Thursday, February 3, 2011
Cannons Pre 1800: Trebuchet
Another cannon that was made before the year 1800 was the trebuchet. The trebuchet was first developed in China in the 5th centruy, B.C. It mainly consisted of a sling and a lever, and a counterweight. The counterweight was suspended in air, sorta like a seesaw. When the counterweight dropped, the sling would loop over and fling the projectile forward.
Trebuchets were very effective when it came to attacking and defending. It could fling a two-hundred pound object three hundred yards. That's the equivalent of three football fields. The range that it could fire warded off enemies and gave space to the people using it. Also, it was effective in developing biological warfare, i.e. flinging dead, infected and rotting corpses into towns and villages in order to scare the people into surrendering.
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I like that you included the part about spreading the diseases, I think that you should expand on that a bit
ReplyDeleteLook out! Herpes is falling out of the sky!
ReplyDeleteAnyways, how long was the trebuchet used before it was replaced by the cannon and gunpowder. I think you should talk about some of the similarities between trebuchets and cannons.
Well, biological warfare was also used before this, but the method that it was being used with by combining it with the abilities of the trebuchet, simply by poisoning food and drinks. When the Americans gave the Native Americans infected blankets and toys, that could be counted as biological warfare, even though the Native Americans didn't have that much defense against it.
ReplyDeleteThe trebuchet was considered obsolete during the 13th century, but this was WELL after the discoveries of gunpowder on the battlefield. Today, trebuchets are even used for recreational activity, so they aren't completely out of use.
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