this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2024
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Illustrations of history

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This magazine is for sharing artwork of historical events, places, personages, etc. Scale models and the like also welcome!

Generally speaking, actual photos of a historical item should go to !historyartifacts@lemmy.world

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Medieval siege engines (lemmy.world)
submitted 6 days ago by PugJesus@lemmy.world to c/historyillustrations@lemmy.world
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[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Thank you!

I really hate the common fiction image of a medieval army matching with siege engines. They were assembled on site, and you can't really build a torsion spring on site. Ancient armies had significantly more organisation and labour (yay slavery) so they could bring the stuff with them. Romans matched with dozens of onagers and scorpions, medieval armies mostly didn't.

And of course, the traction siege engine is just far superior, and it wasn't invented till the middle ages.

[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago

I really hate the common fiction image of a medieval army matching with siege engines. They were assembled on site, and you can’t really build a torsion spring on site. Ancient armies had significantly more organisation and labour (yay slavery) so they could bring the stuff with them.

tbf, the picture notes that the attackers would have constructed these on site.

Romans matched with dozens of onagers and scorpions, medieval armies mostly didn’t.

Fun fact - the Romans sometimes numbered prefabricated machinery parts so they could be assembled, disassembled, and repaired quicker.