I foresee a scene in the near future where a sheepish bloke has to say to his wife; "I know we had decided on buying a new kitchen but..." before showing off his new ballista.
That "assassin's crossbow" reminds me of a parlor pistol. Something to gather the lads in the smoking room after supper and plink at targets set up across the room. Imagine playing a game of darts with crossbows.
Dear Tod, everyone uses modern bowstrings. It would be interesting to watch a video of how these bowstrings were made before, how they were taken out of animals, how they were preserved so that they would not break and see the difference between archery with modern and medieval bowstrings.
I will happily watch Todd making traditional bowstrings. However there are several on UA-cam, making bowstrings from hemp, sinew, nettle , gut or yucca. I didn't know but violin strings are still made from sheep gut. Their strength is quite amazing. Lots of people use bowstrings made of violin strings.
A war bow is equivalent to an excalibur crossbow of the same draw weight. Because of the modern crossbow string. Which means the long bow or hand held would be like compound crossbow with modern strings. Of its own draw weight too.
one thing I've always appreciated about these films is your insistence on putting gopros in peril. The SOUND of various medieval projectiles coming straight at the camera is truly something to behold.
Just to second Tod's advert from personal experience: Outstanding craftsmanship AND value for money. Genuinely wasn't expecting so much for the price.... 10/10
Can you create the rapid-fire crossbow designed by Da Vinci in the codex atlanticus? This is a crossbow in which the loading system is speeded up compared to the traditional one. The crossbowman, by opening and closing the tiller could load the crossbow without ever touching the bowstring and without using external tools, thus speeding up the charging process considerably.
Thank you for mentioning the Codex, I had no idea such thing existed. And there is even a website where you can browse all pages online (link is in the wikipedia article). It really shows how much of a genius Leonardo was. I'd love to see Todd recreate some of the machines/mechanisms from the Codex.
Hi Vitor, Andreas Bichler made a fantastic repro of a similar bow, but I suspect they are simply not suited to heavy bows, so not likely to be military
@@tods_workshop I can't argue against you, after all you have years of experience in the field. But even if it's not worth it to build one, i think an episode commenting on the crossbow design would be interesting. I mean he can't be weaker than the Cho-ko-nu and other conventional bows.
Alway fun to see, and that little 'assassin's bow' really is tiny and more effective on cabbages than I'd expected. Be interesting to see something like that scaled up a bit in power - with a halfway decent quality screw and nut with the right thread pitch I'd think you could still operate a much more powerful version. It might even just about become plausible as an assassins weapon over toy - shoot heavy lathe turned all steel bolts for as much momentum and precision as you can get with a heavy limb high draw weight and it might just fly far enough, accurately enough and with some serious poke even though its tiny. And being all metal construction by the looks of it shouldn't be too hard to scale the moving parts up enough that it survives being shot a fair few times.
@@gratefulguy4130Indeed, though it has to have range enough to be worth using - if you could just take one extra step and stab the guy you might as well do that. I'd suggest for a serious assassination type scenario its got to have enough accuracy and power out at the 5, 10 possibly even 15 meter range. So you can be far enough away to be largely obscured in the crowds/shadows or hit your target as you walk by the door to their office - a distance so what you are doing isn't massively telegraphed.
There was a larger screwjacked crossbow version according to Payne Gallwey, but I have found him to not be that reliable so I am not sure. I use a bought Acme thread and nut for this, so it it should be pretty good. I also have a film about that bow and whether it would be any good for assassins here ua-cam.com/video/XXRFDdlkEzw/v-deo.htmlsi=AfAIgrlHw1BrqOXh
@@tods_workshopNever heard of a larger screwjacked on at all myself, so that is intriguing. Though I am less interested in larger and more interested in adding power to the tiny footprint one - so it may actually become more than just a dangerous toy. Larger crossbow can be spanned in many other ways, so being screw pulled would be interesting, but I can't see the point - seems like it would always be a slower method to cycle a practical power crossbow. But practically powerful at the tiniest sizes so there is no real length for leverage this screw method should be plausible (at least with the really high quality of modern steel machine made screws).
Hi Tod. I always imagined that crossbowmen and bowmen would use cover when it made sense. Like ambushing some enemies from behind trees or shooting out of bushes. Or taking cover behind those low stone walls the farmers build. Would really love to see a video about shooting from behind cover. Like the great video about the pros and cons of shooting from a tower.
Imagine having a profession where you sometimes just end up randomly having 5 crossbows lying around to play with. And they go from from the funny, proverbial pea-shooter to an industrial-strength piece of siege equipment.
Great, I made a crossbow in metal work at school....40 years ago, had to get a letter from my parents.It had springs and didn't really work.Goats foot lever. Love the Joules numbers. Nice work.
at 8:21 lockback fodlers were invented 15th century spain accordingt o Bill Claussen, i had a viking era folder when doing reenactment, and then there was the roman swiss army knife....
8:16 I'm sure I speak for many by saying that I'd be very interested in seeing an early example of a locking folding blade. Even if you don't have an example to hand, if you just wanted to show a picture and talk about them, that would be a great video! Perhaps an idea for some time in the future. Like what kind of mechanism did they use? What are some of the earliest types like? What kind of blades and handles were used? That little thing you mentioned in passing sent my imagination wild.
Great video. Are Roman ballistas still considered crossbows if they are torsion weapons instead of tension weapons? (Eg. They don't use a bow prod to store energy)
No they are not, but I stretched the point - sorry. Regular bows are 'flexion artillery' whilst these are torsion. The vast majority of medieval (non explosive) artillery and missile weapons was flexion, but they did use torsion as well - look up 'spingald'
Hey Tod, love your videos! Have you ever thought about filming an episode about the affect a wet/muddy field has on someones fighting ability when wearing full/heavy armour? I would love to understand just how disadvanted the French Nobles were in the Battle of Agincourt
Jo Tod, you should try getting some balistic gel. In most EU countries it is dirt cheap, especially if you buy a whole lot. And on top, it would serve as a much better showcase what such a weapon does to a human. You could also cast your own balistic gel around organ alternatives or your traditional fruits / vegetables, which is usually even cheaper and even more representative, but come obviously with the draw back of extra work.
I have a maille sleeveless shirt and its really cool. I found it in a house I rented with my son and his mother, the guy that lived there before us left a bunch of cool stuff behind including a 5 gallon pail full of honey from bees he kept and sone real handcuffs. The shirt used to fit me but there is absolutely no stretch and I have gotten bigger, maybe someone could adjust the size IDK it is still super cool and my son likes to wear it sometimes so its all good.
I had a look at a small crossbow about 2 feet long with the steel prod about 18 inches wide. Northwest Military Academy in Wisconsin. Most likely a windlass system to draw it as they estimated the draw with the 1-inch diameter string at 1,500-pound draw weight with 6-inch-long bolts that they had for it. Unknown age unfortunately as it was donated to the school by the family of a collector who had died who had been a student there long ago.
I'd love to have that ballista if I had the money. I don't even have enough space in my yard to shoot it, but still. I'm honestly jealous of whoever ends up buying that beauty.
As made famous in a theatre show, where they had a bad day, the blank firing gun didn't work, the rubber sword fell apart the antagonist kicked the opposite number who proclaimed ' The boot was poisoned' and collapsed dramatically. The play was saved by an over acting savoy cabbage. .😅. PS supposedly West Side Story haha.
"Bolts are much more finnicky to make than arrows" Wait what? Can you elaborate on that please? I've never heard that and would be fascinated to hear why. I figured they might be easier since less material, and possibly cheaper too. They tend to be the same cost if not cheaper in games as a result, so I'd love to see or hear why they're tricker to make
Just a guess but im thinking because the bolt is laying on the cross bow it needs to be straighter so it doesnt bounce in to a wobble as its sliding off. Unlike an arrow that is being suspended in your fingers until being launched forwards.
Dig back and I have a few videos on them. Basically this set up was unchanged from around 300AD to 1500AD and then more complex triggers started to come in and by 1650 what we would see as a modern trigger system was here. The main reason is to stop the full load of the bow transferring onto the trigger lever, so a couple more stages and you are there
I always wondered why ballistae didn't simply go the "like a crossbow, but _much_ bigger" route instead of the whole rope tension thing. Is that something you could enlighten me on?
Very nice video. I was thinking about getting into cabbage-hunting myself given that I often see a pretty big group of these just sitting around my neighbours farm all day long. So the ballista is definitely the way to go for this job?
Still curious if there are some impact force sensors out there that you could adapt to measure the force of bolts hitting your targets. BTW it was nice to see you on a recent episode from History Hit on archery!
I'd really like to see how different a ballista with sinew bundles rather than rope preforms. Its probably an impossible thing given the cost of sinew and the amount of effort you need to just clean and separate the fibers, but given how strong the stuff is, I wonder how much better it would be. If they were using something as hard to procure and process as tendon, there must have been some significant advantage that it provided over rope, at least in dry weather.
It’s funny how this kinda changes my perspective on old crossbows. I always thought they were a powerhouse and the draw weights make them sound insane. But I got a cheap 60lb compound bow about 12 years back (oh god I’m old) and we wanted to see what it could do. So I shot it through the door of an old ford falcon, and I mean through the door, it was right in there But these crossbows seem comparatively under powered, I’m guessing it has to do with the length of stroke/pull/whatever he mentioned
7:49 150 * 300 is a lot more than 1000 1000 arrows over the course of 6 hours is about 3 arrows per minute for all the 150 archers. Something like .02 per guy per minute, or one every 50 minutes
I think we can reach one very definite conclusion from this video... *that cabbage is dead.* Even if we have learnt nothing else here, we can definitively say that cabbage is no more. It has expired and gone to meet its maker. Fun video!
The catapulta was the family of three bows that were identical except for the size. They came in 1, 2 and 3 span versions (this is a 3 span) and the 'Scorpion' was the nick name for the 1 span version
Hi Tom, i wanted to make your skelling bow but the plans are no longer available on your website to purchase??? 😢 can you still provide the plans please? 🙏😊
4:20 don;t want to sound (or rather look) obnoxious repeating it often, really, but this explanation got quite popular, but is quite wrong. It's not about time needed to power up bolt, it's about "power" available in general. After all, compound crossbows can have half the power stroke of compound bows, and still achieve enormous velocities, in fact bigger than bows. Such a tiny spring cannot store too much energy, so there's not much available. W = F* s where "s" is the length of displacement. With mostly linear force application, simply the further you draw the string, the more energy it stores. If it's more massive/stiffer it stores more energy too, but it increases the force needed to bend it.
@@JanoTuotanto Yeah, full F of ~160 pounds, in case of Joe Gibbs bow, for example is of course 160 pounds at ~28 Inches of draw. So at about ~22 inches of displacement, since Joe's bows apparently have roughly 6 inches of brace height. I don't know much about math tough, so integrals don't come to my mind naturally. XD
Hang on there was a siege near you where they shot one arrow per minute that sounds more like a fun fare than a war ..Did they have the bean bag throw as well ?
The ballista has always been my favourate seige weapon, got to fire one as a kid in Caerphilly castle, unfortunaly can't afford one right now.... in unrelated news my birthday is in about a month's time 😂😂😂
Imagine trying to assassinate someone with that balestrino and instead of keeling over your target just starts screaming, it's one of those cases where I feel like the fact that you have to get up close wouldn't really make a knife or a dagger that much less risky. At the very least the risk of you failing to assassinate your target is going to be drastically reduced, and you'll have something more useful to defend yourself with when people inevitably come after you.
"I have a ballista bolted to my trebuchet " is the coolest thing I'll hear all day
Tod lives such an amazing life!
Ultimate power
A nice combo for sure
Like a medieval Ripley!
Day? You lead an interesting life if it's not best of month;).
I foresee a scene in the near future where a sheepish bloke has to say to his wife; "I know we had decided on buying a new kitchen but..." before showing off his new ballista.
I do hope so.........
@@tods_workshop With a very broad-headed bolt, perhaps the husband could pass it off as an exciting way to slice up a cabbage!
That "assassin's crossbow" reminds me of a parlor pistol.
Something to gather the lads in the smoking room after supper and plink at targets set up across the room.
Imagine playing a game of darts with crossbows.
And to motivate the servants if they are not fast enough.
I see it as exactly that
Funny how the idea of "parlor guns" has never really died out. They've just become much safer and, to some, less exciting
Dear Tod, everyone uses modern bowstrings. It would be interesting to watch a video of how these bowstrings were made before, how they were taken out of animals, how they were preserved so that they would not break and see the difference between archery with modern and medieval bowstrings.
I will happily watch Todd making traditional bowstrings. However there are several on UA-cam, making bowstrings from hemp, sinew, nettle , gut or yucca.
I didn't know but violin strings are still made from sheep gut. Their strength is quite amazing. Lots of people use bowstrings made of violin strings.
Most of the ones on his xbows look like rope... not deer gut?
Ill watch Tod do anything
HI Sergey, I actually use linen for mine which seems to be the most common.
A war bow is equivalent to an excalibur crossbow of the same draw weight.
Because of the modern crossbow string. Which means the long bow or hand held would be like compound crossbow with modern strings. Of its own draw weight too.
Opening shot 'this crossbow is very small, but that one is faaar awaaay'
Father Tod
Luckily no cows were harmed in this video
one thing I've always appreciated about these films is your insistence on putting gopros in peril. The SOUND of various medieval projectiles coming straight at the camera is truly something to behold.
Yes, so cool, right
NOOOOOO! MY CABBAGES!
There is no war Ba Sing Se
Came here for this!
Underrated comment
Just to second Tod's advert from personal experience: Outstanding craftsmanship AND value for money. Genuinely wasn't expecting so much for the price.... 10/10
Thank you
@@tods_workshopThank YOU boss. Happy wife with bollock dagger, happy life😊
Thank goodness for Todd saving us from the evil Savoy cabbage!
can't stand them, so I was not sad for the loss
Now we know what happened to the house of Savoy! 😅
I laughed out loud at the sight of Tod aiming his ballista at a cabbage.
Conclusion : for Cabages, use a kitchenknife... crossbows are not suitable equipment in the kitchen..
Little known fact that those weird crescent shaped arrowheads were actually meant for creating slaw.
Lmfao.
So that's how Roman chefs prepared shredded cabbage for the legionaries' supper.
The new Tod Cutler daggers are amazing! Never in my wildest dreams thought you would include a hammerhead dagger.
Thanks and I am very pleased with them too - if I say so myself, very good value!
the medieval equivalent to 'kentucky ballistics' lol
love it!
*'cutlers trajectoria'*
Can you create the rapid-fire crossbow designed by Da Vinci in the codex atlanticus? This is a crossbow in which the loading system is speeded up compared to the traditional one. The crossbowman, by opening and closing the tiller could load the crossbow without ever touching the bowstring and without using external tools, thus speeding up the charging process considerably.
Thank you for mentioning the Codex, I had no idea such thing existed. And there is even a website where you can browse all pages online (link is in the wikipedia article). It really shows how much of a genius Leonardo was.
I'd love to see Todd recreate some of the machines/mechanisms from the Codex.
@@lazyman7505 Leonardo da vinci is overated!
@@lazyman7505 Leonardo davinci is overated!
Hi Vitor, Andreas Bichler made a fantastic repro of a similar bow, but I suspect they are simply not suited to heavy bows, so not likely to be military
@@tods_workshop I can't argue against you, after all you have years of experience in the field. But even if it's not worth it to build one, i think an episode commenting on the crossbow design would be interesting. I mean he can't be weaker than the Cho-ko-nu and other conventional bows.
Alway fun to see, and that little 'assassin's bow' really is tiny and more effective on cabbages than I'd expected. Be interesting to see something like that scaled up a bit in power - with a halfway decent quality screw and nut with the right thread pitch I'd think you could still operate a much more powerful version. It might even just about become plausible as an assassins weapon over toy - shoot heavy lathe turned all steel bolts for as much momentum and precision as you can get with a heavy limb high draw weight and it might just fly far enough, accurately enough and with some serious poke even though its tiny. And being all metal construction by the looks of it shouldn't be too hard to scale the moving parts up enough that it survives being shot a fair few times.
Well you would barely use it past dagger range anyway. It's not for sniping.
@@gratefulguy4130Indeed, though it has to have range enough to be worth using - if you could just take one extra step and stab the guy you might as well do that.
I'd suggest for a serious assassination type scenario its got to have enough accuracy and power out at the 5, 10 possibly even 15 meter range. So you can be far enough away to be largely obscured in the crowds/shadows or hit your target as you walk by the door to their office - a distance so what you are doing isn't massively telegraphed.
There was a larger screwjacked crossbow version according to Payne Gallwey, but I have found him to not be that reliable so I am not sure. I use a bought Acme thread and nut for this, so it it should be pretty good. I also have a film about that bow and whether it would be any good for assassins here ua-cam.com/video/XXRFDdlkEzw/v-deo.htmlsi=AfAIgrlHw1BrqOXh
@@tods_workshopNever heard of a larger screwjacked on at all myself, so that is intriguing. Though I am less interested in larger and more interested in adding power to the tiny footprint one - so it may actually become more than just a dangerous toy.
Larger crossbow can be spanned in many other ways, so being screw pulled would be interesting, but I can't see the point - seems like it would always be a slower method to cycle a practical power crossbow. But practically powerful at the tiniest sizes so there is no real length for leverage this screw method should be plausible (at least with the really high quality of modern steel machine made screws).
Always handy to have a trebuchet around as a base to torsion your balista with.
Yes it was rather. Last time I had to peg the frame down with massive posts so this was much easier
Hi Tod. I always imagined that crossbowmen and bowmen would use cover when it made sense. Like ambushing some enemies from behind trees or shooting out of bushes. Or taking cover behind those low stone walls the farmers build. Would really love to see a video about shooting from behind cover. Like the great video about the pros and cons of shooting from a tower.
Imagine having a profession where you sometimes just end up randomly having 5 crossbows lying around to play with. And they go from from the funny, proverbial pea-shooter to an industrial-strength piece of siege equipment.
He does have a cool life doesn't he?
I must say I am privileged
Tremenda,,esperiensia,,,,después,,de,,tantos,,,años,,rescatar,,esas,,armas,,antiguas
I have a idea! Lead ball projectile!! For the ballista Joerg love that!
I got another Idea. How large can you make a ballista. Never mind if it´s slow to reload. if what it sends away weighs a hundred pounds.
Also for small all-metal one. This thing already looks more like a gun then a crossbow, might as well give it some bullets.
the ballista could be configured for either bolts or shot. The mechanism is not the same for both.
Rest assured, they had that.
I can hear Joerg laughing now!
i used to be an guard like you until i took a bolt to the knee
Great, I made a crossbow in metal work at school....40 years ago, had to get a letter from my parents.It had springs and didn't really work.Goats foot lever. Love the Joules numbers. Nice work.
"its dead" .. got me xD
I'll take 1 of each!
For a massive background about the actual role archery in the Medieval Art of war I strongly recommend Schwerpunkt's videos series.
Wirklich? Ok. Muss ich schauen.
Another Tods video, thank you Tod🎉
at 8:21 lockback fodlers were invented 15th century spain accordingt o Bill Claussen, i had a viking era folder when doing reenactment, and then there was the roman swiss army knife....
Thanks and I will look into that
My cabbages!
I reckon a 25 lb bow and arrow would go through that cabbage, isn't momentum more important than joules?
8:16 I'm sure I speak for many by saying that I'd be very interested in seeing an early example of a locking folding blade. Even if you don't have an example to hand, if you just wanted to show a picture and talk about them, that would be a great video! Perhaps an idea for some time in the future.
Like what kind of mechanism did they use?
What are some of the earliest types like?
What kind of blades and handles were used?
That little thing you mentioned in passing sent my imagination wild.
I enjoy all of Tod’s Workshop videos
Great video. Are Roman ballistas still considered crossbows if they are torsion weapons instead of tension weapons? (Eg. They don't use a bow prod to store energy)
In Australia Torsion weapons are not legally considered to be crossbows, also not really medieval
@@ArmouryTerrain Interesting.
No they are not, but I stretched the point - sorry. Regular bows are 'flexion artillery' whilst these are torsion. The vast majority of medieval (non explosive) artillery and missile weapons was flexion, but they did use torsion as well - look up 'spingald'
@@tods_workshop Gotcha, thanks!
“Cabbages are tougher than you think”. Not what I expected to learn from this video. Love all that you do Tod
Yeah, I wasn't expecting them to bind like that
Absolutely wonderful video Tod
Hey Tod, love your videos! Have you ever thought about filming an episode about the affect a wet/muddy field has on someones fighting ability when wearing full/heavy armour? I would love to understand just how disadvanted the French Nobles were in the Battle of Agincourt
Awesome, the cabbages deserve it really.
Cheers!
Another great video Tom
I very much enjoyed your video and I gave it a Thumbs Up
"it'll have some poke"
Love it
Very good video. Thank you.
ooo, 5:54 did you get that bodkin / 'modkin' point from RichardHeadLongbows? Used a bunch for arrow making they're great.
Those wooden fletchs on the bolt look like they could create a lot of additional damage on both entry and exit from the body - nasty!
They do
150 archers shooting 1000 arrows in six hours would make it one arrow an hour a guy, not every minute. Am I miscalculating something?
No, I was thinking the same thing. That math does not add up... One pr. minute would have seen them launch ~54,000 arrows over 6 hours.
They made a video about that siege, shooting arrows from a tower to see how much this affects distance.
Yes, it's every hour, not minute.
Its harassment just to keep heads down
Man, you have no idea how much I'd like to see the ballista tested against some plate armour.
Once again, Toddy great work. You’re having just far too much fun
Awesome video as always!
"So Bob, that's the bass boat....but Janie tells me you bought a Ballista?"
So cool, fascinating. Is there a small crossbow, called a an arbalest?
Hi mate, I am modding total war Warhammer 3, and making the weapons more realistic is 1 of my main goals, your videos are great my friend thankyou
Jo Tod, you should try getting some balistic gel. In most EU countries it is dirt cheap, especially if you buy a whole lot. And on top, it would serve as a much better showcase what such a weapon does to a human.
You could also cast your own balistic gel around organ alternatives or your traditional fruits / vegetables, which is usually even cheaper and even more representative, but come obviously with the draw back of extra work.
So this test concludes that the ballista is the ultimate personal defence weapon when faced by angry cabbages at close range.
I have a maille sleeveless shirt and its really cool. I found it in a house I rented with my son and his mother, the guy that lived there before us left a bunch of cool stuff behind including a 5 gallon pail full of honey from bees he kept and sone real handcuffs. The shirt used to fit me but there is absolutely no stretch and I have gotten bigger, maybe someone could adjust the size IDK it is still super cool and my son likes to wear it sometimes so its all good.
I had a look at a small crossbow about 2 feet long with the steel prod about 18 inches wide. Northwest Military Academy in Wisconsin. Most likely a windlass system to draw it as they estimated the draw with the 1-inch diameter string at 1,500-pound draw weight with 6-inch-long bolts that they had for it. Unknown age unfortunately as it was donated to the school by the family of a collector who had died who had been a student there long ago.
My Balestrino just arrived recently from your Workshop. It's a lot of fun to shoot. I wonder if it is the one you used here.
I'd love to have that ballista if I had the money. I don't even have enough space in my yard to shoot it, but still. I'm honestly jealous of whoever ends up buying that beauty.
that cabbage looked quite scary indeed, luckily it was taken care of
Awesome thanks
Finally we learn why cabbage armour never caught on @11:35
Farmer walks up to adventurer: I used to be an adventurer like you, until I took an arrow to my cabbage.
Adventurer kicks Farmer.
Farmer: My Knee!
As made famous in a theatre show, where they had a bad day, the blank firing gun didn't work, the rubber sword fell apart the antagonist kicked the opposite number who proclaimed ' The boot was poisoned' and collapsed dramatically. The play was saved by an over acting savoy cabbage. .😅. PS supposedly West Side Story haha.
Badass, as always!
Lovely video.
"Bolts are much more finnicky to make than arrows"
Wait what? Can you elaborate on that please? I've never heard that and would be fascinated to hear why.
I figured they might be easier since less material, and possibly cheaper too. They tend to be the same cost if not cheaper in games as a result, so I'd love to see or hear why they're tricker to make
That's what I was thinking. Do you still have to make bolts to some specific spine or can they just be completely rigid?
Just a guess but im thinking because the bolt is laying on the cross bow it needs to be straighter so it doesnt bounce in to a wobble as its sliding off. Unlike an arrow that is being suspended in your fingers until being launched forwards.
I would be interested in the evolution of trigger mechanisms, or how we got away from these huge levers.
Dig back and I have a few videos on them. Basically this set up was unchanged from around 300AD to 1500AD and then more complex triggers started to come in and by 1650 what we would see as a modern trigger system was here. The main reason is to stop the full load of the bow transferring onto the trigger lever, so a couple more stages and you are there
4:05 : "i was an adventurer like you once, until i took a balestrino bolt to the knee"
Kid: "Can I get my ball out of your yard mister?"
Me, winding back ballista: "Just a minute, I'll get it."
Nice video. Good that you noticed that you were filming against the sun and changed the position of the camera.
I always wondered why ballistae didn't simply go the "like a crossbow, but _much_ bigger" route instead of the whole rope tension thing. Is that something you could enlighten me on?
Very nice video. I was thinking about getting into cabbage-hunting myself given that I often see a pretty big group of these just sitting around my neighbours farm all day long.
So the ballista is definitely the way to go for this job?
"Cabbages are tougher than you think." Words of wisdom, if I say so myself.
Sir, can you make a video about mounted crossbow or horse crossbow?
Still curious if there are some impact force sensors out there that you could adapt to measure the force of bolts hitting your targets. BTW it was nice to see you on a recent episode from History Hit on archery!
I'd really like to see how different a ballista with sinew bundles rather than rope preforms. Its probably an impossible thing given the cost of sinew and the amount of effort you need to just clean and separate the fibers, but given how strong the stuff is, I wonder how much better it would be. If they were using something as hard to procure and process as tendon, there must have been some significant advantage that it provided over rope, at least in dry weather.
I loved the knee reference :)
When you said bolts are much harder to make than arrows. I am very curious how so?
Never underestimate the savagely threatening cabbage.
Tod: "Today we have a totally pointless and gratuitous..."
Internet: "CROSSBOWS!"
It’s funny how this kinda changes my perspective on old crossbows. I always thought they were a powerhouse and the draw weights make them sound insane. But I got a cheap 60lb compound bow about 12 years back (oh god I’m old) and we wanted to see what it could do. So I shot it through the door of an old ford falcon, and I mean through the door, it was right in there
But these crossbows seem comparatively under powered, I’m guessing it has to do with the length of stroke/pull/whatever he mentioned
7:49 150 * 300 is a lot more than 1000
1000 arrows over the course of 6 hours is about 3 arrows per minute for all the 150 archers. Something like .02 per guy per minute, or one every 50 minutes
I think we can reach one very definite conclusion from this video... *that cabbage is dead.*
Even if we have learnt nothing else here, we can definitively say that cabbage is no more. It has expired and gone to meet its maker. Fun video!
1:56 How it secured to not rotate backwards when it's loaded?
with the ropes tight, they pull the top and bottom together. There is enough friction in the metal caps for it to not spin on its own.
I agree in principle with Armoury, however there are pins as seen on the originals
Is the catapulta the same thing as a scorpio or would that one be a bit smaller?
The catapulta was the family of three bows that were identical except for the size. They came in 1, 2 and 3 span versions (this is a 3 span) and the 'Scorpion' was the nick name for the 1 span version
Using your own trebuchet as a workbench is wild
Hey Tod, any chance of doing plate or brigandine test with the ballista before you sell it?
So if I want to pick cabbages with a crossbow I shouldn't get one too powerful or the bolt will pass straight trough?
I wonder how often those windlases get dryfired as the loading mechinism swings into the trigger by accident.
I'd love to see your take on a laminated horn crossbow arm.
I like the tiny one.
Very fun video.
Thanks
Quick question please. Is the Horn handle folding knife a UK legal carry?
Hi Tod, have you ever considerd having a mass longbow shot to find out how bows could and couldnt be used in battle formation?
Does the tension on the ballista decrease noticeably from shot to shot, or if you wait too long to pull the trigger?
Hi Tom, i wanted to make your skelling bow but the plans are no longer available on your website to purchase??? 😢 can you still provide the plans please? 🙏😊
Gracias
4:20 don;t want to sound (or rather look) obnoxious repeating it often, really, but this explanation got quite popular, but is quite wrong.
It's not about time needed to power up bolt, it's about "power" available in general.
After all, compound crossbows can have half the power stroke of compound bows, and still achieve enormous velocities, in fact bigger than bows.
Such a tiny spring cannot store too much energy, so there's not much available.
W = F* s where "s" is the length of displacement.
With mostly linear force application, simply the further you draw the string, the more energy it stores.
If it's more massive/stiffer it stores more energy too, but it increases the force needed to bend it.
btw W = integral of F over s , since F in this application is not constant
@@JanoTuotanto Yeah, full F of ~160 pounds, in case of Joe Gibbs bow, for example is of course 160 pounds at ~28 Inches of draw.
So at about ~22 inches of displacement, since Joe's bows apparently have roughly 6 inches of brace height.
I don't know much about math tough, so integrals don't come to my mind naturally. XD
The first target "I was a adventurer like you. But then I got a bolt in my knee"
Hang on there was a siege near you where they shot one arrow per minute that sounds more like a fun fare than a war ..Did they have the bean bag throw as well ?
Me in about 2min after I finish my lunch break: "Hey boss, we need a ballista...don't we?"
epic as always
Ballista maintenance looks eerily Harley-like.
The ballista has always been my favourate seige weapon, got to fire one as a kid in Caerphilly castle, unfortunaly can't afford one right now.... in unrelated news my birthday is in about a month's time 😂😂😂
Imagine trying to assassinate someone with that balestrino and instead of keeling over your target just starts screaming, it's one of those cases where I feel like the fact that you have to get up close wouldn't really make a knife or a dagger that much less risky. At the very least the risk of you failing to assassinate your target is going to be drastically reduced, and you'll have something more useful to defend yourself with when people inevitably come after you.
I have a film all about that bow and whether it could be used for that ua-cam.com/video/XXRFDdlkEzw/v-deo.htmlsi=oar2A9lFx_m-rUmA
Hi Tod, really cool Video! ❤ Do you ever tried to do make a functional miniature crossbow? (At around 1/6 or 1/12 scale.)