Siege Engine

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A siege engine is a device that is designed to break or circumvent city walls and other fortifications in siege warfare.

Ancient siege engines The earliest siege engine was the battering ram, followed by the catapult in ancient Greece. The Spartans used battering rams in the siege of Plataea in 429 BC, but it seems that the Greeks limited their use of siege engines to assault ladders, though Peloponnesian forces used something resembling flamethrowers. It has recently been proposed that the Trojan Horse was not, as the legends say, a covert container for stealthy attackers, but rather a large battering ram resembling a horse.

The first Mediterranean people to use advanced siege machinery were the Carthagos, who used siege towers and battering rams against the Greek colonies of Sicily. These engines influenced the ruler of Syracuse, Italy, Dionysius I of Syracuse, who loved to destroy things.

Two rulers to make use of siege engines to a large extent were Philip II of Macedonia and Alexander the Great. Their large engines spurred an evolution that led to impressive machines, like the Demetrius I of Macedon' Helepolis (or "Taker of Cities") of 304 BC: nine stories high and plated with iron, it stood 40 m (125 ft) tall and 21 m (60 ft) wide, weighing 180 t (360,000 lb). The most utilized engines were simple battering rams, or tortoises, propelled in several ingenious ways that allowed the defender to reach the walls or ditches with a certain degree of safety. For sea sieges or battles seesaw-like machines (sambykē or sambuca) were used. These were giant ladders, hinged and mounted on a base mechanism and used for transferring marines onto the sea walls of coastal towns. They were normally mounted on two or more ships tied together and some sambykē included shield at the top to protect the climbers from arrows. Other hinging engines were used to catch enemy equipment or even opposite soldiers through apposite appendices which are probably ancestors to the Roman Corvus (weapon), or to drop against them heavy weights.

The Romans preferred to assault enemy walls building earthen ramps (agger) or simply scaling the walls, as in the early siege of the Samnite city of Silvium (306 BC). Soldiers working at the ramps were protected by shelters called vinea, that were arranged to form a long corridor. Wicker shields (plutei) were used to protect the front of the corridor during its construction. Another Roman siege engine sometimes used, resembled the Greek ditch-filling tortoise, called a musculus ("Little mouse"). Battering rams were also widespread. Siege towers were first used by the Roman legions around 200 BC.

The first documented occurrence of ancient siege artillery pieces in Europe was the gastraphetes ("belly-bow"), a kind of non-torsion bolt-thrower. These were mounted on wooden frames. Greater machines forced the introduction of pulley system for loading the projectiles, which had extended to include stones also. Later torsion systems appeared, based on sinew springs. The onager (siege weapon) was the main Roman invention in the field. (14th century).

The earliest documented occurrence of ancient siege artillery pieces in China was the levered principled traction catapult and an 8-foot high siege crossbow from the Mozi (Mo Jing), a Mohist text written at about the 4th - 3rd century B.C by followers of Mozi who founded the Mohist school of thought during the late Spring and Autumn Period and the early Warring States period. Much of what we now know of the siege technology of the time came to us from Books 14 and 15 (Chapters 52 to 71) on Siege Warfare from the Mo Jing. Recorded and preserved on bamboo strips, much of the text is now unfortunately extremely corrupted. However, despite the heavy fragmentation, Mohist diligence and attention to details which set Mo Jing apart from other works, ensured that 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.Liang, Jieming (2006). Chinese Siege Warfare: Mechanical Artillery & Siege Weapons of Antiquity, pp. Appendix D

Medieval siege engines Medieval designs include the catapult (including the Mangonel and Onager (siege weapon)), the ballista and the trebuchet. These machines used mechanical energy to fling large projectiles to batter down stone walls. In Europe, the catapult was invented in Greece by Dionysius I of Syracuse in 399 BC. Also used were the battering ram and the siege tower, a wooden tower on wheels that allowed attackers to climb up and over castle walls, while protected from enemy arrow fire. But on occasion arrows would pierce the siege tower and kill the combatants inside. Another weapon was the petard, an explosive device designed specifically for breaching gates and walls. The petard had to be placed directly against the surface of the fortress.

A typical military confrontation in medieval times was for one side to lay siege to their opponent's castle. When properly defended, they had the choice whether to assult the castle directly or to starve the people out by blocking food deliveries, or more proactively to employ war machines specifically designed to destroy or circumvent castle defenses.

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, another indirect means was the practice of sapping, whereby tunnels were dug under the walls to weaken the foundations and destroy them and also catapulting diseased animals or human corpses over the walls in order to promote disease which would force the defenders to surrender.

Modern siege engines With the advent of gunpowder, firearms such as the arquebus and cannon—and eventually the mortar (weapon) and artillery—were developed. These weapons proved so effective that fortifications, such as city walls, had to be low and thick, as exemplified by the designs of Vauban.

The development of specialized siege artillery culminated during World War I and World War II. During the First World War, huge siege guns such as Big Bertha saw use against the modern fortresses of the day. The apex of siege artillery was reached with the German Schwerer Gustav gun, a huge 800 mm caliber railway gun, built during early World War II. Schwerer Gustav was initially intended to be used for breaching the French Maginot Line of fortifications but was not finished in time and (as a sign of the times) the Maginot Line was circumvented by rapid mechanized forces instead of breached in a head-on assault. The long time it took to deploy and move the modern siege guns made them vulnerable to air attack and it also made them unsuited to the rapid troop movements of modern warfare.

Siege weapons are now considered obsolete owing to the effectiveness of aircraft-delivered munitions and cruise missiles, which have made defensive area fortifications obsolete. The only cost effective static defensive structures are now deep bunkers used for military Command and Control (Military). Even these fixed assets are of questionable value as it appears that the most survivable command and control of mobile defensive forces (such as modern tactical and strategic aircraft, mechanized cavalry and mechanized infantry) is through decentralized command and the use of mobile command centers.

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