Pre-Gunpowder Artillery
 

Has anyone done any work on pre-gunpowder artillery other than the oversized crossbow from Challenge #66?

The World Tamer's Handbook for TNE had rules for creating bows, crossbows, catapults and black powder guns that was compatible with FF&S, IIRC.

The World Tamer's Handbook has black powder guns and cannon, bows and crossbows, and wagons, but not pre-gunpowder artillery (and the crossbows don't scale up - a 3 meter steel crossbow is Dam 1, Pen Nil, Rng 60).

Doesn't 2.2 have a black powder weapon?

I could see people using things like Pumpkin Chuckers (look it up for those who arent from the US) to start throwing things a heck of a lot more deadly than pumpkins. A trebuchet would be a very interesting weapon to use to help either attack or defend a town - and there are people who build them even today.

Ah, okay, thanks. Been some time since I read through the book.

Of course there's also good old burning oil.

Or nice big rocks or hunks of debris as well - considering the damage they did in medieval times to very thick well built castle walls I can imagine the damage they would do to your average house or store once they cleared the wall and landed

For close range a PIAT style launcher might lob a molotov or explosive. I know it used a rocket projectile in WWII, but a powerful spring could push small things a ways.

In early WWI, large crossbows were used to fling hand grenades from fixed positions at a range of about 150 meters. Such devices make sense as part of a community's fortifications and really only needs a supply of grenades in terms of advanced gear. Crew was usually just two men.

I really don't see them as common weapons but you can certainly built them with a little know how and some scrounged materials.

Some communities could use against criminals or marauders, not a effective weapon but a fear weapon.

Some Examples Are

Hwacha - A multiple rocket launcher developed by Koreans based on ancient Han Chinese technological innovations and deployed in the defence of the Korean peninsula against Japanese invasion in the 1590s. As some of you might know this system was rebuilt and tested on the show MythBusters durring it 2008 season.

Ballista - An ancient military siege engine in the form of a crossbow. Typically it was used to hurl large bolts, and had better accuracy than a catapult at the expense of reduced range.

Catapult or Trebuchet - Used to hurl large objects, like say a cow, at english dig dog K NITES who are looking for the Holy Grail.

Fire arrow - A simple unguide rocket think along the lines of fireworks.

Another option is for a Old Black Powder Cannon, Say like from the US Civil War.

High powered ones definitely wouldn't be common (torsion ones in particular take a lot of tuning and big brass ones to be that close to that much potential energy in the twisted skeins of rope).

A half-kilogram projectile traveling 100 m/s seems like it'd be plenty effective to me, and that's what Nick Watts gets out of his Orsova simulant (I don't call it a replica or reproduction because he's trying to simulate its performance with modern materials in a historical configuration, then back-engineer) his way to more historically accurate materials. The original Orsova ballista was supposedly capable of launching projectiles across the Danube, an 800 meter shot. Watts has gotten just under a kilometer (998 yards was his best shot), and shooting freehand had 20-foot groups at 880 yards. It'd essentially be a stationary or vehicle-mounted sniper's weapon.

These use black powder, and would potentially be effective area-denial systems. They'd be incredibly slow to reload, and range is only about 100 meters, so operators would be vulnerable.

Note that there are two types of ballista - the "giant bow", and the torsion ballista, which uses twisted skeins of rope to hold two arms (which are not attached to each other). Torsion ballistae can have very long (relatively speaking) ranges (cf. the near-kilometer range mentioned above).

[/quote]Catapult or Trebuchet - Used to hurl large objects, like say a cow, at english dig dog K NITES who are looking for the Holy Grail.[/quote]The range for these goes from around 75 meters (for a traction trebuchet) to 300 meters (for a large counterweight trebuchet).

I've done the most common US Civil War field artillery, and I've got the numbers for naval artillery (though I need to re-do some of them before posting, since I used the smoothbore's 70% Pen modifier for all rounds, including rifled artillery).

On a kind of related note, there were catapult launchers used during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising to lob grenades and Molotov cocktails but the Resistance also apparently made crossbow- and pipe-type launchers for Molotovs as well.
There's a reference to such devices on the following webpage: - http://www.polishresistance-ak.org/25%20Article.htm
There's nothing but the barest details but they can be found under the section titled WEAPONS PRODUCED BY THE HOME ARMY which is just past the half way mark on the page then proceed to the sub-section titled Flamethrowers and catapults for Molotov Cocktails and hand grenades:

There's an example of a catapult-type launcher in the Polish Army Museum in Warsaw that is basically a set of leaf springs and a hand-crank, fitted with a cradle for the bottle or grenade.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/F...g_Catapult.JPG