Catapult History

The term catapult came from the Greek word “katapultos” and is defined as a large machine placed on wheels that has a basket on a long wooden throwing arm and some type of force to hurl the objects (Catapult history). Catapults were first used in Asia to increase the range and power of a crossbow that was used in war as a weapon. Diodorus Siculus, was the first to show the use of a mechanical arrow firing catapult 399 BC (History) that was much like a crossbow and called a Gastraphete (Catapult history). This Gastraphete was later made into a bigger version known as the Ballista (Catapult history). Catapults were then brought to Europe when used during the Siege of Dover in 1216 by the French. Catapults began very useful as cities began to
The missiles were thrown at soldiers, thrown at the wall, or thrown over the wall to hurt people inside them. Catapults were part of the first accounted Biological Warfare and later stopped being used in war in 885 AD when new technology rose above. The type of catapult we used was an onager. An onager is a variation of a Mangonel which used twisted cords instead of bungee straps. The onager was invented around 200 B.C (Dating) and is a torsion catapult. It has no wheels, a single arm and a sling at the end instead of a bucket. Onagers were used in the Roman Empire mainly for tearing down forts and settlements. They often shot stones that were on fire, and could be outshot by bows. The onager later changed from a sling to a bowl, like ours, in attempt to mislead people into thinking it wasn’t a catapult. The name is from the kicking action of a machine, and is an action similar to the kicking of a donkey (“All about catapults” All). Using on onager was better than using a bow because of the ability to attack from a distance with a greater force
We were able to build it without cutting boards at an angle besides 90, and we didn’t have to drill any holes. All we had to do was cut would, and drill it together with screws or drill the other parts on with screws. This made for easy prepping and quick build time followed with an easy sketch. Sometimes simple can be better. The second advantage of our catapult is that it could fire things at a lower trajectory (“All about catapults” The) so it could chip away at walls easier instead of always throwing things over the walls. And when they could break the walls down, that was more effective to be able to attack with no wall instead of having to attack over a wall.
The third advantage of our catapult is that we can fire at different angles opposed to trebuchets, which can’t (My). This allows us to hit targets at different angles without moving the catapult which results in more accuracy, and less time wasted. So we can calculate how far back we need to pull the throwing arm instead of calculating how far away we need to be which is much easier.