Punkin Chunkers

[Legbreaker]

A trebuchet or similar would be very useful for a fortified village though. Doesn't need to use proper artillery shells either - just a sack full of shrapnel packed around a charge with a fuse jammed into it.
Probably get a similar result as an artillery shell, but with less range. Changing targets would also be a bit slow, but if they're already aimed at choke points created by pre-placement of obstacles such as barbed wire, stakes and trenches...

[raketenjagdpanzer]

I'm reminded of a scene in Poul Anderson's The High Crusade wherein an entire medieval town finds itself transported to a distant planet and at war with high-tech aliens...but they ultimately win the day, not for the least because they lobbed a live, armed nuclear weapon at an enemy stronghold. Fearing that the "humans" had invented a stealth nuclear attack system they quickly surrendered.

You see, they'd lobbed it with a trebuchet, and the shell wasn't air-dropped, nor fired via missile or artillery piece, nor was it brought to the target in any kind of trackable vehicle so...

[Legbreaker]

Hmm, the blowback must have been a bitch.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Hmm, the blowback must have been a bitch.

I'll have to dig up my copy and find the exact passage but the catapult or trebuchet and those manning it weren't destroyed (it was one of the knights nearby who reported their victory to the Lord who'd been transported with the rest of the townsfolk).