The True Uses of Ballistas

[Freedom-Fighter]

I'm actually talking about in real life but not the games. So what is really the true uses of ballistas? I mean, you wouldn't make a huge siege engine and fire a large bolt just to kill of one man! Wouldn't that be a waste of ballistas ammos if this is really the true uses of them?

Or perhaps is the true use of ballistas are to raise ladders against the enemy walls? ( Just like in LOTR-The Two Towers)
hmm...

[sPiRiTnInJa]

They sometimes had hollow heads filled with gun powder, that they set alight and shot into castle walls. Or they did, as you said, just used to kill one man. n_n

[sPiRiTnInJa]

Of course, these were unsafe and wasteful, too close killled the user, too far made the ballista explode in the air.

[PzK]

apparantely the weapon was highly accurate and effective at picking off soldiers. It also had a long range and didnt really take much skill to operate (Compared to the bow).

It was originally made by the romans and was one of their trophy weapons and highly valuable in thier military. It was taken over by the onager.

[Levi]

Hmm... FF your question is quiet interesting, I never thought about it that way!

Now, I can think of a few ideas for their use.
1) It was used against a big crowd of people where it can hit several people standing behind the initial target. (this seems a little unlikely though)
2) A rope was tied to the bolt and it was shot over a wall. (again, seems unlikely a little)
3) It would be used to take down cavalry, due to its power and accuracy.
4) Because it was pretty small and accurate, it was used to take down enemy artillery such as catapults and trebuchets.
5) Now I think this is the most likely explanation- the ballista wasn't that big as in some movies or games, instead it was just a big version of a bow which fired big arrows and could be reloaded quickly by its crew. It was effective because it didn't matter where the arrow hit the person and it could also take down horses. Also small potential of area damage, it could also have great range which could be a big advantage in a fight; basically a big bow which has increased damage and range.

This is what I think although I never really looked it up. I think maybe some of these explanations could fit the ballista as it may have had different 'versions' of it varying in size of the ballista itself and of the bolt it fired.

[Freedom-Fighter]

Yeah...

In EE1 the ballistas fire rocks instead of metal bolts. Maybe ballistas are used to fire lots of arrows at the same time. I read a book which says the Romans used to use some "big machines" and fire lots of arrows with one shot, but it never mentioned the name of that "big machine".

[Levi]

I doubt it was used to fire multiple arrows at the same time, that would require a more complex mechanism then just a big bow-like machine. It would be really hard to aim and most of the missiles would just fly to all directions.

I think my last explanation in my previous reply is the most logical one.

[sPiRiTnInJa]

You could like, shoot a big thing into the sky and shoot that with a ballista so it would have popped open and have scattered arrows all over your enemie's heads! n_n

[PzK]

I think they did at some time use the ballistas to fire multiple arrows to attack several soldiers. It was inaccurate but more effective in taking out mass armies and basically destroying there frontline. In Japan/China History (cant remember which one) they used ballistas to fire lots of arrows and it is actually shown in the game Kessen.

[Levi]

Ok, how do you propose the arrows would have been mounted and fired from the balista? Seems highly unprobable to me.

[sPiRiTnInJa]

My idea or his?

Well, mine basically would be a catapult sphere of arrows which is then shot by a Ballista to break it apart. The result is that the arrows scatter downwards, hopefully killing off lot's of men.

[Freedom-Fighter]

Well, I've just brought Rise & Fall today and the ballistas in the game are huge war machines and fire large rocks on the top of the wall. So perhaps like levi mentioned there are lots of different types of ballistas. Some fire rocks while some fire "bolts".

[sPiRiTnInJa]

Cool, i'll make you mod of the RaF section.

[Ψїş†ÆCROW100]

RaF is a sweet game. I played it once at my friends and I love it. I know more about the game then him, and I don't have it.

[ŁאPёńg]

I'm the one who has Rome: Total War, so I have the firsthand experience with them.

First off, ballistas were used mainly to fire large bolts, not rocks. There were probably some that fired rocks, but most of them were just bolts.

They were used to fire into tightly packed enemy formations. Back in the days of Rome, everyone in the western world was using large shields, so having lots of archers was not very useful. (Hollywood makes it look like arrow fire can totally annihilate entire formations, whether they are shielded or not, but in real life arrow fire is extremely ineffective against a group of tightly packed shielded men.) But a ballista bolt can rip through any shield and totally skewer the unlucky guy who happened to be its bearer. It also went through him and struck the one or two guys standing behind him. So ballista bolts were the only western-made missiles in those days which you could call effective. (Catapults had not been invented yet--they came later.)

The reason I said "western-made missiles" was because at the time, eastern-made missiles were much deadlier. The main reason was because the westerners used whole bows while the easterners used composite bows. As a result, eastern firepower was much greater--as demonstrated around 50 B.C. in the Battle of Carrhae, where a Roman general named Crassus (the same one in the movie Spartacus) led several legions against the Parthians, a people of nomadic origin. The Parthian arrows simply tore through the legionary shields.

Some other things you need to know:

Ballistas were not used to raise ladders against enemy walls. Some of them probably did, but most of them were used to cause damage, not grapple with things.

They did not use gunpowder. By the time gunpowder was in wide use, everyone was using cannons. Only exception were the Chinese, who used gunpowder to propel their bolts instead of giant crossbows.

They could be used against cavalry, since one well-placed shot can instantly take down a cavalryman, horse and all. But since most bolts were not big enough to take down more than one cavalryman at a time, they were not used much against cavalry.

It is not easy to use a ballista. Operating it might be easy, but aiming it is a real pain in the ass. Most of the time, sometimes even with veteran crews, the shot might go too far, or not far enough, since most conventional ancient armies were deployed in one long column. The only way to guarantee that a ballista bolt will hit a certain area is to have over a dozen ballitas all aiming in that direction--it's the way archers work: one archer is ineffective, but have a huge group of archers all aiming in one direction will guarantee that many arrows find their mark. But since most ancient armies didn't deploy a lot of ballistas, that wouldn't work.