Slingers

[Sunjester]

Just read an interesting article in the July Edition of Current Archaeology, concerning the Iron Age fort and Roman camps at Burnswick in Scotland, and the large numbers of Roman missiles, ballista stones and bolts, arrowheads and lead sling bullets. Especially hundreds of the latter, which come in three different styles. The largest were lemon-shaped and weighed about 50g, the were slightly smaller acorn-shaped bullets and a much smaller lemon-shaped style with a mysterious hole through them.

During a ballistic assessment using replicas of the different bullets an couple of interesting facts were revealed. The larger 50g bullets would easily reach 200m on a low-trajectory shot (i.e. a more accurate aimed shot) and much further if “lobbed” overhead. This would give Roman slingers an equivalent range to the English longbow (modern tests using war arrows seem to average out at 200m effective range with a maximum range between 300-400m). Other tests have shown that the heavy lead slingshot impact with only slightly less kinetic energy than a round from a .44  magnum revolver. The 20g bullets were just as interesting as it was found that they could be slung in groups of 3 or 4 like a form of grapeshot. Also the little holes  created a whistling or buzzing noise in flight, probably for a form of psychological warfare.

So there is a case for slingers having a greater range than most short bows, cause more damage from a greater impact and a have negative morale effect on the target!

You can see an extract from the article, and hear the slingshot buzzing in tests, here http://www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/features/burnswark.htm

I’m considering getting some slingers for my Romans now!

Cheers,
Graham

[A Lot of Gaul]

Very interesting article. It is nice to see Xenophon's observations on sling ranges confirmed by modern archaeological methods. Thanks for sharing!

Cheers,
Scott

[Richard in Sachsen]

Thanks for the information. I have some BTD slingers in line to be painted. I thought they shot stones, so I was going to paint them sand-stone. But no, they're lead! Timely info to save me a painting faux pax!

Thanks