Battering ram

A battering ram is a siege engine that originated in ancient times and was designed to break open the masonry walls of fortifications or splinter their wooden gates.

Rams proved effective weapons of war because at the time wall-building materials such as stone and brick were weak in tension, and therefore prone to cracking when impacted with force.

Smaller, hand-held versions of battering rams are still used today by law enforcement officers and military personnel to break open locked doors.

[1] During the Iron Age, in the ancient Middle East and Mediterranean, the battering ram's log was slung from a wheeled frame by ropes or chains so that it could be made more massive and be more easily bashed against its target.

[3] Many battering rams had curved or slanted wooden roofs and side-screens, covered in protective materials, usually fresh wet hides.

Early shelters protecting sappers armed with poles trying to breach mudbrick ramparts gave way to battering rams.

Cassius, first endeavored to take Pometia by storm, and afterwards by raising battering rams (vineae) and other works.The second known use was in 427 BC, when the Spartans besieged Plataea.

Alternatively, the ram could be set ablaze, doused in fire-heated sand, pounded by boulders dropped from battlements or invested by a rapid sally of troops.

Modern battering rams sometimes incorporate a pneumatic cylinder and piston driven by compressed air, which are triggered by striking a hard object and enhance the momentum of the impact significantly.