[Sca-librarians] Trebuchet help

[Stefan li Rous]

On Feb 7, 2006, at 8:37 PM, Nancy Shapiro wrote:

> Gurstelle also wrote _Backyard Ballistics.  _Backyard Catapult: How  
> to Build Your Own_ by Bill Wilson.  My local library has _Catapult:  
> Harry and I Build A Siege Weapon_ by Jim Paul, which was pretty  
> entertaining.

I bought this last one, and I was rather less than impressed. If you  
are wanting to simply build something which will hurl something using  
modern tools and stuff you could get from a junk yard, then this  
might be okay. Even then, most of it was story with little in the way  
of real details. It is certainly not something I would use to build a  
medieval style treb or catapult.

Your best historic source is going to be Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey's  
"The Crossbow, Mediaeval and Modern Military and Sporting. Its  
Construction, History & Management with a Treatise on The Ballista  
and Catapult of the Ancients and an Appendix on the Catapult, Balista  
& the Turkish Bow" The Holland Press, London  ISBN: 0-946323-14-3."

First published in 1903. My copy says "Tenth Impression 1995

Don't you just love those long, Victorian book titles... I think I  
got all that right, but don't count on the capitalization. It is in  
several fonts, some is in all capital letters, some not. I have no  
idea how it would get entered into various book search engines.

Also, there was an edition published by Dover more recently. However  
it is my understanding that the appendix on siege engines was not  
printed in that edition. The Dover edition is much cheaper and is in  
paperback.

Payne-Gallwey did get some of the inside mechanisms of the crossbows  
wrong since he didn't have access to x-rays of the crossbows. You can  
find corrected drawings in later books, but Payne-Gallwey's volume is  
still considered the best.

I did buy multiple copies of the book when I found this edition as a  
remainder. Even so, it was still in the $60 range if I remember  
rightly. I didn't know the Dover edition was coming. But if someone  
wants to buy one of my extras, contact me...

I'm not sure if these will help, but there are also these files in  
the COMBAT section of the Florilegium:
siege-engines-msg (93K)  6/16/05    Catapults, trebuchets. Period and  
modern.
trebuchet-art     (18K)  4/25/95    Wall Street article on a modern  
trebuchet.

Stefan

PS: I've been asked by the editor of TI to write an article on the  
Florilegium. It's history, what's in it, what's not in it, how to use  
it. He's also replied that a section on how folks might help with it  
would be good. I've also thought in the past about creating a class  
on the Florilegium for Gulf Wars and/or Pennsic, but was afraid that  
that would be of little interest or be considered rather egotistical.  
However, it looks like such a class will be on the Gulf Wars class  
schedule.

So, is any of this of interest to anyone? What would *you* like to  
see in such a class or TI article? I'd like to hear your input,  
either positive or negative, especially with comments on what you  
would like to see or know about it.

> Surprisingly enough, there doesn't seem to be a Compleat  
> Anachronist pamphlet on it.
>
> Sites:
> The Grey Company Trebuchet Page - http://members.iinet.net.au/ 
> ~rmine/gctrebs.html
> Buy a Build-It-Yourself kit: http://www.builditplayit.com/html/ 
> pathfinders.html
>
> Maybe one of these will help.  Have fun!
>
> Ki-lin
> Mongoose Information Services - Our motto is "Run and Find Out!"
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****