Trebuchet

“ The mediæval trebuchet was a sling wielded by a gigantic arm of wood. In mediæval Latin the ancient name of the ballista is sometimes found, but in the mediæval pictures the principle of the engines illustrated is always that which we have described. We meet also in mediæval writings with the names of the mangona and mangonella and the catapult, but they were either different names for the same engine, or names for [Pg 383] different species of the same genus. The woodcut here introduced from the MS. Add. 10,294, f. 81 V., gives a representation of a trebuchet. ”

“ Trébuchet with ropes attached to counterpoise
This description suggests that the beam, balanced on an axis, and needing several people to attend to the discharge at one end, was worked by a counterpoise at the other. This was the case with the developed slinging machine, known as trébuchet. A pole, working on a pivot between two upright stands, was weighted at one end with a heavy wooden chest, filled with earth, which kept the pole, when not in use, in a vertical position. ”

“ The French are said to have introduced these in the twelfth century, and by the end of the thirteenth they were the most formidable siege engines of the time.
STIRLING CASTLE, STIRLINGSHIRE.
The transition period in England between the classical weapons and the trebuchet was the twelfth century and the early part of the thirteenth. The veterans from the crusades undoubtedly introduced the torsion and tension engines, but [Pg 194] found that the home-made article could not compete in efficiency with the Oriental examples and therefore the advent of the trebuchet was welcomed. ”

“ In using the perriers by night, it is necessary to attach a lighted body to the projectile: by this means, one may discover the force of the machine, and regulate the weight of the stone accordingly [409] ."
The trebuchet arranged with cords is represented in the treatise Du feu grégeois noticed above, and in the Études sur l'Artillerie, vol. ii. Pl. iii. Those familiar with the sights of the Thames will not fail to be struck with the curious resemblance between this ancient engine of warfare and the apparatus by which a gang of colliers raise the cargo from the hold of their ships. ”

“ In the trébuchet the means of propulsion was a counter-weight. The axle which was near the top of a high strutted vertical frame served as the bridge of a balance, the shorter arm of which carried the counter-weight and the longer arm the carrier for the shot. An alternative name for the trébuchet is the mangonel (mangonneau) . ”

“ Another historian explains that to shoot a man from the sling of an engine he must first be tied up with ropes, so as to form a round bundle like a sack of grain.
The engine with which such fiendish deeds were achieved was the trebuchet.
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A catapult was not powerful enough to project the body of a man. ”

“ When this occurred the huge stone or other projectile flew on through the air and struck its target with tremendous force.
The trebuchet and the mangonel were very like the Roman ballista, and acted much in the same way as the catapult, except that the motive force was the fall of a heavy counterweight instead of tension. The springald, or espringald, was a large-sized steel cross-bow, mounted on a pivot, hurling heavy iron darts, with great force, which had considerable penetration. ”

“ The crenelets, which grinned between the roof and the machicolade at the top of Outfangthef, were cleared of all obstructions. A trèbuchet for slinging stones—invented in Flanders, and very effective at short range—was being fitted together on the roof of the Barbican. Hammers were tapping, metal rang on metal, the saws groaned, and a great din of preparation pervaded everything.
In one corner of the bailey a man was cutting lead into strips so that it could be more easily made molten and poured upon besiegers. ”

“ The thirteenth century appears to have retained all the Engines for the approach and attack of towns that were in use during the preceding age. In this century we first obtain pictorial evidence of the form and principle of the mangona or trebuchet of the middle-ages, and from this valuable testimony we learn that the motive power of torsion employed during the classic period is no longer in favour; but instead, we have a machine from which, by means of a counterpoised beam, a large stone is cast forth from a sling fixed at one end of the beam. ”

“ Tregetours, s. pl. tricksters, C 7587.
Tregetrye, s. trickery, C 6382; Tregetry, trick, C 6374.
Trepeget, s. a military engine made of wood, used for hurling large stones and other missiles, a trebuchet, C 6279. ”

“ My daughter is a hot-head. You have bewitched her, that’s certain. She has taught them how to make trebuchets. We shall get a hailstorm of stones here tomorrow, but not such a very damaging one, for they did not know how to plait good strong ropes for the sling. ”

“ Let us show those barbarians what a community can do!”
With a busy hum of voices the Tukholian elders arose and left enmasse the Glade of Light, proceeding to the edge of the cliffs to inspect the work of the carpenters, the trebuchets. These trebuchets standing at every campfire were almost finished, crudely put together, constructed of thick, raw wood, drilled and fitted together with wooden pegs, hurriedly, not for durability but for immediate use. But it was not for the viewing and examining of the engines that Zakhar had called the people. ”

“ They can all be reduced to two classes; those which, like the trebuchet and mangonel, are enlarged staff-slings, and those which, like the arblast and springold, are great cross-bows. Conversely, we might describe a staff-sling as a hand-trebuchet.
2020. child Thopas. Child is an appellation given to both knights and squires, in the early romances, at an age when they had long passed the period which we now call childhood. A good example is to be found in the Erle of Tolous, ed. Ritson, iii. ”

“ But you can not get lightness and sufficient resistance to pressure without size, and here is where the sub-calibre comes in."
"In other words the Germans have been firing a shell within a shell," broke in another officer.
"Exactly," said Major de Trouville. "The Germans have evolved a big gun, that is big as regards length, to enable the missile they fire from it to gain enough impulse from the powder. But the missile would be too large to travel all the way to Paris. So they use two. The inner one is the one that really gets here and explodes."
"What becomes of the outer?" asked Jack. ”

“ As the time required for the projectile to [6] be thrown from a twelve-inch cannon is only about the sixtieth of a second, sixty of these huge guns could be placed side by side and fired by electricity one after the other, while grandfather’s clock is making but one tick.
Our ideas of duration are but relative. We have seen that the combustion in a cannon, though very rapid to our senses, is actually very slow indeed as compared with the much more rapid combustion of a high explosive ”

“ We met with stubborn resistance at first, but with the usual American determination and pluck, we soon forced the Boche back.
It was here that I first saw the German minnewafers and trench mortars at work. The shells thrown from the minnewafers are as much feared as any German weapon of war. They are thrown from a large gun with a smooth bore and short barrel. The projectile is shaped like a rolling pin, though it is much larger. In each end, or handle of the shell, is a cap, which explodes as the handle strikes the ground. ”

“ Such a method would also be likely to lead to much waste of the enemy's ammunition. We have all read again and again of terribly expensive assaults made on particular positions bristling with machine guns, such as the Hohenzollern Redoubt, and how our men were mown down directly they left their trenches. Not doubting that such attacks could be rendered far less costly, I wrote about a year ago to a friend in the War Office, suggesting that chemists should be invited to consider the best form of smoke-producing bomb or shell. ”

“ The airplane bombs were seldom more than sixty pounds in weight, although in the larger British machines a record of ninety-five pounds has been attained. The most common form of bomb used in the heavier-than-air machines was pear-shaped, with a whirling tail to keep the missile upright as it falls. Steel balls within, a little larger than ordinary shrapnel, are held in place by a device which releases them during the fall. On striking the ground they fall on the explosive charge within and the shell bursts, scattering the two or three hundred steel bullets which it carries over a wide radius. ”

“ However, there exist dum-dum bullets, as I mentioned before. They are manufactured by the soldiers themselves. If the point is filed or cut off a German infantry bullet, so that the nickel case is cut through and the lead core is laid bare, the bullet explodes when striking or penetrating an object. Should a man be hit in the upper arm by such a projectile the latter, by its explosive force, can mangle the arm to such an extent that it only hangs by a piece of skin. ”

“ The bomb was round shaped and rather larger than a cricket ball. A black tube affair an inch or two long projected from it and emitted, when lit, a jet of hissing, spitting sparks. The bomb-thrower seized the missile quickly, stepped clear of the sheltering corner of the trench, threw the bomb, and jumped back under cover. A couple of bullets slapped into the wall of the trench, and next moment the bomb burst. ”

“ If a 7-inch cannon 9 feet long loses by absorption of heat during the time of the passage of the shot to the muzzle one-half of the expansive force of the powder, it is time to wrap our guns as well as our steam-engines in non-conductors. The greater heat of exploded powder than of steam caused eighty-eight times the amount of loss from abstracted heat, and yet the force [Pg 292] from a pound of carbon in powder, was fourteen times as much as the Watt engine gave from a pound of coal. ”

“ Even amid the booming of the anti-aircraft batteries and the sharper staccato reports of the machine guns from various parts of the field, all blending into an unearthly din, the droning of the motors high in the air could be distinctly heard. Like a pyrotechnic display, luminous bullets, searching for the invaders, shot up into the sky, often piercing the low-hanging clouds; and mingling in with them were vicious little spurts of fire which told of the explosion of shrapnel shells. ”

“ Each of these guns is capable of hurling a projectile carrying five hundred pounds of the most powerful explosive known to man, and is able to destroy the strongest iron-clad. In the naval battle of Sinope in the Crimean War, a shell designed to explode on striking the object was used for the first time. When the high explosives, such as dynamite and gun-cotton, appeared, the idea suggested itself that they might be used in the shells with vastly greater effect than gunpowder, which had been employed. ”

“ The type of bomb which has proved to be the most successful is pear-shaped. The tail spindle is given an arrow-head shape, the vanes being utilised to steady the downward flight of the missile. In falling the bomb spins round, the rotating speed increasing as the projectile gathers velocity. The vanes act as a guide, keeping the projectile in as vertical a plane as possible, and ensuring that the rounded head shall strike the ground. ”

“ In the first case there is a warning whirr of approach, but the shell reaches the man who is ‘pip-squeaked’ while it is still travelling faster than sound, and he gets the ‘pip’ of the explosion first and the whizz afterwards—if there is enough of him left to hear it!
The voice of the German 77-millimetre field-gun can usually be distinguished from the various other guns, trench mortars, bombs and shells that are continually heard along the line. It sounds like two planks being banged together in a courtyard where there is some echo from the walls. ”

“ Thus, in the sense implied, rifles, machine-guns, field and heavy guns are projectors. Recent writers have termed gas a projectile, one which, on account of its fluid nature, ignores the limitations of explosive shell and multiplies their radius of action indefinitely. This is true—with one most important qualification. Gas has never entirely depended upon the usual form of projector, the gun, and with the limitation of the latter its dependence will decrease. New forms of chemical weapon will evolve. ”

“ There are guns in existence which at their maximum elevation will hurl a projectile weighing not far short of three-quarters of a ton a distance of 25 miles, and the projectile itself contains an explosive charge more powerful and destructive than the heaviest charge which could be placed in the heaviest gun which was fought in the Battle of Trafalgar. ”

“ When the bomb strikes the ground the detonator falls down on the charge, fires the latter, and thus brings about the bursting of the bomb. The projectile is of the shrapnel type. It weighs 20 pounds complete, is charged with some four pounds of T.N.T., and carries 340 steel balls, which represent a weight of 5 3/4 pounds.
The firing mechanism is extremely sensitive and the bomb will burst upon impact with the hull of an airship, water, or soft soil. ”

“ The enormous pressure generated by the explosion of the charge forces the projectile down the bore of the gun and out of the muzzle. The body of the projectile, made of steel or iron, being smaller in diameter than the bore, easily passes through, but the driving-band being of greater diameter, and being composed of soft copper, can only pass down the bore with the projectile [Pg 87] by flowing into the grooves, thus preventing any escape of gas, and being forced to follow their twist. ”