The Ballista

A  brief pause ensues while I tackle the honey-do list from Hell.  The Catapult Gods are  not particularly amused by this development, but there again, even they are not immune to Newton’s third law of motion.

Their reaction is typical of all forgotten Gods.  It’s not like they have to make the trains run on time, or nurture the sick and homeless.  Do something useful?  No fear, not them.  Sitting in their lofty perch, high above the clouds,  rabbiting on all day about how,  ever since man invented gunpowder,  they don’t get any respect any more.  Well I’m not surprised.  If you don’t get up till 2.00 in the afternoon, and then just schlep around in your bunny slippers waiting for someone to bring you your torsion engine, well you’re not going to get any respect are you?  Worse than the Royal Family they are.

It’s just about time for a workers revolt.  The proletariat that wind their springs and forge their metal parts are getting restless.  If they want respect, the CG’s are going to have to earn it by doing something spectacular.  Mortals are such suckers for a bit of magic.  Go ahead ye mighty Gods of  yore, impress me!

Shoot the moon and I’ll never waver.

Raze the topless towers of Ilium with hurtling rock and spear,

you’ll never see me look away again.

Take the clotted cream and curdle me a king,

When he wavers too far from good,  set the world straight upon your point,

And cast him far,

Far into the deep dark night.

Richard and I give our newly made Adirondack chairs their first test drive on July the Fourth.

It is not all work at the little catapult factory.  Occasionally the elves kick back for a cold one after a hard week wrestling with the mysteries of the universe.  In particular, this duo spent the afternoon discussing the nature of self deception and its relative impact on the eternal white light that runs the show when we are not around.   Not that we would know mind you.  It is the nature of beer consumed in chairs this comfortable to blur the edges of all those windmills we would usually be tilting at.  Gotta love the Fourth.

According to the FBI,  in terms of resisting penetration, a piece of 3/8″ plywood is  roughly equivalent to a human chest wall.  In the following video we see one of Firefly’s 6100 grain lead glans (basically an egg shaped bullet weighing almost one pound)  blowing a 3″ hole through four sheets of 5/8″ exterior plywood at fifty yards.  A couple of these shots showed velocities of 289 and 295 feet per second, (+/- 2 fps). When the plywood was leaned up against a more solid support, and the velocity cranked up to 318 fps, penetration was five sheets,  leaving a healthy dent in the sixth.  No vid. available for that one, more’s the pity.  The pouch on the bowstring will need a little TLC to do that again. Click here for video, 20100701182936(3)

In the next video we see the first rough shot prior to sighting in.  After going through a single sheet of 5/8″” plywood, it ploughed on through the hay bales and smacked a two foot splinter out of the 2″ X 8″ douglas fir backstop.  You can hear the sound of it hitting that backstop if you listen carefully.   Click here for video,20100701161210(3)

After readjusting the aim, the next shot strikes a little closer to the bulls eye.    At this point I have run out of ammo and need to cast up some more glandes so we can shoot a group to see what kind of accuracy this set up is capable of.    Click here for video, 20100701161210(1)

Although it does not look like the double string and pouch firing glandes will ever generate as much power as the single string shooting bolts (approx. 1100 foot pounds vs. 1700 foot pounds),  all these shots would clearly have inflicted grievous wounds on the ancient battlefields.