"Late Roman bolt shooter" Topic

I've added a couple of bolt shooters to my Late Roman/Arthurian British.
Partly because they look good and mostly because the poor L.Romans were being hammered by their barbarian opponents.

I was wondering how historic such weapons were? Did they really cart them around(presumably in a cart) to set piece battles?

I'm not going to reject them as, let's face it, Arturian Romano-British are more or less fantasy anyway but I seek knowledge.

Built on site. The important parts were toted from place to place then local timber would furnish the rest.

Duh. You think I'd know how resourceful the Romans were!

Thanks for the enlightenment.

I think they would still largely be defensive weapons (on walls, etc). Cart mounted bolt shooters are evidenced in earlier periods.

Yeah, I'd hate to pin my shaky historical credentials on them being used in battle for anything like a regular practice.

Well they certainly used them when attacking hill forts. Archaeologists found a Roman ballista bolt head buried in the spine of one of the defenders of Maiden Castle.

Bolt shooters came in a variety of sizes from proto-crossbow size to spear chuckers, and seem to have been made to be pretty modular, at least by the time of the Trajanic Wars. I think the otherwise unrecorded battle ground in Germany from the 3rd or 4th Century had ballista bolt heads along with other battle field debris, so they were mobile enough to take on a 'flying column' into enemy territory.

2 armed stone throwers, again of varying sizes, were designed to take apart into manageable pieces and the parts were made to standardized sizes which would have made repair easier in the field.

The single armed stone throwers – 'Onager' – are actually attested EARLIER that the two armed engines in Greek sources. These seem to have been used in fortifications on special platforms but were not suitable for use in enclosed towers. Transporting them would have been difficult as they do not seem to have been readily assembled and disassembled as the rope 'spring' was wound through the side frame rather than being a separate component like the later 2 armed engines.

Thank you for a truly comprehensive response.

Light bolt shooters could be moved around. Julian is accompanied by a unit of ballistarii when moving thourgh Gaul. There has been a suggestion that they were crossbowmen, but Ammianus makes the point that they and the cataphracts were not a good choice for him to cross dangerous territory with.

There would be no need to build the on-site. They are small enough to carry around. The bigger ones are more likely to be constructed as needed, using various amount of pre-fabricated components depending on what might be available locally.