Study: Archimedes Set Roman Ships Afire with Cannons

LiveScience ^ | June 28, 2010 | Jeremy Hsu

[SunkenCiv]

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	Gods Graves Glyphs	It's always been interesting; in the 1980s (I think it was) someone tried making bunches of polished bronze mirrors to try to set a dummy ship on fire using focused sunlight, and it didn't work. Nice that someone is taking the ancients at their word, and I'd hate to see Archimedes Screwed (/rimshot!) out of the credit, but this doesn't seem like any big deal to me, whether true or not. Used a catapault to chuck an incendiary onto attackers, whoa. :') To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
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[RexBeach]

Could this be related, somehow, to so-called “Greek Fire”?

[Technocrat]

A recent Mythbusters tried the same thing - a human could stand unprotected in the focus. The shields were just too diffuse.

[C19fan]

Steam Punk ping!!! THe Japanese had steam driven weapons in a anime series I am a big fan of.

[STD]

Think for one second. Could the current oppupants of greeco-italian culture possibly get off the government largesse put aside the goodlife long enough to live.die/suffer/die and finally conquer ROMAN legions?

You must be writing Barry's script.

[Lee'sGhost]

Given that the article said “The steam cannons could have fired hollow balls made of clay and filled with something similar to an incendiary chemical mixture known as Greek fire...” I’m going to go out on a limb and say “yes”.

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

[JoeProBono]

archimedes_death_ray

[JoeProBono]

[C19fan]

Interesting story about Archimedes. The Roman general who was beseiging the city wanted to spare Archimedes but the soldiers found Archimedes working on a math problem and killed him anyway.

[SunkenCiv]

I knew I should have pinged you. :’)

Blinded by the light, wrapped up like a deuce... that’s got something going for it, blind the attackers, then launch the darts, spears, arrows, and other projectiles while they’re disoriented and no one can give the warning to raise shields. Thwack.

[JoeProBono]

Greek Fire from the Chronicle of Ioannis Skylitzis, mid-12th mid-13th century, Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid

[wbarmy]

Thank you for that article. Once I get home from my deployment, one of these will be built on our AZ property as an intellectual exercise. My five children will get a hoot from it.

[RexBeach]

Oops. Didn’t read far enough! Thanks, Lee.

[bigheadfred]

Always thought it would be pretty hard to coordinate a group to be able to focus on one spot. Especially at what is probably a moving target.

They are still using Archimedes Screws to draw water from the Nile in Egypt. At least they were in the early 1980’s.

[texas booster]

It would make sense to blind enemy sailors with mirrors while cannons fired hollow flaming shot.

Makes for great confusion if you can't see where you are going. Could have even used the mirrors to “guide” ships into a killing lane.

Since the mirrors couldn't set the ships on fire, blinding the pilots and overheating the crew would make them less efficient at attack.

[JoeProBono]

[JoeProBono]

[bigheadfred]

Exactly. They sit and spin.

[pingman]

It brings a misty eyed tear to recall there was a time when, not only were Americans familiar with the name ‘Archimedes’, but were thought competent enough to handle hot things without warning labels and build cannons.

Those, my friends, were the days!