History of Catapults

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The history of catapults Catapults have been a very dangerous siege weapon was first made in 399 BC and used for war uptill ww1 and still used today to launch people in the air thousands of feet just for a thrill. The Greek Dionysius the elder of Syracuse was trying to invent a new type of weapon was trying to invent a new type of weapon and invented the catapult in 399 BC and became the essential siege weapon threw uptill ww1. Although they have changed over the years for certain purposes and decreased in size like in ww1 they used a very small version of a catapult to throw hand grenades against enemy infantry. Its bigger brother the trebuchet was made in 1200 and uses a counter weight to throw heavy objects up to 350 feet in the air. The last one was used in 1521 at the siege of the Aztec capital. After the siege of the Aztec capital catapults became much better at launching objects farther then trebuchets and were very compact and can be moved easier and quicker. Unlike trebuchets catapults use a very unique system of ropes that create torsion to throw objects. Now as time goes by better ropes were made allowing for more load on the rope creating farther distances and now most modern day catapults use steel cables which allow for max load and can throw a 8 pound stone 1500 feet! Now a 8 pound stone sounds very pitiful to knock down a giant wall but it’s a 8 pound stone being launched at 120mph keep that in mind. Unlike the catapults and the trebuchets which are made to take down large objects a ballista is made to take down enemy personal. a ballista is basically and giant crossbow that is on lsd lined with coke and crack while someone accidentally pored acid in his pot of coffee. It’s a 400 ft crossbow it shoots 26kg objects and sometimes shoots them whilst on fire. Was first used in 55bc and used in Caesars invasion of
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