I dunno, C-A: you earlier wrote that a slinger could't hit a barn at 500 m. But now you say it's easy to hit a barn at 400 m ?

There is, admittedly, 100m difference. But which one is it: is 400-500 m an unfeasibly far distance for anyone, so that wind or air temperature will deviate shot hopelessly and the slinger can't even see where his shot is landing and hence has no idea of how hard to sling, or is it perfectly reasonable to expect a trained slinger to hit a house at that distance (or, perhaps more realistically, to land a bullet among 1000 men, as in the account of Xenophon) ?

We can speculate. We can experiment. We can study our sources closely. Hence the value of hte passage of Xenophon (Anabsis 3.2-4), which I would urge everyone with an interest in slinging to read again.

I would maintain the diff. between war-slinging and short-slinging; it's a thought inspired by something Paleoarts wrote a while back. En masse slinging at long distance-- say 250-300m-- with special ammo, in groups of 500 or 1000, is diff. from the shepherd's slinging. You're right that short range accuracy (say 60 m) must give you the control and the skill to fight with a sling. But I still think it's very different contexts, and uses, of the same artifact.

That streamer's has got to take out most of the energy...

Thearos wrote on Dec 17^th, 2010 at 6:54pm:


Unfortunately there is no simple formula that can be applied in all case; heaps of variables involved, certainly nothing as easy as double the height, double the distance. There will be gain but much much less than a straight ratio.