Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

Salutations, gentlefolk,

Went to the library yesterday and dug up the October 1973 _Scientific
American_, with the article "The Sling as a Weapon", by Manfred Korfmann of
the German Archaeological Institute of Istanbul.

Was a bit disappointed - there wasn't much hard data therein. To summarize
it:

The Turkish sheperds, whom he asked for a demonstration, could sling a random
sample of stones an average of 200 meters.

Initial velocity of a slung projectile is about 60 miles per hour.

The longer the sling, the greater the velocity and range. Baleric slingers
carried 3 slings - one long for long range shooting, one short for short
range, one in-between.

Diodorus reports that the Baleric slingers fighting for the Carthaginians at
the battle of Eknomos used stones weighing 330 grams, by a conservative
conversion of 'mina'. This would be about the size of a tennis ball.

David Robinson's excavations at Olynthos found lead sling pellets weighing
between 18 and 35 grams. Those identifiable as cast by Philip's attacking
Macedonians averaged fractionally heavier than those of the defenders.

There was also a very good drawing of the Nineveh relief with the 'Assyrian
armored slingers'

Korfmann also notes that there was (as of 73) no evidence that any culture,
before 1000 BC, made use of both the bow and the sling - was either one or
the other.


Might also note that the cover of the August '73 issue pictured the latest
tech advance - a 4096 bit MOS ROM chip.

Yours, John Desmond - jafd26@...

[Phil Gardocki]

At the Pennsylvania museum of history, in the Egyptian section, there was an
excavated sling clay ball, the size of a grapefruit. No weight given, but I
would estimate it to weigh about 2 lb.