The Most Underrated Ancient Projectile

we all know of the arrow and the javelin ancient projectiles so prolific as to even be practiced as a sport in the modern day but what if there was another also with its roots in prehistory and equally widespread yet so overlooked today that my friends is the big rock large stones have been a formidable projectile since the early paleolithic being heavy hard and dense and often readily available they were commonly used for attack and defense for many thousands of years they could be launched by hand or sling and later staff slings and catapults today I'll share some of the ways the Romans used it as well as test a helmet against the considerable forces of this ancient missile wetus States in dur militari recruits are to be taught the art of throwing stones both with the hand and sling and formerly all soldiers were trained to the practice of throwing stones of a pound weight with the hand as this was thought a readier method since it did not require a sling here is a stone of approximately this weight one Libra or one Roman pound even though I don't practice throwing bare hand it feels an Optimum weight to throw more than twice the weight of a baseball or Crick ball there is less excess energy in the arm after the throw making it surprisingly comfortable barehand throwers require little room compared to Slingers and that's their main advantage on the battlefield for more power a sling can be used the one Libra St Stone works very well with short medium and long slings but a lighter Stone will provide a lot more range sling bullets very rarely weighed more than about 4 o or 115 G and yet stones of about 1 Greek Mina or 435 g are said to have been used in battle this is because large stones have a lot of kinetic energy and momentum and were known to the Ancients as an anti- armor projectile diodorus culus wrote but when hamila saw that his men were being overpowered and that the Greeks in constantly increasing numbers were making their way into the camp he brought up his Slingers who came from the baleric islands and numbered at least a thousand by hurling a shower of great Stones they wounded many and even killed not a few of those who were attacking and they shattered the defensive armor of most of them for these men who are accustomed to the sling Stones weighing a Mina contribute a great deal toward victory in battle since from childhood they practice constantly with the sling in this way they drove the Greeks from the camp and defeated them another feature is that this power is greatly accentuated when used from an elevated position such as a fortification in this context Stones can be stockpiled making for a cheap and highly potent defense tactically large Stones can be used in a variety of ways they can be thrown in a high arc to rain down on the enemy they can be launched directly or they can be cast as to bounce along the ground or at an angle to bounce up under Shields this was also used to great effect by Stone throwing ballist whose round projectiles would bounce and travel great distances potentially taking out many foes with a single shot the smallest of the vitruvia ballistas was the two Libra this means that the largest stone it could shoot was 2 Roman pound about 660 G in weight however smaller and lighter projectiles could also be used resulting in Greater velocity thus around one Libra Stone can effectively be used by Slingers and hand throwers as well as the Lesser artillery this potentially shared ammunition and versatility provides a great deal of adaptability and simplified Logistics however because such stones are significantly larger than arrows or sling bullets it makes them a lot easier to dodge where this was an issue the Romans blackened them this made even giant Bist Stones much harder to see when hurtling towards you now for the helmet test for this I've got a Roman GAC htype helmet it's a mass Market replica of 18 gauge construction but it should help illustrate the impact of heavy stones in general the first sling I'll use is a 13-in baleric style any shorter and bare handers preferable there are numerous depictions of very short slings being used historically and it increases throwing power while while still being as compact as possible next I'll use a 28in baleric style this is a medium length sling and is capable of generating significantly higher velocities especially with lighter projectiles let's begin as you can see it wasn't a completely Square on hit uh partially glancing but there was defamation from the impact uh and it did transfer through the padding um well the inside of it is also dented as you can see there um and that did actually transfer through the padding to the melon which is also damaged here it will split open and become a bit soft as a result 490 G Stone hit directly on the brow Ridge here but what's really interesting about that is you can see the def defamation is not extreme what this did was distribute the force over the brow Ridge and thus you can see the dent that it did actually Dent the helmet underneath but as you can see that that is uh distributed over a line which means from the inside you can see that BR Ridge has been forced into the helmet but has reduced dramatically reduce the defamation that would otherwise have occurred uh evidently my aim was too good uh and I hit him right in the face which is uh not a good test for the helmet hit him right in the chin uh the watermelon subsequently blit on the bottom uh really I mean the it just completely exploded um carved that watermelon inside out so here's the helmet after that hit just a glancing blow here over the rivet did cause defamation a little bit uh and there isn't any visible damage on the watermelon beneath so in this instance if you weren't wearing helmet that could well you know have made you pop your clogs but with a helmet on it protects you and I think these glancing blows would actually been more common the direct hits and this is where a helmet as a secondary defense will save your life coming up into the target this time you can see the brow of the helmet is detached the armor cap has been excluded from the helmet and the melon unfortunately has now met its end this was a new melon and that is unscathed I believe oh wow look at that so that just missed the bar and just was a glancing blow on top uh but it was fairly well placed right on the almost the crown there and inside that is bunch of significant Dent there [Music] now that was an exciting shot oh oh wow now that's that helmet hasn't really done much for the user here uh or rather should I say for the melon um cuz despite it actually being a square on hit on the helmet uh right here on the above the eyes it's was a catastrophic cave-in and completely destroyed the watermelon there we have it what happens repli Ren helmet very popular with Reon actus Sor I've heard comes up against large stones from a sling now imagine with a lot of ancient helmets of uh not necessarily the best quality uh the results wouldn't be too outrageously different from what we have observed here today so there we have it that's what I can do with this and some string now I would like to say that what I can do pales in comparison to modern day pitches and Javelin throwers uh a modern day Javelin thrower can throw an 800 gram Javelin at about 31 m a second generating 392 Jew of kinetic energy and 25 kog M a second of momentum which is a lot greater than I can do with even a sling so one can only imagine what they would be able to do with a sling uh and I think with that that would be the level approached in ancient times where people are practicing with this all the time and the select few that actually get hired as mercenaries are the very top of their entire population one thing I would like to say about the helmet test which was mostly just a bit of fun really is that the video doesn't show the shock wave that transfers through a medium when you have a high velocity impact the only real way of showing that is by having gForce stickers to show the peak G's uh during the impact uh so something like a glancing blow might actually take you out of the battle whereas on you see it from the outside it looks like really the person underneath would be completely unscathed anyway that's it for today so let me know what you think about it I try to read every single comment and if you enjoyed it stick around because there's lots more to come and for those who say don't waste food well this one is actually a nice tasting one the last one was rubbish totally worth it a good shot too [Applause]

Channel: Archaic Arms

Views: 244,718

Keywords: Roman, military history, ancient rome, javelin, slinging, projectile, big stones, pitching, archery, arrows, ballista, rocks, helmet, armour, test, ancient, watermelon, ballistics, throwing

Id: ev9OjxuzoU8

Length: 14min 48sec (888 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 06 2024