A siege engine is a device that is designed to break or circumvent heavy castle doors, thick city walls and other fortifications in siege warfare. Some are immobile, constructed in place to attack enemy fortifications from a distance, while others have wheels to enable advancing up to the enemy fortification. There are many distinct types, such as siege towers that allow foot soldiers to scale walls and attack the defenders, battering rams that damage walls or gates, and large ranged weapons (such as ballistas, catapults/trebuchets and other similar constructions) that attack from a distance by launching projectiles. Some complex siege engines were combinations of these types.
Siege engines are fairly large constructions – from the size of a small house to a large building. From antiquity up to the development of gunpowder, they were made largely of wood, using rope or leather to help bind them, possibly with a few pieces of metal at key stress points. They could launch simple projectiles using natural materials to build up force by tension, torsion, or, in the case of trebuchets, human power or counterweights coupled with mechanical advantage. With the development of gunpowder and improved metallurgy, bombards and later heavy artillery became the primary siege engines.
Collectively, siege engines or artillery together with the necessary soldiers, sappers, ammunition, and transport vehicles to conduct a siege are referred to as a siege train.[1]
^"Siege train" Archived 2017-09-04 at the Wayback Machine on Answers.com
A siegeengine is a device that is designed to break or circumvent heavy castle doors, thick city walls and other fortifications in siege warfare. Some...
Roman siegeengines were, for the most part, adapted from Hellenistic siege technology. Relatively small efforts were made to develop the technology;...
A torsion siegeengine is a type of siegeengine that utilizes torsion to launch projectiles. They were initially developed by the ancient Macedonians...
This is a list of siegeengines invented through history. A siegeengine is a weapon used to destroy fortifications such as defensive walls, castles, bunkers...
A Roman siege tower or breaching tower (or in the Middle Ages, a belfry) is a specialized siegeengine, constructed to protect assailants and ladders while...
attached to the tip to launch a projectile. It was a common powerful siegeengine until the advent of gunpowder. The design of a trebuchet allows it to...
A battering ram is a siegeengine that originated in ancient times and was designed to break open the masonry walls of fortifications or splinter their...
called siegeengines, and knowledge of how to construct them was often treated as a military secret. The word gin, as in cotton gin, is short for engine. Most...
other propellants – particularly various types of ancient and medieval siegeengines. A catapult uses the sudden release of stored potential energy to propel...
were mounted on a tripod. It had a lower rate of fire and was used as a siegeengine. With the invention of torsion spring bundle technology, the first ballistae...
burn Roman ships Roman siegeengines – Adapted from Hellenistic siege technology Sambuca (siegeengine) – Ship-borne siegeengine Young, C. K. (December...
it replaced torsion powered siegeengines such as the ballista and onager. The rapid displacement of torsion siegeengines was probably due to a combination...
of England besieged the Scots, deploying siegeengines to force the garrison to surrender. In 1337, a siege by Sir Andrew Murray failed to retake the...
steered towards the desired attack point, while always keeping the siegeengines inside aimed at the walls, and the protective body of the machine directly...
an alternative to siegeengines such as the trebuchet. The benefits of large guns over trebuchets – the most effective siegeengine of the Middle Ages...
typically coupled with attempts to reduce the fortifications by means of siegeengines, artillery bombardment, mining (also known as sapping), or the use of...
these names derived from the word ballista, an ancient Greek torsion siegeengine similar in appearance but different in design principle. In modern times...
the myth of the mangonel, is the belief that mangonels were torsion siegeengines such as the ballista or onager which used the tension effect of twisted...
Particle-beam weapon Microwave weapon Sonic weapon Trajectory of a projectile Siegeengine List of artillery List of missiles List of missiles by nation McDonald...
a siegeengine at Troy. Animal names are often used for military machinery, as with the Roman onager and various Bronze Age Assyrian siegeengines which...
"tortoise" siegeengine, an armored frame, used unsuccessfully to approach the walls of the Parliamentary-held city of Gloucester in 1643 during the Siege of...
fortification systems. With the 14th-century development of gunpowder, new siegeengines in the form of cannons appeared. Initially military engineers were responsible...
The Great Siege of Malta (Maltese: L-Assedju l-Kbir) occurred in 1565 when the Ottoman Empire attempted to conquer the island of Malta, then held by the...
during the siege of Stirling Castle in 1304, as part of the Wars of Scottish Independence. A contemporary chronicle refers to it as une engine orrible....
Global Information