.