Siege engine
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.
[1] The earliest siege engines appear to be simple movable roofed towers used for cover to advance to the defenders' walls in conjunction with scaling ladders, depicted during the Middle Kingdom of Egypt.
The most used engines were simple battering rams, or tortoises, propelled in several ingenious ways that allowed the attackers to reach the walls or ditches with a certain degree of safety.
These were giant ladders, hinged and mounted on a base mechanism and used for transferring marines onto the sea walls of coastal towns.
Convex wicker shields were used to form a screen (plutei or plute in English)[5] to protect the front of the corridor during construction of the ramp.
[6] Romans were nearly always successful in besieging a city or fort, due to their persistence, the strength of their forces, their tactics, and their siege engines.
[6] The first documented occurrence of ancient siege engine pieces in Europe was the gastraphetes ("belly-bow"), a kind of large crossbow.
The earliest documented occurrence of ancient siege-artillery pieces in China was the levered principled traction catapult and an 8 ft (2.4 m) high siege crossbow from the Mozi (Mo Jing), a Mohist text written at about the 4th – 3rd century BC by followers of Mozi who founded the Mohist school of thought during the late Spring and Autumn period and the early Warring States period.
However, despite the heavy fragmentation, Mohist diligence and attention to details which set Mo Jing apart from other works ensured that the highly descriptive details of the workings of mechanical devices like Cloud Ladders, Rotating Arcuballistas and Levered Catapults, records of siege techniques and usage of siege weaponry can still be found today.
Other tactics included setting fires against castle walls in an effort to decompose the cement that held together the individual stones so they could be readily knocked over.
