Arbalests? and ballistas in TTT.

[Hans_Schuder]

Someone wrote that not enough folks come to the armory and the smithy. Well, I'm as fresh as they come, and I'll post my first message here. :thumbs:

I have only seen glimpses of the Uruk-Hai crossbows through the preview and the toys, so I haven't noticed if they in fact carry genuine arbalests into battle. In any case, I'm goint to jump completely on the film's workshop and just praise the conceptual people (John Howe no doubt had a hand in this) for issuing steel crossbows, I believe, to at least a part of the Uruk-Hai Army in the next film and keeping crossbows out of the hands of any character in FOTR until then. It further suggests that Saruman is turning to guile to supplement his burgeoning military power, developing or improving weapons and soldiers (creating stronger orcs in the Uruk-Hai for ex.) to give him the upper hand. Arbalests and crossbows also require more industry, which Saruman has, but you can quickly train many warriors to use them within a matter of weeks or less as opposed to composite bows, which may require years of slow, deliberate practice. I also like the fact they'll have ballistas at Helm's Deep. I hope we'll get to see them in action.

[Bonos-Girl]

i'm probably really stupid but what are arbalests and ballistas?? :huh:

[Orc]

Originally posted by Hans_Schuder
Someone wrote that not enough folks come to the armory and the smithy. Well, I'm as fresh as they come, and I'll post my first message here. :thumbs:


Welcome aboard Hans! I'm honored that you'd put your first post here!

I haven't seen any shots of the Uruk-hai using either crossbows or arbalests in any of the combat shots. I'm guessing that we'll see more bows than crossbows because they make a bit more dramatic impression on screen (a la Braveheart).

Definately can't wait to see ballistas though!

[Orc]

Originally posted by Bonos-Girl
i'm probably really stupid but what are arbalests and ballistas?? :huh:

Nope, you aren't stupid, you just haven't been exposed to these terms before.

An arbalest is a type of crossbow that uses metal rather than wood for the acutal bow. This gave the weapon greater range, accuracy and penetrating power.

A bilista is a esentially a very large crossbow that fires spears rather than arrows. It was used as a siege engine along the lines of a catapult and was either built on site, or transported by wheels to the battle field.

[Hans_Schuder]

Sorry, really my fault. I should keep in mind all kinds of folks access the forum and not just medieval obsessed geeks like me :blush:

Here is good place to see plenty of pictures of ballistas and all kinds of other siege engines: http://198.144.2.125/Siege/siege.htm

If you look in the DVD on TTT Preview you can see an Uruk-hai ballista starting at 6:47 and if you do a freeze frame at exactly 6:52 you can see all of it including two warriors on top of it doing their job. :archer: Neat!

[Bonos-Girl]

thanks......most people that come to the armory seem to know quite a lot about weapons and stuff apart from me....it's always good to learn something

[Pil]

I'm mostly weapon ignorant too! I'm learning stuff too! But i DID know what an arbalest is! :hooray: :)

[Bonos-Girl]

i'd heard of them but i wasn't sure what they were..... i tend to switch off in lessons!!

[Finrod Felagund]

Check out the human trebuchet on this site, funny story
http://www.trebuchet.com/articles/ron/trebuchet.html

[Bonos-Girl]

omg..i wanna do that..sounds like fun.....

[Winyaél Greenleaf]

Oh so that's a ballista! I always wondered what it was called! lol

And I'm moving this thread from the Armoury to the Smithy ;)

[Nilion Elentano]

Don't forget one thing, A Crossbow is a very slow weapon to load, so its use was reserved to mainly one point , usually at defending fortifications, or at firing a wave of them, but the Uruks as they did in the Movie I could tell they dropped them once they engaged into battle, believe me you don't want to be stuck in battle with one of those, as for accuracy and power you are right, but still Longbows and some recurve bows can reach longer distances, the advantage of the crossbow is that you can aim with it, with a Traditional Bow you don't aim, you make approximations of height and distance, and the line of flight progress is slightly (and sometimes much more) parabollic than the crossbow's.
I'm gladly impressed by the comment of someone here about the developing of siege engineering on Middle Earth, one thing that is very symbolic on the epic is the use of the ring, in nature almost no extructure has use for rings, or wheels, it is a human invention, and it marked a before and an after, when you see that , you clearly realise the spark of human inventive in the epic, the use of gun powder, the siege engineering, the neatly orchestrated tactics of the Uruk Hai , beyond their awful look, it is a truly exquisite marvel for your eyes.:thumbs:

[Alatar]

Well with the bow, it takes years to train someone to use use it properly, but with a crossbow you can give it to any peasant and tell him point that way and pull the trigger. Also the bolts used by the crossbow nearly always pierced whatever they came into contact with

As for balistas well you wouldn't wanna get hit by one of those spears;)

[Lasgalen]

Plus not as much strength was needed for a crossbow. In order to get good range and less arc, the person with a longbow would have to have very strong arms. A crossbow requires less strength because it can be cocked with both arms.

[Nilion Elentano]

Yes I agree with you Alatar on the point of the training and the ballistas, only thing is that detail of loading the bolts.
As for the point of the strength for the longbows Lasgalen, it is not always so, depending on the make, I have seen shots between 300 yards and 400 yards with Longbows of only 40lb draw weight, I have a handmade "Robin" made by Cannale (fully custom made and the make of it is outstanding) it requires practice of course, but then the point of the training is a totally different subject, so yes if I had to choose, in my condition I would stick to my Cannale specially if I know I can manage a 200 yards shot at least, and considering that some of these longbows, like the black widow ones usually seem to require less strength than the actual draw weight, sometimes you might have like in my case a 40lb bow, but when you reach full draw extension it seems like if you are holding a 25lb or a 30lb at the most.
Now your point on the crossbows, when I refer the strenght needed for the crossbow I refer to actually drawing the string and putting the bolt in place, bear in mind that not all crossbows had the reel system, so in order to draw it back you had to place it between your feet and pull the string with your hands, considering that some crossbows can have a 200lb draw weight, then you will know you can't do it for long without the help of modern methods if you are in the middle of a battle.;)

[Alatar]

Good point about the long bows:thumbs:

As for the strength need to load the crossbow, i think after you have done it enough times, you would be able to build up your muscles enough to do it with some ease, i still think it would be quite difficult though

[Nilion Elentano]

Yes I suppose so, but bear in mind we were talking about unskilled warriors with no training;) Obviously with the help of a loader or a reel system it becomes easier, but still I think it is more for shoots when you are on an advantaged position.

[Steve the Great]

A new generation of these great weapons appeared in ROTK. On the board of corsair's ship there're some kind of ballistas. Here (http://shop.decipher.com/TCG/Card.aspx?gameID=7&cardID=3276) is a pic of them...

[azimaith]

I think there are two main reasons why the arbalests were chosen as well.
1: Thats a huge army to train, crossbows require very little training.
2: They're far more mechanical than bows leading to the entire nature vs machine theme
3: They can be fired with far less room, you don't need room to draw a cross bow, you fire, stick your foot in the stirrup, crank the winch, put in another bolt, and fire again.
4: The sheer size of the Uruk army removed alot of their need for speedy firing, they outnumbed their foes 100 to 1.

[Steve the Great]

I saw in TTT-EE that the Uruks used a very interesting type of crossbows: it has to be reloaded a bit similar to the american Winchester rifles (in the "Wild West" era), so they can fire much faster with them than with ordinary crossbows...
But I think they were less powerful...