Did ancient navies use slingers? If so who and when.

There are MANY pictures of crusaders using staff slings from ships.
There is historical evidence(writings) of use of slings agianst Muslims during crusades- it can be seen in pictures.

(413 BCE, and in the battle in the Great Harbour, not pursued during flight, but trying to win the naval battle in order to be able to withdraw).

The same battle is described in Thucydides 7.72. A couple of remarks-- Thuc. says somewhere that throwing javelins from a boat is a difficult skill-- because the triremes are so narrow that you have to do it sitting down or crouching, so as not to spoil the craft's balance. I wonder how this affects slinging.

The expedition took 700 Rhodian slingers, who are oddly never again mentioned. Presumably they were naval slingers; they may have been squandered in the opening battles in 414 BCE. That reference, and the Anabasis passage, are the only two mentions of Rhodian skill at the sling.

On Greek warships at least, the usual complement is archers+marine infantry (shield and spear guys)-- slingers don't seem mentioned very often, even on Rhodes (we have lists of crews of warships, and slingers never figure).

From what I have read sling use on ships definitely happened quite a bit from folks with sling experience and skill. Far cheaper than arrows after all and less vulnerable to the elements. One thing I have come across quite a bit is stone THROWING in naval battles... bows and arrows are expensive and a specialized skill... not to mentioned not as common as one would think in many parts of the ancient world (greece and rome in particular)... and even with archers, ask yourself what do the rowers and such do? The answer quite often is to throw stones. Of course these are less space efficient, weaker, and far less range than slung stones... but again, a specialized skill... however since stone throwing was common, a slinger could make use of those stones as well as proper sling stones, clay, and bullets.

But slings need much more space to use. Which is\was rather limited on ships

slingbadger wrote on Nov 21^st, 2013 at 6:34am:


Ain't so.
Linen bowstrings, decently well waxed, and fairly tightly twisted, can be soaked in water before being shot without
a. damage to the string
b. increased likelyhood of breakage
c. slowing the bow more than 5 FPS.

I have tested this, as have many others, and I frequently shoot in the rain with my linen bowstring(only a #80 bow, can't pull over 100#). It is coated only with beeswax.
Now over a period of a month, if left in water, even a waxed string will begin to rot.