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Has anyone watched the trebuchet building episode of NOVA? I watched it last night, where two teams – one led by an American, the other led by a Frenchman – build separate trebuchets, based on slightly different structural plans, in Scotland. The trebuchet built by the American used a lead weight counterbalance, whereas the one built by the Frenchman used a swinging “bucket” counterbalance. The latter was supposedly better, as weight could be added much more easily to the bucket to make the projectile launch as a greater or lesser distance as needed. On the show, both were able to propel wooden boulders long distances to do damage to a makeshift castle wall.
The show said that the trebuchet ruled siege warfare for I believe about 200 years, ending in the 15th Century as the cannon became the new siege weapon of choice. The trebuchet then vanished into history. Quite an engineering marvel even 600 years later.I saw this – it's a little game in which you need to input variable to make a trebuchet launch far. Medieval engineers no doubt had to grapple with some of these things back in the day.http://www.globalspec.com/trebuchet/
Awesome machine. I got to see one in action at Caerphilly Castle in Wales. They were chucking 200kilo stones into the mote. They say there were very accurate compared to many of the other stone throwing weapons. I guess once the projectile gets moving in the plane its only a matter of distance then. I want to build a small one to throw golf balls and tennis balls.
You can buy one here.
I wonder if technology could perfect that machine? Could you imagine what you could do with a trebuchet driven by compressed air?
wouldnt the throw weight and velocity be limited by the material structure of the trebuchet itself. I would imagine that you could get some pretty impressive distances if modern materials were used to modify/improve the basic design.
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