Brief description by me:
A Crossbow used by Ankh Morpork Watchman Sergeant Detritus. Detritus is a troll. The crossbow is a siege bow designed to be mounted on a cart. The bolt is six feet long. It's bloody massive.
Notes from source text:
'Sure, dat suits me,' said Detritus. He shrugged one huge shoulder to bring his crossbow under his arm. It was a siege bow, intended to be mounted on the cart. The bolt was six feet long. 'It harder to hit runnin' targets.'
He released the safety catch.
Wiki article on Roman cart-mounted ballista - the 'Carroballista'.
Crossbow mechanisms - not very important, as Detritus has removed the windlass and simply draws the string by hand.
Windlass:
Materials:
Research outcome:
The overall shape of the ballista is a lot less familiar to the viewer, and I feel that it may be too misleading and tricky to display clearly it's function and purpose given the varied and unusual way the viewer will see it, i.e., not on a castle wall or surrounded by a crew on a field of battle, but in the hands of a troll in several different city locations.
Let's use the general crossbow shape, as in the Oxybeles. We see smaller crossbows carried by men often, and it gives us a more easily accessible read to start with.
Visual Research - References
Collected reference images can be seen here - link
Select references from link above:
More ornate. Overall shape feels far more long-ranged, like a sniper rifle. However, technically, small bow implies lesser strength, thus lesser range.
Very ornate and fragile - not powerful; the shape of the body wouldn't support the compression forces put on it by a heavily tensed bow. No visible cocking mechanism - would have to be cocked by hand. Therefore - a relatively low draw weight and low power.
Very feminine in terms of form - many curves and floral inlays. Colour and tones are also quite feminine - low contrast of colours and tones. Colour mood created is feminine - white ivory with SHINY gold. Lack of imperfections implies it's brand new or very cared for. Materials and detailing imply wealth, nobility, or a wealthy/nobility-based fantastical user - angels, cherubs, elves, etc.
Material contrast draws the eye to the handle - our primary point of interaction as a user. the lines of the body and arrow draw our eye to the front and the point, while the shape of the bow returns us backwards to the string.
Somewhat more masculine, especially the dark metal bow at the frong. The curved shapes and doe-coloured wood feels slightly feminine. The more simple wood with some decorative detailing implies perhaps a somewhat noble user, but not excessively.
More realistic form - this is a weapon designed for power. Stirrup at front indicates a belt-cocker may be used, which would also imply more power than hand-cocked.
Visually, the slender bow implies less power. Compared with the following.
which has a quite thick bow, which implies more power.
This one has a winching mechanism and feels like more power.
A triple-stringed 2,000lb carriage-mounted siege crossbow with the double-action windlass?'
Detritus's crossbow was originally a three–man, siege weapon, but he had
removed the windlass as an unnecessary encumbrance. He cocked it by
hand. Usually the mere sight of the troll pulling the string back with one
finger was enough to make the strongwilled surrender.
Notes from Wiki
The sound of Detritus loading his crossbow is described in various Discworld novels with phrases similar to 'the sound of a piano being strangled by a goose'.
Troll society is based on rocks and hitting people. They have numerous gods, all of whom bless their worshippers by hitting them on the head with a rock. Trolls believe in a heaven located underground, possibly because of a philosophizing troll's tendency to become part of the landscape. Troll courtships generally consist in the male troll hitting the female troll on the head with a suitably attractive rock followed after that by a candle lit dinner for two with a human as main course (although it is no longer considered polite to eat humans). Some female trolls, through contact with other races, have taken a more feminist approach to courting and now hit the males that they have chosen. In Nanny Ogg's Cookbook, it is also revealed that the sight of troll women wearing clothes excites male trolls. She says there is a club in Ankh-Morpork where the troll dancers end up wearing seven layers of heavy blankets.
Important info from texts:
Crossbow:
Bolt 6 feet long, blunt, metal
Siege bow
Cocked by hand by a troll - one finger
2000 pound draw
Later books - adapted to fire a large bundle of wooden bolts, renamed the Piecemaker. Basically fired burning wooden shrapnel.
Has a safety (that Detritus often has trouble using)
A lot of stress within the weapon given the noise it makes when being loaded.
Previously
Was cart mounted
Had a windlass
Trolls and Troll Culture:
Trolls made of metamorphorical rock - takes on appearance of certain stones and minerals - often named after this kind of rock.
Culture is very rock-heavy
- heaven is underground
-diet consists of rocks and rock-based liquids
Adjectives to look at reflecting in the design:
Huge - at least 6 feet long
Oversized related to humans
Powerful
Destructive
Unsafe in hands of Detritus
Apparantly physically unreliable
Self-modified - by Detritus - maybe troll cultural influence
Character of Detritus - friendly, honourable, dutiful, will use violence if necessary
Brief technical research:
Sources (continue to add throughout design process as more found):
'Draw weight' is the force needed to be exerted on the string to hold it stationary at 'full draw' (fully pulled back). In a regular bow-and-arrow system, the user's arm would have to be able to hold this weight. In a crossbow however it's the structure of the bow itself that holds this weight until it is released. Heavier draw weight = harder to pull. But also adds more power to the bow, resulting in arrows being project heavier arrows or regular arrows faster and further.
Siege crossbow = ballista.
Greeks had two crossbow-like weapons - the oxybeles and the gastraphetes. Oxybeles was quite large and heavy, used a winch to load and a tripod to hold it. Used as a siege engine. Lower rate of fire.
The Gastraphetes was a smaller hand held crossbow. Both of the above appear to use bow technology (flexible wood) as the source of energy to propel arrows or bolts. The 'Belly-bow', named because it was cocked by resting stomach on a wooden mount at the back and pressing down onto a hard surface (shown below in found illustration). This allowed more energy to be put into the composite bow than could be done using the arm.
The book A Global Chronology of Conflict: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East talks about an oxybeles from around 330BCE had a 9-foot bow and shot 6-foot bolts from a double-slotted slider. This bolt length is exactly what is described in our source text for this design. Useful proportions.
The torsion spring was invented and we were able to make ballistas.
Torsion spring - a spring that stores energy when twisted. From imagery of ballistas, I believe we're looking at a torsion fiber system, where a fiber of silk under tension that gets twisted around an axis to store energy. Wikipedia states that the springs consisted of loops of twisted skeins (ropes).
The torsion spring allows for more energy to be stored than in a regular composite bow system, which means more power can be delivered - important for something intended to be so powerful!
Image above of a ballista. We can see the wound ropes (skeins) through which the arms are placed near the front of the device. As the slider is pulled back along the length of the body, the arms are pulled back too and the ropes (skeins) are twisted and tensed and energy is stored. Like twisting an elastic band - these ropes want to return to their natural relaxed position. So when a bolt has been placed on the slider and the slider has been released, the ropes snap back to their relaxed state, pulling the arms forwards and thus launching the bolt.
Siege-engine.com suggests that the arms (prods) be bulky and strong, but somewhat tapered to help with acceleration.
Trigger? Greek Palintone Stone Throwing Siege Ballista uses a string and bar and the operator pulls the string, which pulls the bar out and releases the mechanism.
Notes from Wiki
The sound of Detritus loading his crossbow is described in various Discworld novels with phrases similar to 'the sound of a piano being strangled by a goose'.
Troll society is based on rocks and hitting people. They have numerous gods, all of whom bless their worshippers by hitting them on the head with a rock. Trolls believe in a heaven located underground, possibly because of a philosophizing troll's tendency to become part of the landscape. Troll courtships generally consist in the male troll hitting the female troll on the head with a suitably attractive rock followed after that by a candle lit dinner for two with a human as main course (although it is no longer considered polite to eat humans). Some female trolls, through contact with other races, have taken a more feminist approach to courting and now hit the males that they have chosen. In Nanny Ogg's Cookbook, it is also revealed that the sight of troll women wearing clothes excites male trolls. She says there is a club in Ankh-Morpork where the troll dancers end up wearing seven layers of heavy blankets.
Important info from texts:
Crossbow:
Bolt 6 feet long, blunt, metal
Siege bow
Cocked by hand by a troll - one finger
2000 pound draw
Later books - adapted to fire a large bundle of wooden bolts, renamed the Piecemaker. Basically fired burning wooden shrapnel.
Has a safety (that Detritus often has trouble using)
A lot of stress within the weapon given the noise it makes when being loaded.
Previously
Was cart mounted
Had a windlass
Trolls and Troll Culture:
Trolls made of metamorphorical rock - takes on appearance of certain stones and minerals - often named after this kind of rock.
Culture is very rock-heavy
- heaven is underground
-diet consists of rocks and rock-based liquids
Adjectives to look at reflecting in the design:
Huge - at least 6 feet long
Oversized related to humans
Powerful
Destructive
Unsafe in hands of Detritus
Apparantly physically unreliable
Self-modified - by Detritus - maybe troll cultural influence
Character of Detritus - friendly, honourable, dutiful, will use violence if necessary
Brief technical research:
Sources (continue to add throughout design process as more found):
- Codesmiths,
- Siege-Engine.com,
- Wikipedia [1, 2, 3], t
- the book A Global Chronology of Conflict: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East [google book here]
- Themcs.org, Medieval Combat Society - Medieval Crossbows
- LegionXXIV.orghttp://www.legionxxiv.org/ballista.htm - details about the how ballistae work - important trigger information
- Howtomakearmour.blogspot.co.nz has a great post on the fine details of crossbows and their intricacies
- A Discovery channel video that states that crossbows like the one depicted in the video could be up to 1.5m long and 2m wide
 |
| fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk |
'Draw weight' is the force needed to be exerted on the string to hold it stationary at 'full draw' (fully pulled back). In a regular bow-and-arrow system, the user's arm would have to be able to hold this weight. In a crossbow however it's the structure of the bow itself that holds this weight until it is released. Heavier draw weight = harder to pull. But also adds more power to the bow, resulting in arrows being project heavier arrows or regular arrows faster and further.
Siege crossbow = ballista.
Greeks had two crossbow-like weapons - the oxybeles and the gastraphetes. Oxybeles was quite large and heavy, used a winch to load and a tripod to hold it. Used as a siege engine. Lower rate of fire.
The Gastraphetes was a smaller hand held crossbow. Both of the above appear to use bow technology (flexible wood) as the source of energy to propel arrows or bolts. The 'Belly-bow', named because it was cocked by resting stomach on a wooden mount at the back and pressing down onto a hard surface (shown below in found illustration). This allowed more energy to be put into the composite bow than could be done using the arm.
 | |
| Greek Oxybeles |
 | |
| Greek Gastraphetes |
The torsion spring was invented and we were able to make ballistas.
Torsion spring - a spring that stores energy when twisted. From imagery of ballistas, I believe we're looking at a torsion fiber system, where a fiber of silk under tension that gets twisted around an axis to store energy. Wikipedia states that the springs consisted of loops of twisted skeins (ropes).
The torsion spring allows for more energy to be stored than in a regular composite bow system, which means more power can be delivered - important for something intended to be so powerful!
Image above of a ballista. We can see the wound ropes (skeins) through which the arms are placed near the front of the device. As the slider is pulled back along the length of the body, the arms are pulled back too and the ropes (skeins) are twisted and tensed and energy is stored. Like twisting an elastic band - these ropes want to return to their natural relaxed position. So when a bolt has been placed on the slider and the slider has been released, the ropes snap back to their relaxed state, pulling the arms forwards and thus launching the bolt.
Siege-engine.com suggests that the arms (prods) be bulky and strong, but somewhat tapered to help with acceleration.
Trigger? Greek Palintone Stone Throwing Siege Ballista uses a string and bar and the operator pulls the string, which pulls the bar out and releases the mechanism.
Wiki article on Roman cart-mounted ballista - the 'Carroballista'.
Crossbow mechanisms - not very important, as Detritus has removed the windlass and simply draws the string by hand.
Windlass:
Materials:
- Wood
- Sinew, rope
- Steel for bows in the case of the Arbalest and in other crossbows - in the case of the Arbalest this enabled much higher draw weight due to higher tensile strength of steel
Research outcome:
The overall shape of the ballista is a lot less familiar to the viewer, and I feel that it may be too misleading and tricky to display clearly it's function and purpose given the varied and unusual way the viewer will see it, i.e., not on a castle wall or surrounded by a crew on a field of battle, but in the hands of a troll in several different city locations.
Let's use the general crossbow shape, as in the Oxybeles. We see smaller crossbows carried by men often, and it gives us a more easily accessible read to start with.
Visual Research - References
Collected reference images can be seen here - link
Select references from link above:
A fan depiction of Detritus with his weapon.
What I discussed above regarding the ballista being a tricky one to show clearly in such an unusual context. The bit at the front of the ballista here somewhat resembles a bi-plane, or the overall form could resemble a club or some sort of signalling device. The COMPLEXITY of the device is also something that I don't see Detritus getting along well with - large, clumsy and (unfortunately) unintelligent troll fingers wouldn't, I think, get along well with fiddly repairs. A real bow shape feels a lot more simple, primal and appropriate for a troll to use.
Very ornate and fragile - not powerful; the shape of the body wouldn't support the compression forces put on it by a heavily tensed bow. No visible cocking mechanism - would have to be cocked by hand. Therefore - a relatively low draw weight and low power.
Very feminine in terms of form - many curves and floral inlays. Colour and tones are also quite feminine - low contrast of colours and tones. Colour mood created is feminine - white ivory with SHINY gold. Lack of imperfections implies it's brand new or very cared for. Materials and detailing imply wealth, nobility, or a wealthy/nobility-based fantastical user - angels, cherubs, elves, etc.
Material contrast draws the eye to the handle - our primary point of interaction as a user. the lines of the body and arrow draw our eye to the front and the point, while the shape of the bow returns us backwards to the string.
Somewhat more masculine, especially the dark metal bow at the frong. The curved shapes and doe-coloured wood feels slightly feminine. The more simple wood with some decorative detailing implies perhaps a somewhat noble user, but not excessively.
More realistic form - this is a weapon designed for power. Stirrup at front indicates a belt-cocker may be used, which would also imply more power than hand-cocked.
Visually, the slender bow implies less power. Compared with the following.
This one has a winching mechanism and feels like more power.
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