LR - Ballista webpage

Sluggy slugmusk at home.com
Thu Apr 27 21:55:15 PDT 2000


Adam Harrison wrote:

> Just noticed another thing, the aiming device on this ballisa blows chunks.
> There's no way to adjust horizontal aim without moving the whole friggin
> thing!  Better to go with a universal joint, which is just as easy to make,
> and a heck of alot better....

Historically speaking, about half of the ballistae I've found info on were
aimed in a similar way. They were more more like more cannons, used not as
anti-personnel weapons but as wall bashers. Repeated shots at the same spot on
the fort wall weakened and eventually breached the wall. Such devices were not
only windage bound, but lashed down once the elevation was found. Such devices
were typically huge, shooting bolts that were more akin to landscape timbers.

The more personal sized weapons were indeed mounted on a free-wheeling pivot
consisting of little more than a pin that protruded into a conical hole. They
were, essentially, very large crossbows and were used where a crossbow might
otherwise have been used.

For our purposes, we definitely want a free pivoting mount!

> > The is the webpage I mentioned in my last email.  The design is simple and
> > it works from an SCA standpoint.  It uses a bungee cord for the
> "bowstring" and is not tortion powered.  The author claims to be able to
> build this
> > thing for less than $100.

Let me be the first to say that I am not particularly enamored with the concept
of making a surgical tubing/bungee cord powered bow, but from an SCA combat
perspective, they are easy to pass inspection, effective, lightweight and
inexpensive.

Would I rather make a rope-sprung ballista?  Certainly!!!  For SCA combat
purposes, is it an absolute requirement? No.

By the way, a good compromise for a combat legal ballista is to make one out of
a bow mounted in a frame. It lets us stay away from modern elastics without the
complexities of making torsion springs.

> > I want to build a true tortion design, but that may be outside our
> > capability.

Well, not outside our capability, but it is not a light undertaking. One
advantage we have over the large ballista presented on the previously posted
website is that we don't need anything even approaching that kind of power.
Lower power = less stressed design = more likely to happen without blowing up
in someone's face! :)

I must admit, I'm getting more and more psyched :)

Sluggy!


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