I have just seen a show on Discovery about Alexanders tactics at the Battle of Gaugamela, where he defeated Darius and took Persia. This was where he made a flanking movement with cavalry and peltasts then charged in to a gap in the Persian line while the peltasts screened him from the Persian cavalry.

There was a pretty good section on slingers where their tame expert demonstrated a heavy leather seam-cupped pouch on braided cords. He helicoptered a large stone with it into a straw bale from 5 or 10 yards with a solid throw. In the dramatizations there were lots of helicoptering slingers among the archers and javelin throwers.

Not a bad show, slingwise.