Slingshot (weapon)

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Reconstruction of a Balearic slingshot around 1500 BC Chr. (Material: agave fibers )
Roman slingers in the Dacian War

The slingshot is a long-range weapon that was widely used from prehistory to the high Middle Ages . In its simplest form, it consists of a long strip of leather or fabric with a small bulge in the middle for the bullet. The slinger takes both ends of the sling in hand, places a bullet in the bulge, swings the sling until it has reached a sufficiently high speed, then lets go of one end and the bullet flies out of the sling.

Relatives and variants

Stick sling

Medieval throwers (pictured on the right)

You can improve the leverage of the sling by attaching it to the end of a stick. This is the stick thrower, stick thrower or Fustibal ( Latin Fustibalus ).

The throwing force is mentioned by the late Roman military writer Vegetius in his treatise “ De Re Militari ” as a common weapon of the Roman army. The first pictorial representations can be found in Byzantine and medieval works. The throwing staff could throw heavy stones, but also incendiary devices and later hand grenades .

Bola Perdida

This is a stone that has a string or strap attached to it - effectively a slingshot with a sling attached to it. The Bola Perdida  - the name means lost ball  - can be traced back to the Tehuelche in Patagonia .

Slingshot stones with string

Kestrosphendones

The Kestrosphendone (also Kestrosphendon or Kestros ) was a sling with which short, heavy arrows were fired. The name is made up of the Greek words Kestros (arrow) and Sphendon (sling).

The kestrosphendone was used in the third Macedonian-Roman war . It is mentioned by Polybius ( History , Chapter 27, Section 11) and Titus Livius ( History , Chapter 42, Section 65), but not described in sufficient detail. The kestrosphendone is not mentioned again later.

How it looks and how it works is not clear. A possible reconstruction can be seen here. Another reconstruction can be found in the article “A new reconstruction of the kestros or cestrosphendone” (see bibliography). This article describes a replica arrow weighing 184 grams.

Spear thrower

The spear thrower (also known under the Aztec name " Atlatl ") is based on a different principle . It was a stick with a small hook at the end into which a throwing spear was inserted. The rod, like the sling, increased the leverage of the limb.

The slingshot as a siege machine

The Blide is a siege engine that is similar to the rod thrower.

Advantages and disadvantages

Medieval slinger with shield during a siege ( Liber ad honorem Augusti sive de rebus Siculis )

advantages

Compared to other long-range weapons such as spears , crossbows or bows , the sling has several advantages:

  • The slingshot is extremely cheap and easy to manufacture. Bows and crossbows are comparatively expensive and require special materials (see, for example, the article on the English longbow about the effort involved in making bows). Because of the low price and low weight, a slinger can easily carry a spare sling with him (e.g. as a headband , belt or simply in his pocket).
  • The storeys are in the form of stones, so to speak, on the ground. Slingshots made of lead can be made on any campfire. Slingshots can be made from many materials (see below). Arrows and crossbow bolts require special materials (wood, metal, feathers) and must be made by skilled workers (arrow makers).
  • The slingshot is almost insensitive to the weather, has a very long service life and is easy to replace. Bows and crossbows are sensitive to moisture and cold, easy to damage and difficult to repair. The famous composite bows of the Mongols and other equestrian peoples were particularly sensitive to cold, damp weather. Crossbows could also lose resilience when wet. In the Battle of Crécy (1346), Regen made the crossbows of crossbowmen on the French side unusable.
  • The slingshot can be easily rolled up and carried in a bag. A bow or crossbow must be carefully stored and is impractical to transport because of its size.
  • The slingshot is extremely light. In times when every soldier had to transport his equipment himself on long marches, this was a considerable advantage.
  • Arrows are easy to see in flight, metal slingshots are not. That makes surprise hits more likely.
  • In contrast to an archer, the slingshot only needs one hand for the throw with short slings. There are techniques for holding a shield in your hand when reloading, for example .
  • The slingshot is almost silent.

disadvantage

The slingshot has the following disadvantages:

  • Spinning requires a lot of practice. Many rulers did not even try to train their own soldiers to use the slingshot, but recruited competent slingers like the well-known Balearic slingers as mercenaries , as in the Roman army. Slingers belong to the first historically verifiable mercenary troops.
  • In the forest or in the overgrown area, there was often not enough space to use the sling.
  • The effect of a hand slingshot against armor is limited.

Range

Like all muscle-powered weapons of antiquity and the Middle Ages, much depended on the strength and skill of the marksman. The estimates in the specialist literature vary widely.

It seems that in ancient times the sling was not inferior to the bow in range. Xenophon mentions in his Anabasis that Rhodian slingers with lead bullets achieved a range similar to that of Persian archers. The late antique military writer Flavius ​​Vegetius Renatus gives in De Re Militari six hundred feet as the training distance for throwing staff and bows. One can therefore assume a range of 200–300 meters for lead bullets. Sufficiently trained slingers should have hit about 100 meters with some accuracy and high penetration.

Bullets

You could throw almost any small, heavy object with a sling. It was customary in large armies to mass-produce projectiles of uniform quality and size. Hurled projectiles were found at many historical sites.

The oldest projectiles for the sling were stones, whereby round, smooth stones were particularly suitable. In the first book of Samuel it is mentioned that David chose five smooth stones from a stream as slingshot for the fight against Goliath . The stones were collected and stored. In the Iron Age Hillfort Maiden Castle in Dorset (southern England) around 40,000 selected pebbles from the nearby beach were found as slingshots. Not only pebbles were used, but also hewn stone projectiles about the size of billiard balls.

The weight of the stones could vary greatly. According to Diodorus Siculus , the Balearic slingers in the service of Carthage in the battle of Cape Ecnomus (256 BC) shot stones with a weight of one mina (436.6 grams) ( Library Book XIX. 109).

Cast projectiles made of lead or other metals were even more effective. Lead bullets also had the advantage of greater range. Xenophon reports in his Anabasis that the lead projectiles of Rhodian slingers had twice the range of the stone projectiles of the Persian slingers.

Stone and clay slingshots (Somerset County Museum in Taunton)

Bullets made of fired or dried clay were also used, which were found, for example, in Hamoukar or in England, see picture on the right. Caesar tells of glowing clay balls that were thrown onto straw-roofed barns by the Nervier slingers ( Commentarii de Bello Gallico , Book V, Chapter 43).

The chronicler Olaus Magnus reports in the Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus that Finnish warriors hurled glowing pieces of iron (Battle of Västerås, 1521). Incendiary devices could also be fired with stick slings. The first simple grenades were also fired with stick slings.

Social importance

The slingshot was an ideal long-range weapon for poor people because of its low cost. In ancient peoples, warriors often had to pay for their weapons themselves. The poorest sections of the population could at least arm themselves with slingshots. In this way, the poor also became efficient warriors, whose benevolence the ruler had to preserve if he needed their support for his military plans.

Shepherd peoples often made good slingers (the biblical David was a shepherd). Shepherds and goatherds needed a good, cheap long-range weapon to steer the herd and keep out predators and cattle thieves. They also had enough time to practice with the slingshot.

The slingshot in history

The slingshot is one of the oldest weapons known to man. Practically all cultures of ancient Europe knew the sling. The country of origin of the slingshot in the Greco-Roman world are the Balearic islands of Mallorca , Ibiza and Formentera . The slingers from the Balearic Islands are now known as Els Foners Balears .

Balearic Islands

Reconstruction of a Balearic slingshot. He wears a spare sling as a headband.

The indigenous population of the Balearic Islands (first traces of human settlement date back to the 3rd millennium BC) produced the first hunters who used a slingshot and round stones as projectiles . Later this technique was also used for defense. The accuracy was enormous even then. Throwing distances of more than 150 meters are suspected on the basis of reconstructions and tests. The projectiles weighed between 100 and 500 grams. The high art of throwing stones later made the Ur-Mallorcans into sought-after and well-paid mercenaries in the Carthaginian and Roman armies.

  • Around 1500 BC BC: The Talayot ​​culture , the Balearic variant of the Bronze and Iron Ages , begins. The first discoveries about the slingshot Els Foners Balears date from this time , who now not only used stones as projectiles, but also bronze and iron projectiles. Some of the bronze projectiles were engraved as a mockery of the opponents. Not only natural stones were used, but also specially hewn stones.

The Foners also fought against the invading Roman forces.

With a clever arrangement of two groups of throwers, the Foners achieved a defense bar resembling a curtain so that the opponent had little chance of getting through unharmed. The throwing frequency of the throwers was much higher than that of archers.

Since 2001 there have been several clubs on the Balearic islands of Mallorca, Menorca , Ibiza and Formentera that have preserved this tradition. The Balearic Championships are held annually. There is a set of rules specially written for this.

Ancient Greece

The Greeks used slingshots (sphendonêtai) during the war. The slingers from Rhodes first appeared in Greek armies. In the anabasis of Xenophon , slingers are described as part of the Greek troops. Slingers are a common motif on Greek coins .

The slingshot is also mentioned in the legends of the Greeks: Heracles kills the Stymphalian birds with a slingshot (or a bow). Homer mentions the sling in the Iliad (3rd book).

near and Middle East

David struggled with the spin against the Philistine Goliath ( 1 Sam 17.48 to 49  LUT ):

When the Philistine arose and walked along and David approached, David hurried from the line of battle to meet the Philistine. And David put his hand in the shepherd's bag and took a stone from it and hurled it and hit the Philistine on the forehead, the stone went into his forehead and he fell to the ground on his face.

Today this fight is often described as the proverbially unequal David versus Goliath confrontation , but the slingshot was a deadly weapon in the hands of a skilled man. The men of the biblical tribe of Benjamin are praised in the Old Testament for their skill with the sling ( Judges 20 : 15-16  LUT ):

And there were numbered twenty-six thousand men of the cities of Benjamin in that day who wielded the sword, besides the citizens of Gibeah; of them were numbered seven hundred, chosen men. And among all this people there were seven hundred chosen men who were left-handed and could hit a hair with a sling without missing.

In the armies of the Assyrians there were slingers who z. B. are shown on reliefs in Nineveh . The Kyrthioi (Lat. Cyrtii) also provided slingers (Polybios 5.52.5).

Celts

The Iron Age Celts knew the sling as a hunting and war weapon.

In Irish legends, especially in the Ulster cycle , the slingshot is a common weapon:

Roman Empire

The sling is called Funda in Latin , the slingers were called Fundatores or Funditores . The Roman Empire relied primarily on the slingers from Rhodes , the Balearic Islands or the Acarnans . Also Kyrthioi served on the Roman side, for example, in the battle of Kallinikos (171 v. Chr.).

The slingers of Rome used diamond or date-shaped lead bullets , called glandes (acorns), weighing 20–50 grams. This allowed the slinger to smash shields, while a hit on the helmet could lead to concussion or blindness.

Egg-shaped stones in graves such as in Vindonissa could be sling stones that were given to the deceased in the grave.

The Roman physician Aulus Cornelius Celsus described medical techniques for removing slingshots from a person's body.

European Middle Ages

Battle of Nájera; front right of the center is a slinger with a sign.

In the Middle Ages, the sling still appears frequently in depictions of battle scenes, such as in a painting of the Battle of Nájera (1367), in the pictorial chronicle Liber ad honorem Augusti sive de rebus Siculis by Petrus de Ebulo from 1196 depicting the Staufer conquest of Sicily reproduces or in the Maciejowski Bible . Slingshots were also used in hunting in the Middle Ages . "Hunters" used the simple slingshot to scare away partridges . The Bayeux tapestry depicts a slinger hunting birds.

America

The Inca , Maya and Aztecs used the slingshot for hunting and as a weapon of war. The Aztecs also used the spear thrower (see above).

An Inca sling was made of cotton or the wool of llamas or alpacas . The usual projectiles were stones.

East asia

The eastern civilizations of Asia (especially China and Japan ) do not seem to have used the slingshot. The Chinese knew the Trebuchet or the Zugblide as a siege machine . The sling was known in Tibet .

Modern times

Training on the sling in 1616, illustration from a military manual by Johann Jacobi von Wallhausen

One of the last demonstrable uses of the slingshot as a military weapon was during the siege of Sancerre (1572). In a military manual by Johann Jacobi von Wallhausen you can see on illustrations how soldiers were trained on slingshots around 1616.

In the 16th century, the throwing rod was used to throw simple hand grenades .

With children (mostly boys, less often with girls) the slingshot was still a " pastime " in the open air into the television age , but it could be "eye-catching".

The French expression for sling " fronde " was also the name for a revolt of the French nobility in the 17th century. The name is said to go back to the slingshots with which stones were thrown against the windows of the houses of party members of the unpopular Cardinal Jules Mazarin .

A Bern school regulation from 1636 reports that boys like to "sling in stone" after school.

From a military point of view, the slingshot (like spear and lance ) was then increasingly replaced by firearms . The slingshot is also used as a weapon in violent protests, for example by young Palestinians in the Middle East conflict .

Current legal situation

According to German weapons law ( Weapons Act  - WaffG, Appendix 2 Section 1 No. 1.3.7 in conjunction with Appendix 1 Section 1 Subsection 2 No. 1.3) is prohibited:

  • the handling of slingshots that have an armrest or a comparable device to achieve the highest possible kinetic energy or are set up for such a device (precision slingshots) as well as armrests and comparable devices for the aforementioned objects. With a precision sling in the sense of the legal definition, the value of 23 joules is not important.

The ancient sling no longer plays a role today, which is why the legal text refers to the Zwille .

literature

  • Robert E. Dohrenwend: The Sling. Forgotten Firepower of Antiquity. In: Journal of Asian Martial Arts. Vol. 11, No. 2, 2002, ISSN  1057-8358 , pp. 29-49 .
  • Martin Grünewald, Alexandra Richter: Witness Caesar's worst battle? Labeled Andalusian sling lead from the Second Punic War and the Munda Campaign. In: Journal of Papyrology and Epigraphy . Vol. 157, 2006, pp. 261-269, JSTOR 20191135 .
  • George M. Hollenback: A new reconstruction of the kestros or cestrosphendone. In: Arms & Armor. The Journal of the Royal Armories. Vol. 2, No. 1, 2005, ISSN  1741-6124 , pp. 79-86, doi : 10.1179 / aaa.2005.2.1.79 .
  • Marcus Junkelmann : The Legions of Augustus. The Roman soldier in an archaeological experiment (= cultural history of the ancient world . 33). 9th, expanded edition. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2003, ISBN 3-8053-0886-8 , p. 194.
  • Manfred Korfmann : Slingshot and bow in Southwest Asia. From the earliest evidence to the beginning of the historical city-states (= Antiquitas . Series 3: Treatises on prehistory and early history, on classical and provincial Roman archeology and on the history of antiquity. Vol. 13). Habelt, Bonn 1972, ISBN 3-7749-1227-0 (also: Frankfurt am Main, University, dissertation, 1971).
  • Walter Seiler, Gustav Ritschard: Old children's games. A collection of ethnographic movement games from the past. In: Swiss teacher newspaper . Vol. 123, No. 25, 1979, pp. 65-80, (old children's games, presented on the occasion of the 700th anniversary of Unterseen in 1979).
  • Rafael Treviño: Spanish Armies (= Rome's Enemies. 4 = Osprey Military. Men-at-arms Series. 180). Color plates by Angus McBride. Osprey, London 1986, ISBN 0-85045-701-7 .
  • Thomas Völling: Funditores in the Roman Army. In: Saalburg yearbook. 45, 1990, ISSN  0080-5157 , pp. 24-58.
  • Peter Wilcox: Gallic and British Celts (= Rome's Enemies. 2 = Osprey Military. Men-at-arms Series. 158). Color plates by Angus McBride. Osprey, London 1985, ISBN 0-85045-606-1 .

Web links

Commons : slingshot  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Article with a picture of a possible reconstruction on the Slinging.org website ( Memento from October 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ a b Vegetius emphasizes these advantages in his book “ De Re Militari ”: “It is wise to train all troops, without exception, in this art, because the sling is not a burden and is of the greatest use, especially when the troops are stoning Places have to fight to defend a mountain or hill, or to repel an enemy attack on a fortress or city ”.
  3. ↑ a b Marcus Junkelmann: The legions of Augustus. The Roman soldier in the archaeological experiment. 9th, expanded edition. 2003, p. 194.
  4. ↑ A good listing is contained in: Robert E. Dohrenwend: The Sling. Forgotten Firepower of Antiquity. In: Journal of Asian Martial Arts. Vol. 11, No. 2, 2002, pp. 29-49.
  5. ↑ Dietwulf Baatz: Slingshot projectiles made of lead - a weapon-related investigation . In: Saalburg Yearbook. Volume 45, 1990, pp. 59-67.
  6. ↑ See: Ross David (ed.): Maiden Castle. History, tourist information, and nearby accommodation. Retrieved October 3, 2016.
  7. ↑ On the linked page you can see a picture of men who shoot glowing iron projectiles with throwers (Book 7, Chapter 16).
  8. ↑ On the following page about the stick thrower ( Memento from September 28, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) you can see a picture of the Battle of Sandwich (1217). It shows a stick thrower firing a small bottle (probably filled with a flammable liquid) from a ship.
  9. ↑ On the linked page ( Memento from June 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) there are coins with slingshots in typical posture.
  10. ↑ Livy 42.58.13
  11. ↑ Celsus De Medicina , Book VII. See the following English translation .
  12. Jump up ↑ See, among other things, tablets 28 (David kills Goliath) and 42 (King David sends Uriah a message to Joab).
  13. ↑ See the following figure . The slinger can be seen in the middle under the word "Turold".
  14. ↑ Description in: Meinrad Maria Grewenig (Hrsg.): Inka-Gold. 3000 years of high cultures. Masterpieces from the Larco Museum Peru. Edition Völkinger Hütte im Kehrer-Verlag, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-936636-39-7 , p. 210, (exhibition catalog).
  15. ^ French article on the slingshot ( Memento of March 15, 2009 in the Internet Archive ).
  16. ↑ On the website slinging.org there is a gallery with press photos ( Memento from June 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive ).