Giant Catapulta tour with Jorge Sprave
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- čas přidán 27. 08. 2024
- Jörg Sprave is filming in the same location Tod made his Giant Catapulta for a TV production , and it's still there! We take a tour and discuss collaborations.
The original TV show this was made for is available here • Beat The Ancestors: Ro...
NOTE: The Romans would have call this a "Cataputla" and it shoots spears/arrows.
If it shot rocks they would have called it a "Ballista".
Confusingly in Medieval Europe a "Catapult" would shoot stones or round shot, but this is a "CatapulTA"
According to the Roman author Vitruvius Catapulta were made in three sizes
1 span catapulta (also called a Scorpion), 2 and 3 span. Each based on a multiple of the previous size.
This "Catapulta" is a "6 span" design (or it would be if the Romans ever built one that big) so it is twice as big at the largest Roman (3 span) machines
For further reading, I recommend searching for the Greek and Roman Artillery treatise by "Marsden et al.
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I have just discovered the original show this was made for has been uploaded to CZcams! Called "Beat the ancestors" and available here czcams.com/video/BqpxiGpzAfU/video.html I ran a team of engineers behind the scenes and also helped present the show, the participants were great and the whole concept and execution of the show was very good, but the some of the production decisions made meant that end result was not very good sadly. A real shame as it felt the whole idea was potentially very good, but that sort of thing happens in TV all the time.
I remember that programme (I don't recall that episode) . It was a good idea but just didn't feel quite right. Too much 'dramatic' moments.
@Apple Jacks Nope. Still there
Somewhere the spirits of ancient artillery commanders are smiling their approval.
Great to see these two legends together, it has been a long wait.
Keep up the great work men.
Kind regards, and please be certain to read the comment somebody made about the Greeks using four different materials for the ropes.
Philip Coyne.
Todd' can you two start a GoFundMe; to help make this amazing thing happen?
Hi Tod, time to re-pitch the idea perhaps? Goodness knows after lockdown people are running out of TV to watch. If Prime are willing to shell out on the rather iffy Escapist thingy with Richard Hammond surely something like this is worth looking at.
Now I sort of want to see a collaboration between Tod and Joerg to make a catapult that can fire an arrow 600+ meters.
Google firefly ballista (or catapulta).
Firearrow*
@@willek1335 nope. I'm talking about firefly the orsova balista which shoots bolts over 900m
Meters? Bah! I want a Tod, Joerg and Elon collab.
Or have them make a modern machine, with modern materials that can shoot 1km
2:08 "But who was that well armoured?"
Dragons, obviously.
And they must have made a few, because I don't see dragons anywhere now.
Also, kicks in the door and skewers everyone behind it. Entering someone else's castle can't get much easier until you get gunpowder.
You watched "Dragonheart"! too often. 🤗
@@rolfs2165 Just think of the mental effect when you have that ting on wheels, roll it to the main door of a castle and penetrate the door and 20 Knights behind it. That would be one hack of a attack.
ah, you beat me to the comments. it's the first thought that popped into most our minds :)
They should test this against the breastplate from the Arrows vs Armor video. I haven't seen a medieval (nvm pre-medieval) distance weapon pierce plate armor yet, would be amazing to see.
I can't wait for Jorge & Tod Anti-Dragon Catapulta.
With explosive arrows!
Next thing you know it has a semi-automatic loading system
Lockdown Longbow, episode 535
Todd: today we're gonna be shooting this automatic repeating ballista we built with Joerg, it is equivalent to a cohort of Romans...
This is pure nostalgia when we did the catapulta and onager in Latin. I remember the impressive photograph of the skeleton of a Briton with a catapulta arrow head buried in the spine from the assault on a hill fort. Impressive but slow.
That will be Maiden Castle in Dorset I believe
One trick from the Greeks: use different rope materials for the different tension zones of the skein. The core from something low stretch like hemp, proceeding out to very stretchy like hair or nylon on the outside. IIRC my dad, who was very much into siege engine development and research back many years ago, found that it was 3 or 4 different layers. Made the skein last longer due to balancing the forces through it. The Romans either never extracted that technique from the Greeks or they dumped it in favor of a faster turn over in skein replacement.
Oh and in regards to mounting the skeins: if they are slightly loose, and thus need just a little more turn when installed, they can be pre-made on a form, stored in weatherproof wrappings, and quickly swapped out in combat when they are damaged. Dunno if there’s historical data for it, but the Romans were very smart about logistics.
Modern historical reconstructions of late Roman Orsova-type Ballistae (the difference between a Ballista and a Catapulta is the position of the arms relative to the springs in the torsion housing - palintonos versus euthytonos) can reach about a kilometer with one of these, far enough to shoot across the lower Danube (which ranges from ~600 meters in Hungary to a Kilometer by the time you get to Romania) and put a grouping roughly the size of a large kitchen table. Which is basically what Ammianus records them doing. Having real sinew rope for the torsion springs also makes a big difference.
There's no way I could come up with 500 meters of sinew. I had to use 12mm absil rope.
@@FingerAngle It's a bitch trying to get the sinew to do a real reconstruction. I think ours just use nylon rope because it's fairly elastic.
Tod just an Idea for a future video: restore that machine with (or without) Joerg and then shoot it on a mannequin with gambeson, mail or plate armour to see the result... just for fun.
Hard to hit at 330m lol
@@alancarrascolapeira9545 who said they would shoot it at 300m? *proceeds to shoot it point blank*
Launch the mannequin.
He should maintain the tradition of shooting a camera as well.
Not fun..."science"
"Who was that well armed?"
"A Parthian T-Rex-Cataphract"
"You`re making that up. There is no proof of them existing."
"Then why would the Romans build an engine to shoot 6 foot arrows?"
I think we should not forget that these machines were also used on ships after the Roman times, for example in the area of the Hanse, the German merchant city association of the 13th century.
@@frankrothe7023 do you have any sources proving their existence during the time of the hanse? I remember playing computer games set in the period where you could equip your ships with these but I was to young to check if they were historically accurate or just rule of cool.
Du kannst mir die Antwort auch gern auf Deutsch schreiben 😀
@@janschulte8434 Well, you are right, that is a good question, not everything you see in computer games should be taken for historic accurate. I found an article in the German Wikipedia about the so called "Friedeschiffe" (peace bringing ships). There huge spear throwing devices are mentioned, called "Treibend Werk". I think they must have been like giant crossbows or the roman scorpios/ballistas. [I kept the english language not because I am good in it but to be understood perhaps from more people reading this comment section 😉].
de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedeschiff
cant wait for the new version and Jorge starts saying "let me show you it's features- hahahahahah"
Jörg's laugh is one of the greatest things on CZcams
His laugh cures cancer!
Sooooooo ... Does the presence of Joerg mean that an Instant Catapulta on the way? 🤔😂🤓
That's just a big Chu-ko-nu, shouldn't be a minute.
that sound, what an amazing intro
Okay about the joint project, i talked to everyone and everyone agrees; Make it happen!
That's the truth, he talked to me about it and I agreed. And there might have been others present !
True. Very compelling arguments.
The real reason they aren't on Game Knight in the Curse of Silverthorn. They are already working on anti-dragon weapons.
That series was so bloody good, I hope they do another. Matt and Lloyd were just hilarious.
This thing is great. As a kid I was obsessed with building ancient weaponry, I saw one of these on a history channel special, then found pictures in think in a Warhammer book for Dark Elves and a Roman history book at the school. I'm around 10-11 years old at the time and based on those illustrations I went to work. I bundled up 1/8th" Nylon camping rope, built the frame from scrap lumber out the garage, mounted it to a couple of saw horses. Shooting dried out raspberry canes, the first few tests hardly cleared driveway and the arms kept falling out, so no one thought it would be any danger! I spent a whole afternoon rewinding my ropes and hammering out an arrow head from a bit of old copper pipe and affixing it to a small broom handle. Well the broom handle flew diagonally over three backyards a garage, and nearly punched through a neighbours tin shed. Probably traveled 90-100 feet pinging off low tree branches as it went. I was so busy celebrating my success and preparing my next bolt (a semi straight but wickedly sharpened stick) that I didn't notice Mum, the owners of the shed, and our 2 closest (elderly) next door neihghbours come to see what the hell was going on. It never fired again as it was summarily taken apart minutes later, despite my tear soaked wails.
If you ever make something like that fire again, tie a gopro to the arrow itself, tod is used to the loss of these anyway.
I like the way you think!
Trick is getting it to survive the launch.
@@ScottKenny1978 i am not worried, jörg is kind popular cause he makes stuff to work, the way he intends it to do
@@skyvenrazgriz8226 I meant the GoPro survive the launch. There's a lot of Gs involved in punting an object from zero to 300fps in maybe 3 feet. On the order of 3,000G.
@@ScottKenny1978 I imagine you´d have to use it as the arrowhead, so you are very much dooming that gopro from the getgo. And I do not know how we could still extract the video when we do that.
Awesome meetup and i would VERY much to see more colabs!
Jorge and the evil villain laugh. Looking forward to the collaboration
If a 6 span catapulta was historically accurate I’d imagine dragons would’ve been real. Why else would you need the equivalent of a giant crossbow, other then dinosaur sized dangerous creatures?
Exactly
I can only see two uses for it "realisticly". Fire arrows, absolutely gigantic massive arrows for massive payloads. Or for shooting into large formations, just going through several guys at a time :D
If it was naval warfare possibly like a harpax or something to be used against hypothetically bigger ships?
The bigger catapults and ballista were siege artillery that shot large stones and were used to attack fortification towers and wooden walls.
Elephants?
I think you two need a show together! Probably something like Jörg is doing at the moment, just with you in it too
That would be awesome! In each episode, they could pick a different kind of antique/medival weapon, where Tod would build an original style version and Jörg would do a modern adaption of it. In the end of the episode, they could compare their weapons' features ;-)
I want this as well.
@@hagges3561 oh my god yeeees
I would LOVE to see this monstrosity done again!
Yes, looking forward to the collaboration build.
Much love for Tod & Jörg collabs!!
The ideas turning in everyone's minds... So fun.
I love all these collabs with you guys :) especially how interesting the videos are and how nice you guys are. It's quality content.
Small kids show their toys to each other. Adult men do the same just the scale increases :)
Only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys!
I am stoked for this collab. I don't even mind waiting the potential immense amount of time it will take to piece the collaboration together...
I've seen wholesome duos in my life. But this? This is top tier.
Literally nothing more exciting in the world than watching Tod and Jörg standing together in a field discussing how to create even greater crafts to come yet....
😳 now just waiting and counting days until I could see your collaboration on a modern one! 🤩
April 1st 2022. Tod and Joerg releases a video where they take on a modern day howitzer in categories like range, rate of fire, destructive capabilities and of course stealthy operation.
The first 105 MM with a suppressor.
Pre-tensioning is the key to performance. I tensioned mine to a thousand pounds per wrap, with 19 wraps, 1/2 the designed for skein. I have enough to take it up to full power now. I did have the modiolus turned some. It was at 3000 pounds of cocking force. It's an inswinger. I used a winch to cock it. I work alone 99% of the time, so there is no way I could have cocked it by hand. I used a 12v winch. The engines are over 5 feet tall, and weigh about a thousand pounds each. The machine weighs around 4000 pounds, and will fit in a 15 foot sized cube. I'm doing maintenance on it now, and re wrapping the engines with 800 feet of 12mm absil rope, each. The engines will be under 40,000 pounds of tension, before turning the washers, or cocking. Draw will go up to around 10,000 pounds. The machine has a reverse draw of 101 inches. Launch velocities were over 200 feet per second, but I expect quite a bit more out of it. I love your machine, Todd. I look forward to the build. I just started a big Onager build, that will use the same size engine, 8"DIA modiolus, for 5kilo rounds.
Is it a ballista or catapulta?
@@SonsOfLorgar Ballista. Inswinger. Like a Hatra Ballista, but shoots both sharps and rounds, with the changing of slides and slings. A Hybrid.
Is that you, Mister Watts?
@@ScottKenny1978 No, sir. I know him. Firefly is the most beautiful Ballista in the world. I have been trying to buy it from him. My Ballista is much larger than Nick's.
@@FingerAngle you may have better luck asking him to build you a Firefly...
He's absolutely inspiring to me. "I saw this, and I wanted to build one."
"Dude, 'this' is a pile of rusted metal straps!!"
So good to see you gents together.
Such a fantastic collaboration series!
Please make it. Can’t wait.
Omg, omg, omg, omg !!!
*Best Monday EVER
Epic, such a shame its sitting doing nothing, but what do you do with something so big? Wish I had the space to build such a crazy thing just to play with.
You send it to the Shadlands!
@@SonsOfLorgar lol unironically that would look pretty badass next to one of his castles, when he's built them.
I had a 3m tall trebuchet in my back yard when I was a kid, built it in school.
I could watch you two build Roman war machines all day long
That is a great device to plungle pointy sticks into hordes or approaching enemies, and disperse their formation.
It would be awesome to see you guys work together to make TWO of these.
One 100% historically accurate 3-span Roman one tuned to maximum performance for the time using traditional methods.
And a second one using all modern technical knowledge of today with a huge Instantlegolas with a motor powered winch system 😍😍😍😍
If Jorge is impressed, you are worthy to stand among titans.
Always wondered about the danger and wear and tear due to all the extra contact from lots of twists from the builds I'd seen, glad to finally have an answer!
You two better deliver, the internet never forgets!
Great to see the 2 of you guys together.
Watching The Slingshot channel got me watching your channel Tod.
Now I can’t wait for your next videos to come out.
Loving the collaborations
As soon as I saw "Giant" and "Catapulta" I knew Jorge Sprave is in it.
For sure this joint project needs to be done!
Somewhere the spirits of ancient artillery commanders are smiling their approval.
Great to see these two legends together, it has been a long wait.
Keep up the great work men.
Kind regards, and please be certain to read the comment somebody made about the Greeks using four different materials for the ropes.
Philip Coyne.
Good to see these two together!
perhaps this sort of weapon was better ship-mounted. or maybe more like a anti-siege weapon. No idea really just speculating. Love the video!
During the whole video, Jörg is holding a slingshot. Always prepared. 👍
idk why hes still using theraband there lots of better bands out these days
Oh, I would like to see the modern version and of course show me its features 😁😁😁👍
I would love to see a Tod Joerg Collaboration to build a 21st century Roman catapulta 👍⚔️
Yes! That sounds amazing!!!
Cant wait to see its features
You guys are generating a big smile!
👌🏻👍🏻😁
PLEASE MAKE IT, that'd be so awesome!
Jorg is like the inventor guy from a fantasy anime.
Yeah he's totally Cid from Final Fantasy
Yes, yes that would indeed be an amazing machine! Please do that collab!
The idea behind shooting single arrows/small spear-like devices is not to necessarily kill enemies. Their purpose is to keep the ennemies pinned down efficiently, so that you can execute your siege plan, ie. dig trenches and build palissades. The Romans also liked to stick big iron hooks in the ground as anti-horses obstacles.
two of my favorite guys!
Excellent! Another Todd and Jörg video. =)
Even better still, a future Jörg and Todd collaboration project. I'm looking forward to that one.
glad you got along
Awesome team up!
The Romans also used horse hair instead of ropes. A ballista could have had a reach of 400 m. Some stored energy released on the arrow....
Sinews are more likely. Nylon rope has very similar performance to sinew.
"Who was that well armored?"
Haha, I'm in danger
Modern version collab! Yes please!
Giant X
Jorge Sprave
those are the only words you need in a title!
I absolutely want to see that collaboration.
Good luck guys! Can't wait to see that hell machine you could build!
Boys and their toys. Also ABSOLUTELY do the collab!
+1 like. Great to see you two engineers enjoying yourselves.
Have at it, and have fun! Will be great to watch.
I love how Joerg goes progressively crazier through the video
YEESS!!!!!! OMG FREAKING DO IT!!! MAKE A GIANT MODERN ONE!!!!!! YEESS!!!!!!
The success of youtube as a whole and so many (particularly historical and technical) youtube channels in particular are an indictment of 'production decisions'.
(Honestly, the sheer colossal amount of cool stuff that's turned up since the internet went mainstream and we all made the discovery that there are in fact TONS of really cool people out there doing really cool stuff when not subjected to the ridiculous gatekeeping of televised media is kind of enraging.)
now we have to get a second season of Beat The Ancestors with Jorge Sprave in the program
Amazing Colab!
I like how Jörg is standing there, looking at the huge catapult, with a regular catapult dangling in his hand.
Awesome! :) I saw page and vid where folk made a "reversed bow" ballista with metal limbs, about 6x9 feet?? that had a range of over 900 yards...
That's Watts Unique. Firefly is a mean machine!
Please, make it happen! Build the repeating version of this.
Another issue with these is the ammunition. These need purpose built 'arrows' and the larger the catapulta, the larger the Ammunition you need to bring with you. I am sure some Ammo could be made at the site but these would need to be somewhat 'crafted' to fit and 'fly' without destroying the Catapulta.
With a Ballista, you can literally use ammo sourced at/around the site. Yes it can throw giant boulders that you may not get 'easily' locally, but you could also fling a basket of large rocks to rain down on the enemy - anything that can 'fit' even dead animals. Wasn't there a case of a Ballista being used to fling diseased animals over the wall of a Castle under Seige? Germ Warfare??
I wish Dale and Erebor had one of these
Those Black Arrows get all the credit 😄
I have to call on any of the British LARP groups that own property. Contact Todd and see if you can give this poor old machine a new home and some TLC.
The Romans did design a repeating catapults which when reconstructed worked quite well apart from the Roman design of chain.
Put a Led or something in the back of the arrow to watch the flight?
Can't wait
I was hoping it would get taken apart and restored. To be fair it's not a historical piece, but it would be awesome to see the two of you put together some lighter pieces like scorpions together.
And now we wait for Jorg to make this full auto with a household electric drill
I can't wait for that repeating catapulta!
Extreme "slingshot"!! Loved it!
I never thought id see this thing again.
Archeologists watching the video in 500 years:
Why did they smash their elbows together?
"They were not as smart as the Romans."
You are absolutely correct Tod. It is a Catapulta (Greek original word: Katapeltai), not a Ballista. The name change for "arrow-projector" to become "Ballista" came around the years 400-450 CE. Before then, "Ballista" was the latin word for the Greek "stone-projector" (Lithobolos). What a beautiful team you two make! :D Imagine what you could make together!
This 2 guys will be the most wanted men in Post-Armageddon war.
I wanna see this. Putting the magazine system would make it beastly.
we need to see that collaboration
So, another great video collaboration in the future? Is the world ready for that?
It would be cool to see something like that mounted on the flatbed of a Toyota pickup truck:)