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Catapults During The Middle Ages

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Catapult Essay
Throughout the Middle Ages, there were different types of weapons used to defend people’s villages and attack others. A popular weapon used at this time, mainly to attack, was called the catapult. It was primarily used to destroy castle walls of the enemy. A catapult is a machine hurling heavy objects into a certain direction without using gunpowder or any chemical substances.
Although catapults were mainly used during the Middle Ages, the catapult was invented many years before, around 400 BC. It was invented in Syracus, a town in Greece. The first catapult, called the Gatraphete, did not look like the typical catapult, but appeared to look more like a crossbow. The Gatraphete was sometimes referred to as the Belly Bow because …show more content…
The ballista was the earliest known catapult built in Greece. It looked like a gigantic crossbow and had two arms with no wheels. The ballista used torsion as its energy source, instead of bending wood, like others had done before. It twisted ropes or cords to get a stronger and bigger impact on the castle wall. The mangonel is best used to shoot at things that are on the ground or horizontal of it. It had a bowl-shaped bucket attached to the arm of the machine, where the rock would be placed. Once the arm started to rotate, it would hit the crossbar, allowing for the rock inside the bucket to head for the intended direction. Although, the mangonel was able to throw farther than a trebuchet, it was not as accurate as the ballista. Another type of catapult is the onager. The onager is considered to be like the mangonel, but with one difference. The difference between the two is that the mangonel used a bucket to hold the rock and the onager used a rope and sling to hold the rock. With adjustments, the onager was able to shoot farther than the mangonel. The ballista, mangonel, and onager strictly relied on torsion to be able to function properly. The last type of catapult is the trebuchet. A trebuchet relies on gravity power rather than torsion like the previously mentioned catapults. This machine was mainly used to throw heavy objects at their enemy. It

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