At the risk of speaking out of turn, i recently skimmed(please note) through Tracy Rihll's book, The Catapult- A history, and unless i have misread, the author, who openly quotes slinging.org positively , has some very interesting counterpoints to what is generally considered slinging history. for instance, she notes that slings cannot normally produce enough energy to pierce skin (slings generally reach 31m/s and for a blunt object to pierce skin is generally 49m/s pg 100-101) so why are there writings of a medical implement for removing "sling shot" from human bodies? and later in the book-i forget where, notes that as lead glandes where in specific size/weight categories, and some are to large to sling it seems logical they where intended for catapults-from handheld to ballistae size. Considering the assumption that glandes where found stockpiled in fortresses that would severly hamper a slinger-of any style-catapults of some sort would make more sense. Also, generally speaking, slingers in the day were considered in the lower echelons, and how many armies would pay the huge amounts for such beautifully cast sling ammo(as is often found by eagle eyed collectors)with inscriptions? surely it makes more sense that expensive ammo that would need a vague skill to produce (more than collecting smooth stones) would be  the more suited to a war engine that could puncture skin and cause violent injuries? also another point that strikes me as interesting is the "rifled" spin that can be imparted on a ellipsoidal projectile with a sling(i have managed this regularly ) but how could this be done with say-a bullet firing crossbow?the more i think about it, the more it brings up questions. has any one read this book properly, and am i missing something here?

David Morningstar wrote on Apr 28^th, 2011 at 5:19am:


yep.

Also the spin does not need to be that much. Coupled with the forward momentun and shape a very slow rotation would still help to tear a hole in material and skin. Once the skin is breached the missile has a fairly easy path.

Think of a carpenters brace and a modern drill. Both do the same job, one turns at 1000's of rpm. One turns at about 20 rpm. Both can drill holes with the same drill bits.

Who would take the time to make well made slig bullets - how about the slingers themselves.

Sounds like she's definitely talking out of her fundament.

White Tiger wrote on Apr 28^th, 2011 at 3:18am:

I've read her book fairly thoroughly since it was brought up in the forum some years ago, by Thearos, I think.

As you say, she cites the forum, but is highly selective in doing so. Her thesis that hand thrown sling bullets cannot cause the injuries described in historical conflicts is on very shaky ground- close to complete nonsense!

You also make exactly the point which immediately occurred to me, and which she never attempts to answer, which is the method of applying rifle spin to the bullet in a mechanical device. It seems she may assume no such spin was applied.

Although there was some useful information in the book, her arguments that small catapults must have caused the injuries attributed to slings are very unsatisfactory.

The sling velocities quoted by her (30-33m/s I think) are complete nonsense, coming from the Thom Richardson article, where I believe measurements were made under less than ideal circumstances. A little bit of (very) basic physics should have made that clear, and such has been well known to members of this forum for some time. A sling bullet is not blunt, and the hand thrown velocities were likely to have been of the order of 50m/s or more, I would guess.

Perhaps as a corollary, slings were used in many other parts of the world other than within Greek and Roman military conflict, and have been regarded pretty much universally as weapons to be feared.

I'm not arguing that small mechanical 'stone throwers' may not have existed, but she fails to make her case that only they could have caused the injuries attributed to slings in ancient battle. It also strikes me that such devices would be extremely costly to make and maintain, and the numbers of such devices compared with the number of available slingers was likely rather small.

Masiakasaurus wrote on Apr 28^th, 2011 at 10:00am:

Don't remember the reference off-hand , but I seem to remember it comes from a medical journal...

Quote:


Projection is based largely on the size of a bronze (I think) ring which is a critical component for the devices. There are scaling rules in the contemporary military engineering sources allowing prediction of small sized catapults where you find small rings (sort of washer things, really) - don't remember the details exactly, but it didn't seem that far fetched.

When I get home I'll check the details

wow! Awesome response guys , thank you for all the posts! As Wanderer  and Masiakasaurus noted she repeatedly mentions small handheld catapults, though no evidence of such things have been found (including our clearest window to the past, paintings and illustrations) also,it seems unlikely that any army would be able to make so many of such devices, not to mention the maintenance and skill required to use them consistently. at one point she mentions the pock marked stone walls of a certain city/fortress( I Forget) and stating that no sling could cause such damage, though i with very moderate skill, easily chip out chunks of concrete from precast walls (the industrial stuff) with Aggregate stone. I highly doubt a lot of what is written more and more so. 

Yes, it's been discussed before; I've raised the issue a number of times. Rihll's arguments aren't all very good. Xenophon is explicitly about the use of lead bullets by slingers. (Caesar does not mention lead bullets entering the bodies of Celts; that's Livy on the battle of 189 BC-- I've also mentioned this elsewhere on the forum; Rihll has to argue that it's hand held catapults, which is unlikely at that date).

For Masia...
The reference to velocities for sling penetration etc.

   M. Belkin, Wound Ballistics. Progress in Surgery , 16 (1978), 7-24.

I can't find my copy (but hardly a gripping read from my recollection). Rihil also gives a source for a formula (but doesn't give the formula herself) to a book:

  Sellier & Kneubuehl, Wound Ballistics and the Scientific Background, Elsevier. 1994. This is very much a physics/engineering style book (lots of algebra, fluid dynamics etc.) but since it's originally a German book, I believe, it's probably pretty thorough .

I've not been able to lay my hands on it, but I may have another look for in a medical library I can get to. - bits of it can be seen in Google books.

It may be (rereading Rihil at p100) that she gets the 49m/s value from a formula in this book.

She also cites experiments (reported in the book above) on 8.5 gm spherical shot causing contusions at 46m/s and muscle penetration at 70m/s. Extrapolating those numbers to even the lightest shot used by slingers which is perhaps around three times that weight is silly. Interestingly, her estimate for her catapult velocities is 60m/s to 70m/s, which is pretty much where I would expect professional slingers to be anyway.

Just as a reminder here, her argument is based on 'a good slinger' throwing between 29m/s and 31m/s.

Here she also makes the comment about pits in walls (Herculaneum gate at Pompeii) saying they cannot have been caused by slingers.

lol yep technically chris is still 'the boss' I'm the equivalent of first mate

Chris pays the bills