ANST - Slings

Christopher D. Baran rrhms at texoma.net
Tue Jan 11 21:13:30 PST 2000


Wow!  A lot of great talk about slings and what they can do.  The only
problem that I see with your argument is that the majority of slingers in a
combat situation didn't use rocks, they used shaped metal shot (either
bronze, brass or lead).  The shot was formed into the shape of a football
and was designed to penetrate armor.  This was so effective that the Romans
had entire groups of auxiliary that were slingers.  A practiced slinger can
consistently hit a 5X5 inch square with 10 shots.  Shot thrown by a sling
was powerful enough to penetrate a bronze breastplate and unhorse the person
it struck.
	Unlike the slings used in the SCA which have a maximum length, period
slingers used slings 6' long or so.  The longer the length of the sling the
more power is transferred into the shot.  A small heavy object is much
easier to aim than a large light object.  This is a reason why so many
people are "bad" at slinging in the SCA.  As I have used both real and SCA
slings I would love to be able to chunk ball bearings at my
enemy...unfortunately they don't fly as well with duct tape!  (Humor
alert!!)
	Lastly, as I said before, slings were very popular with the Roman army who
faced people wearing pretty much what we are supposed to be:  Chain mail,
open faced helm, gambison.  Must have been pretty darn effective to stay in
use virtually unchanged for 1000 years or so.
	As for calling the blows, with the above information, I would say if it
didn't penetrate your armor it would incapacitate the person being hit,
especally in the torso or limbs.  Think about being shot and for some reason
the bullet didn't penetrate the skin.  I wouldn't say it would penetrate the
sides or back of a helm everytime, or even the majority of the time, but you
would have one heck of a headache.


Centurion Romanius

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