The Ballista

This is one of our first successful shots with our ballista. The ballista is powered by torsion created by coils of rope and it fires a very large arrow (technically a bolt). It began to be used during the time of Alexander the Great, who used it to great effect. It was also used by the Romans and during Medieval times.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Roman
• Medieval
• siege
• engine
• weapon
• catapult
• crossbow
• arbalest
• ballista
• arrow
• bolt
• TheBesiegers

[jaredhipfn]

How did you get this awesome ballista!

[TheBesiegers]

@jaredhipfn I built it out of scrap wood from my Grandma's shed that had got old and was torn down.

[Locker344]

what is the pull strength on it?

[TheBesiegers]

@Locker344 Probably 200-300 pounds. Could be more, I haven't measured it. It's not as heavy as I would like it to be.

[MagicByDanielle]

Great ballista! I have to build one that can shoot a basketball fifty yards for school. How did you design it, so that you could fire the ballista remotely and away from the actual machine?

Much appreciated!

[TheBesiegers]

The triggers on that page look better than mine. There's other designs to choose from as well that you can probably find on the Internet.

[TheBesiegers]

Technically, its not a crossbow as it does not use a tension-based set of bending arms, but rather a torsion-based set of rigid arms. It does look like a crossbow though.

[rebel9568]

tenichly a larg over sized crossbow

[edwinzanpaku]

hey.. u can hunt reindeer with thoseO.o lol...

[ozzyyermom]

i want one of those for my birthday!!