Ballista - building the impossible

[gpoop23]

Hot damn, that thing is huge! The Romans knew what they were doing!

[chunkydcaveman]

holy shit!

[jukio02]

if they wanted to do it right, they shouldnt have used modern tools to build it. build it from scratch, use old tools and all

[Frostfalle]

Guys I hope you're aware of that the ballista model (the word ballista orginates from the greek word for "throwing arm", and was a greek invention btw) that you have constucted is a infantry weapon, not a siege weapon. The purpose of the machine is to provide roman infantry with ranged puch. The main design aspect is mobility, which is rather ironic considering the scale, it's also designed to propel heavy "pilas" or heavy iron tipped bolts.

You should have built a "Onanger" ;)

GG otherwise

[2698mamaw]

I think this one can load really big rocks,as large as a half of a size of a car

[2698mamaw]

This is a weak machine

[lifes40123]

this is basiclly a giant crossbow u dummies -_________-

[monkeynick1209]

how long would it have taken to set this thing up back then?

[Zacarriss]

They used modern rope in the torsions spring thus it won't work as well as the real hemp or flax heck even animal sinew is better.

[mikeyrichster]

Lame, that thing should be able to handle much bigger throws than that...

[korsager]

@mikeyrichster yeah second that, would love to have seen it used properly

[PhoenicianC4D]

I hope that they did not use modern tools then they can truly celebrate in real way :)

- I know guys it will will take time but for sure the team got the brain to do it >

Cheers to the Team .

[firewolf11567]

Music?



[gruntythe1andonly]

Very impressive! I found an error in spelling, the plural of Ballista is ballistae

[defender106]

Did the Romans use this against an army at any time instead of walls and buildings? would be perfect for wiping out a rank of troops, and then the Romans could've charged the gap... =] I have an idea....

[empire12cody]

dident the ballista shoot giant arrows?

[AridSea]

Ballista shot wooden and stone javelins that were 6-12 feet and set ablaze..  Eragon teachers you alot.

[mrh3tic]

such a fail

[infernofia]

Building the Impossible? O crap i need to make one for my physics project.

[cjroxful]

it shoots bown arrows two

so it wold kill people

[dbkid975]

@cjroxful id like to know what a "bown" arrow is.

[jak9200]

this is awesome

[naverednog]

this shall prove helpful with my science project, i need to build a controlled projectile launcher.......i know what I'm building

[try37]

The machine is very impressive, the shooting is a little smallish. It is probably hard to compete against onagers.

[wierderandwierder]

Awesome. But I hear Al Gore will still not support converting the US military to green warfare methods as the Romans had unless there is a way to attach wind tubines and solar panels and unless we contract ahead of time to buy all carbon credits from him for hacking down the trees to make it. The sad thing is, we could still kick most of our enemies asses round the world if all we had was ballistas.

[barneybros]

@wierderandwierder I really don't see the logic in that. i could beat a few people operating a ballista with my bb gun, much less people with guns and explosives.

[wierderandwierder]

It isn't supposed to make sense; it's just supposed to make money; even Al Gore agrees. But as with everything, it is all about quantity & quality. High yield & high quality beats low yield and massive numbers up to a point; thereafter, even high yield & high quality is still matched or hopelessly overwhelmed. Ballistas were not used in isolation; they were each protected by their own little troop of soldiers. BB gun would just piss them off and cause them to aim at you. Also, I said "Most".

[firewolf11567]

@wierderandwierder not if they have fucking nuclear warheads and tanks.

[wierderandwierder]

@firewolf11567 Like I said *sigh*  "most". Don't people read anymore?

[firewolf11567]

@wierderandwierder I read it and well, if we only used ballistas we would be kicked the fuck around.

[Alonsel3]

I made a miniature one of these that shoots arrows instead of rocks, or balls. Really sick, good fun to build and its always fun to watch stuff hurtle through the air and hit something. ive also built a miniature trebuchet.

Next is to upsize it =D

[Potatonaught]

AWSUM

[Gurgle528sevrules1]

the ballista was actually Greek, adopted by the Romans and made before the crossbow

[OldWeaponsRCool]

I like building old weapons. I have built a couple catapults. One of them threw a golf ball about 60ft. I have also built a trebuchet that throws a tennis ball 200ft. My next project is going to be a ballista.

[eyetheskies]

On the second shot however, the wooden sphere entered orbit, killing several astronauts.

[noi4444]

what is this song?

Noi4444

[DannyJamesRead]

mmmmm you americans always have to take it a step too far LOL

[eyetheskies]

at least its interesting eh? :-P

[wierderandwierder]

When the world no longer says, mmmmm you americans..., then we are in trouble. May that day never come.

[DannyJamesRead]

lol to be honest we wouldnt be here without you buddy. (:

[ihasrabies]

thats not a ballista. ballistas are a lot smaller, and the shoot huge bolts, rather than limestone balls. this is like a mix of a ballista and a trebuchet.

yes, l know trebuchets use counterweights

[Poperol]

no buddy, that's a scrorpio. the ballista was used on fortifications, the scorpio on infantry formations. they're exactly the same except for size and projectile.

[ihasrabies]

hate to burst your bubble, but a scorpio is basically a mounted crossbow. the second picture of the ballista entry on wikipedia is basically what a ballista is.

[killedbysanta]

well actually there are a lot of different names for all of the stuff there - as long as its torsion based (powered by wound up ropes) and it has 2 springs its a ballista, scorpio & etc. if its torsion based and it has 1 spring its an onager... i guess thats the best rule for it - that is namely because different ppl call the same thing with different names - they are all catapults and the designs are not that much ( well the basic principle) but they have a lot of names...

[Blaze200038]

So isn't it really just a giant slingshot?

[mrtumness100]

no blaze200038, a slingshot is just a tiny ballista. :P

[HAHA897]

There r not eco friendly :(

[thereisnocowlevel1]

Did the Romans kill people with that thing?

[plabrow]

I can't see how they would avoid it! They didn't target it at people, but at buildings/walls - but it would have ended up hitting people anyway.

[PabloManUK]

only if they ran out of boulders, then they use human heads!! - just kidding. Thas was a great video. a Ballista in 10 days. nice :)

[erty192]

They would sometimes aim it into a mass of oncomeing enemies, it would obviously hit them and take out maby 20 at a time

[dajohnnyboy252]

well yh and not 20 enimies whenn they used it against oncoming formations it was usualy in defence and would only take about 5 people. but the key thing was it could make units come out of formation due to seeing this coming flying ast you you would probably try to run :L

[anandpsbb]

@thereisnocowlevel1 err no they didnt. just did this thing called "sieging" which involves chucking stones at walls

[jukio02]

@thereisnocowlevel1 id say they mostly used it to bring down walls. the arrow ones for people

[TheBleater]

@thereisnocowlevel1

There was a smaller versione, called "Scorpio" made for trown darts instead stone balls, made for kill people, they scored a very good rate of fire, like 2 shoots every minute (whit a skilled and very well trained crew), the power of the scorpio was able to nail to a tree a Barbarian Battleleader in his heavy armour at 100 mt.

[snajp3r]

Is this really a ballista? It looks more like a trebuchet to me.

[kartongen]

Then you don't have a clue how a trebuchet looks like. This is a real roman-designed ballista. Built by skilled people.

[erty192]

This is cleary not a trbuchet, as trebuchets are fairly tall and use a counter-weight to throw the object, and they do not launch it as a trebuchet shoots it.

[combuf]

Trebuchets were launched by a counter-weight. Ballistaes and catapults were launched by the built-up tension of extended arms, like cross-bows.

[lotusiotus]

a ballista is an oversized cross bow."howitzer" of the crossbows =]

[combuf]

Someone correct me on this... But i thought Ballistae launched oversized arrows to take down infantry from a long distance.

And i thought the trebuche was the biggest seige machine. Even a trebuche would look easier to build than that behemoth of a contraption. But then again, I was never a soldier of Rome.

[xxJMStudiosxx]

trebuchets were more, medieval than roman time, and the design of the ballista varies from abou the size of a great dane to this.

[plumsuck]

Its suppose to be smaller.The romans used it for a ballista that can deploy fast and anywhere.

[Lokivoid]

Thats one overly complicated ballista

[Algan0]

Can anybody tell me the titel of the song? Thx a lot.

[plabrow]

The song is Games without Frontiers - it was written and originally performed by Peter Gabriel, but this version is by Echo of Souls.

[Godondrums]

what is it for a song? its realy nice and this weapon is very nice too^^

[plabrow]

The song is Games without Frontiers - it was written and originally performed by Peter Gabriel, but this version is by Echo of Souls.

[Algan0]

I thank you very much. :)

[Bugstomper2]

They must be doing something wrong, because the performance of the Ballista is rather dismal. Or I've seen to many surface to air missles launch?

[FluMMiiiii]

hm i like that song oO?!

[evilkumquat]

I just logged on real quick to bitch and moan about the music as well.

Why in the hell do so many YouTube posters feel that adding some crappy/distracting song somehow enhances the video, especially when the original probably had a perfectly adequate audio track?

Sorry, Plabrow, nothing personal, but your post was just the latest in a long series to feature loud, crappy music that ruined an otherwise good video for me.

Something just snapped and I had to bitch pointlessly about it.

[plabrow]

You are, of course, entitled to your view. The original programme was an hour long so needed editing. If the original soundtrack had been left in, it would have been a meaningless jumble of words because we cut from all over the place. So it was either silence, or a soundtrack. Personally, I don't think this is a crappy sound, but that's subjective, I accept that some will. But leaving it with the old track in place wasn't a real option.

[evilkumquat]

Everything you say is true, of course, especially the subjectiveness of the quality of the selected music.

Your explanation for replacing the original soundtrack is appreciated and understood.

[plabrow]

If you search for building the impossible: the roman war machine, you can watch it all with the sound track intact. A point to make: nearly 50,000 people have watched this video, so I don't think it's all bad!

[DarthTurducken]

What a crappy song - I'd rather hear the dialogue.

[MikeLabrow]

Then mute it and just watch. Dialogue was clearly not the intention for this video

[plabrow]

If you search You Tube, you will find that the full programme 'Building the Impossible' is up in three parts.

[evil3mperor]

I agree. The music takes away from the video

[plabrow]

I disagree. I have the original without the sound track, and as I have already said, since this takes snippets of a 1 hour programme, the sound track is just a meaningless jumble of random words. I'm sorry you don't like the music, of course, but that's a subjective thing.

[poorbug]

bolts?

FAIL!

[singedrac]

Hmm, that doesn't look like much of launch. Does this design have any particular advantage over trebuchets?

[plabrow]

You're asking the wrong person - the company which built this also built a trebuchet, the one at Warwick Castle, which is fired every day. I think that there was more documentation to allow a trebuchet to be built, but with this there were no plans and few records, so a lot of guesswork was involved - and a lot of learning along the way. One thing, for instance, was that the type of rope used turned out to be critical, and this didn't help when it came to firing.

[singedrac]

Hey I am just asking about the relative advantages between these machines versus trebuchets. I'm not saying anything about which design is "better".

Is this more accurate than a trebuchet? I just want to learn more about seige machines. :D

[plabrow]

Sorry, didn't mean to sound curt, I wasn't snapping at you! I really don't know enough to answer that question. I would guess the trebuchet, as that benefited from many more years' refinement in terms of design and engineering, but I couldn't say for sure. When building the trebuchet the company had more in the way of plans so the build was quite predictable - that wasn't the case with this, where they were guessing a lot of the time. Saerch for the full videos, with dialogue, they will help.

[johntheharlequin]

Cool, I want one. I saw something as equally awesome at Warwick castle in the UK. Most excellent.

[plabrow]

The one at Warwick Castle is a trebuchet - and it was made by the same company, Carpenter Oak & Woodland. The normally make timber framed buildings, but war machines seem to be something of another specialisation for them!

[AndyJohnParker]

What an achievement

[SergiFranqueza]

very nice. i will use this to do a school work of this tipe of siege weapons.

PD. i'm not english

[redfoozle]

Do a night-time test- Flaming balls - ideally ;-)

[harnois75]

If I had the dough I'd buy one of those - rough neighbourhood round here!

[tomthep]

awesome!!! I want one!