Martin_Greywolf
Tiro

Offline

Slinging Rocks!
Posts: 15
Slovakia
Gender:
|
"I am shocked how much that helps." Frankly, me too. This is the sort of thing I hoped to see when I published the original articles, we can now say for certain that our picture is actually practical and not an artist exaggeration, especially since these chunks of ice are probably worse projectiles than actual rocks.
Accuracy seems to be... pretty good, actually, you don't really need anything better at the range you can send these out to, and these are clearly not precision weapons.
Effect on target, well, if you have the full armor ensemble, gambeson, chain mail, plate and another gambeson on top and heavy bascinet... it may not kill you, if you are lucky, but it will definitely break something - which, in the context of a fight, is just as good since you're out for the duration. And if you happen to not be rich enough to have the best armor, you'll have better luck dodging - which actually seems kinda possible if you are on foot, not on horse. I can't think of any way to test that, though, at least not any that doesn't involve copious amounts of alcohol and attempted murder charges.
@joe_meadmaker I don't suppose you have a way of measuring the speed of these? It would be interesting to plug that into some of the terminal ballistics and car crash test models, if only to see their limitations. From the video, it looks like 2-3 seconds of hang time per 23 paces, so probably less than 7-12 m/s. Assuming an even 10 and weight of 1.8 kg, it gives us a frightening momentum of 18 000 g.m/s, about twice that of a rifle, with a kinetic energy of not-so-impressive 90 J, about 40 times less than that of a rifle, but surprisingly close to a 160 lbs warbow (120 J).
For an idea on how those numbers look, the energy is so small it is equal to lifting 9 kg (18 lbs) one meter/yard. The momentum, on the other hand, is enough to propel the head of an adult (one tenth of total weight of 70 kg/140 lbs, a helmet roughly doubles that, but never mind that now) at almost 10 kmh/6 mph in an ideal collision.
It's also the only weapon short of a catapult that could maybe literally knock someone off a horse - not straight backwards, not in a medieval charging saddle, but deliver enough shock to make someone sort of slide off to the side, especially if the horse is running towards the shooter.
Melee hit looked about comparable to a halberd or a pollaxe (clocking in at ~2.5 kilos/5 pounds) - something that will definitely not kill you in heavy plate but absolutely will in anything short of that.
I think we can safely conclude the following:
1) The two handed style is a practical thing for slinging heavy rocks, not a figment of author's imagination
2) The hands apart method doesn't work that well and is either an artefact of the image, or a product of the image being of a slinger just after loading a projectile and before starting to actually sling it
3) The image in question probably shows a cavalry right after it flanked or busted through a position, because the rate of fire on these is far too slow to let them be anywhere in front and expect them to defeat a charge on their own - you will maybe get two shots against horses and three against infantry, probably only 1 and 2, respectively
4) The myth that it is a bad idea to get hit with one of these has been confirmed
|