Posted on 06/13/2016 11:55:25 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
How loud were they? Maybe they were used as signals on the battle field.
The romans also wrote little quips on their big sling bullets.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/63739/sarcastic-jokes-found-roman-bullets
Freegards
Maybe they were actually lead fishing sinkers......
I never could master the trick, but a childhood friend would send fist-sized stones striking a dead tree across a pond with a regular sharp *crack* that once attracted LE to see what in the heck was going on.
Several years ago I ran the numbers for slings through a ballistic calculator and was rather astonished at the results. Known velocities generated 500 or more ftlbs and some speculative numbers that were most likely within the capabilities of the Balearic slingers were pushing 44 mag stats.
Slingers were feared and rightly so.
The story of David and Goliath has details which led me to believe that the story was written accurately. Goliath may have known he was in dire straits.
Interesting research.
“Burnswark Hill lies a few miles north of the line of Roman forts and ramparts known as Hadrian’s Wall,”
North of the Wall. That’s where the wildlings and white walkers live.
OldNewYork: “But it doesn’t seem to have saved Rome.”
SunkenCiv: “Roman Empire in the west (including Britain) only endured for another 250 years, and in the east until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. /s”
The historical “tell” as to what was really going on just has to be Constantine the Great’s moving his capital from Rome to Byzantium. Why?
Whatever other reasons, it must be the Empire’s wealth, trade routes, surpluses of food & other vital materials were heavily weighted in the East, whereas costs of maintaining the Western Empire often exceeded revenues.
So under extreme pressures, the West was not financially viable, which explains why their troops eventually didn’t get paid & faded away.
Result: when barbarians overran the West, they faced a Roman Army a mere shadow of what it had been in earlier centuries.
Of course, nothing like that could ever happen these days, right?
Sorry, inadvertently left you off the above post.
***Maybe they were actually lead fishing sinkers......***
I think you may be right. They are probably used for fishing, then when war breaks out they are used again as sling bullets. If they make a sound in flight it is incidental but satisfying to the ones who launch them.
I wonder if the hole could also have been used to place on the end of a stick to use as a lever instead of just in a sling - thus potentially providing a higher velocity.
eh, probably not, occam’s razor and all.
I am interested in ancient technology. Today, we often forget how ingenious ancient people actually were at times. Huge projects were done with very little in way of tools.
Such a military application was Greek fire. I’ve read there are not actual surviving formulas for it, but it was an incredible ancient weapon.
It is interesting. When you see images of how the Coliseum looked when it was built, or the Pyramids, which reach back either further in time, it is remarkable what people could achieve with hand tools.
Excellent link thanks for that!
Caledonia (Roman-era name for it) got its ass kicked in one fighting season, but the general was recalled, and the job was never finished, not because of anyone’s anger or fighting ability, but because there was literally nothing much of value, and there were real threats from much larger populations spread out across the German frontier.
The German frontier was not limited to the Rhine after the so-called “battle that stopped Rome” — just a few years ago a Roman cemetery was discovered by accident in Copenhagen, Denmark. The Roman army was very good at what it did.
Heh, you’re right, I was “very” last night. ;’)
Oh, sorry. That site is also a pain to load sometimes.
Thanks!
Definitely, and the secondary ammo was, well, everywhere, a very low-capital-expenditure type of warfare.
The Pantheon, which replaced in concrete what had been a mostly wood structure built by Marcus Agrippa (burned in the Nero fire; the current structure is still Roman in date, and the original dedication was put on it), remains a marvel of construction, and figuring out how they’d done it only happened in the past few years. And there are the aqueducts, some of which continued to run for centuries without preventive maintenance. And a water-carrying tunnel system (over 70 miles long) in the Holy Land. And their system of roads...
Their artillery (which on the low end includes slings and javelins, but also includes catapaults of various kinds) enabled the Romans to reduce the Gaulic oppida hillforts, and during an early phase of the conquest of Britain, the British hillforts. Vespasian specialized in it, and served in Britain and Judea before he became Emperor. It was shock and awe in the ancient world.
;’)
Thanks BroJoeK. There's also geography that doesn't work in favor of Europe -- the same geography that resulted in most of the Central Powers' resources being deployed in the east during WWI -- and there were a series of epidemics/plagues (hard to believe those weren't one result of the continual introduction of migrating groups). Roman control of the western territories as well as Rome itself did fall apart, but it wasn't replaced with nothing -- the new arrivals set themselves up, taking advantage of the local resources, intermarrying, and at least as often as not, converting to Christianity. Conversion of Wales and Scotland came from Ireland, which hadn't been brought under formal Roman control but was well within the commercial network. In Britain, so-called "Dark Ages" settlements that have been excavated turn up plenty of evidence of continued trade with the eastern Empire.
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