The Manubalista Was Rome’s Secret Weapon in Ancient Britain 🇬🇧 Secrets | Smithsonian Channel

[@WestExplainsBest]

1:50 When you think they're testing its 'long range' capability, only to discover they're shooting it 15ft away from the target...

[@CHAS1422]

More like 50 feet.

[@WestExplainsBest]

Counter offer: 28ft. No way that is 17 yards away.

[@JoaoSoares-rs6ec]

Actually the range of those small weapons was more likely 50 to 100 feet

[@WestExplainsBest]

@@JoaoSoares-rs6ec Didn't know that either! Either way though, they did not test it at that range.

[@SyrupWizard]

At 1/4” plywood no less. One step above cardboard.

[@gmanky]

“Look at that power, punched right through “ Target consisting of 3/8” plywood shot at from 20 feet…..

[@damiano1174]

That's not plywood

[@nio3791]

and we're talking about a 100 ad weapon

[@justinscott1691]

That's plank wood not ply wood

[@gmanky]

Yes, you’re right. Plywood with its lamination would have stopped that….

[@simonphoenix3789]

the purpose of these probably wasn't so much as to punch through armor as to use as a long distance sniping tool. Rather than causing lots of casualties, one of these placed out of enemy range and aiming at the walls would keep the defenders' heads down so others could get close and do whatever they need to.

[@HistoricalWeapons]

i think the biggest reason why these replicas are weak is because the string is stretching, they should try sinew instead or gut for the string or at the very least dacron

[@liamnorth555]

yeah roman polyester 👀

[@SockAccount111]

they are weak because they mostly do not follow the proportions and formulas which Greek engineers wrote down & use subpar material to provide tension also they barely crank the washers full way cause they are scared of hurting themselves

[@wasylbakowsky5199]

great point

[@dominic6634]

nope they just made there's really underpowered

[@aldrinmilespartosa1578]

Romans used hair and sinew. There is a reported case of women in a baseige town cut all thier hair to used as balista ropes.

[@simonphoenix3789]

The version they are using here is probably quite a bit weaker than what they would have been using. I'm guessing they would have used ropes made of sinew rather than plant fiber, and the amount of experience they had with these things likely meant they would have cranked the tension on the rope bundle up to a much greater degree.

[@derekheim8172]

The wooden part of the projectile would likely have been dense like Red Oak. This example looked light, like balsa which is a common mistake made with ballistic designs; lack of adequate mass. Think about how far you can throw a hollow plastic baseball and an actual baseball. Most will think that throwing a lighter mass would go further on the same arm. But that's not what happens. The lighter mass never gets enough momentum to carry any real work to the target.

[@ssu123]

Yup and not to mention the Romans had huge balista which would make this shown in the video look like a child's toy.

[@wafflesaucey]

Yes, they did used sinew bundles, and they were much stronger. The exact numbers I don’t know.

[@wafflesaucey]

Yeah, they were insane. And until they were replaced with onagers, some threw stones too.

[@aldrinmilespartosa1578]

​@@derekheim8172 earlier and bigger would be it. But the latter would be metal fittings or all metal.

[@atomic_wait]

Ah yes, the Yeetius Maximus.

[@liam_antho7]

Shadows and Dust

[@LastEarBender]

Seems to have been more than the Hi-Point of it's day lol

[@alanwatts8239]

Biggus Cheekus

[@danietkissenle]

Must have been designed by benellis and berretis

[@dyinggaul8365]

I rarely actually laugh out loud when reading comments. This did it. I can’t breathe

[@ElishaFollet]

Ngl its impressive just how advance and creative ancient humans were at the time, i would honestly love to see more of these weapons and similar things like this used more often in fantasy settings.

[@justinscott1691]

Why

[@derekheim8172]

@@justinscott1691 Indeed, we're still working with basically the same brains.

[@MikeBanks2003]

There was also a version that threw a wicker basket or bag of plumbata which was limited by a line so that it remained behind after all of the missiles --about twenty to thirty of them, were flying skywards with devastating results for anyone underneath them. No armour was proof against them coming from above and front. The plumbata weights often found without any rust in them were probably successful hits.

[@therallyguy1]

Yes. The 1/4 inch thick plywood army standing still 10 ft away would stand no chance at all.. only take 2 minutes to reload

[@Mitchellfab_customs]

That is in fact 6 millimeter plywood, or for the states, 1/4" plywood where most men could punch through it with their fist. I'm not sure what the point of them is showing this weak replica. It was quite the let down.

[@Memorixt]

I don’t think it was a “secret” weapon, but evidently pieces of light, medium and heavy artillery were very important, impressive and effective part of Roman warfare.

[@borisalarcon7504]

It was not secret, but very hardly replicable for the peoples of Britain. How many centuries passed until they built their own large weapons?

[@pulsarplay5808]

Apparently the most powerful machines were built using bundles of tendons, not plant fiber ropes as is done now in all the current reconstructions of this type of machines that I have seen. Obviously it is much simpler this way, but perhaps that is due to the lack of power that I have always observed in this type of reconstructions. Tendons are probably capable of storing torsional energy more efficiently than plant fiber.

[@Art-is-craft]

Romans were engineers.

[@Brian-uy2tj]

The back board they were shooting the arrows through was a very low grade of plywood perhaps 1/4" thick (5.5mm) His recreation impressed me about as much as a 5 year old with a straw and a pocket full of peas.

[@Art-is-craft]

It is not rated to the same level but to demonstrate the process.

[@TimeSurfer206]

'It has been speculated that the Roman military may have also fielded a 'repeating' ballista, also known as a polybolos. Reconstruction and trials of such a weapon carried out in a BBC documentary, What the Romans Did For Us, showed that they "were able to shoot eleven bolts a minute, which is almost four times the rate at which an ordinary ballista can be operated".' "almost four times the rate at which an ordinary ballista can be operated..." THIS THING HAD A RATE OF FIRE OF ALMOST THREE SHOTS PER MINUTE. Man portable. It's in the name. Shut up and take my money.

[@Ektor-yj4pu]

I knew that the historical account for the use of the polybolos was from a battle between two greek city states during the classical greek era.

[@immortalace3447]

completely seperate time period and nation but the hwatcha was very impressive it could shoot 100 arrows at once if youre interested

[@KJK9999]

inexpensive solution: Stop the lock bar from rotating further than it should. This needs to be precise thou. Otherwise it will always lift as far as you let it rotate. You can also reduce the torque by placing the teeth closer to the rotational center of the lock bar.

[@patrickdaly5988]

Why is he shouting “fire”? You “shoot” an arrow or a bolt, you “fire” something with gun powder. Fire would have made no sense to the romans in this context.

[@justinscott1691]

I'll cut them some slack on this one, its just an old dood who spent years getting his pet project ready, and to have it not presented in the best light is a slight let down. But its still pretty cool.

[@gfezy]

He didn't say 'Fire', it's a mistranslation. He said 'iacce' in Latin that means to hurl or to throw.

[@douglascutler1037]

Did not say fire. Must be you heard it in your imagination. Not uncommon in human retelling of events.

[@FreakyRufus]

He did not say “fire”, but the subtitles on the screen did say it.

[@warrenpeace8304]

I like how they're both breathing heavily as if their short walk to the target somehow depleted their energy 😂

[@vripscript]

I bet if you asked the poor roman, he would just prefer a bow and arrow which fires at 230mph and takes 1/2 a second to load

[@rskat501]

Not armor piercing though

[@tanaka90]

@@rskat501 Not with that attitude

[@rskat501]

@@tanaka90 oh

[@julianshepherd2038]

Penetrates British buildings . Brits didn't wear girly armour

[@JoaoSoares-rs6ec]

Balista more range and damage

[@matthewexline6589]

Why are there so many names for this thing? I searched youtube for "scorpion balista" and luckily, this showed up, but I've never heard the term "manubalista" before... where does the prefix "manu" come from? I haven't heard of it before.

[@patricofritz4094]

Have you found out yet ?

[@VespertilioGiganticus]

I think it probably comes from "hand"

[@SockAccount111]

because most of that is modern terminology, ancient people preferred to classify them by purpose, projectile weight & length etc. and never bothered too much w/ a precise catalogue of denominations for each variation, especially since these were used in the timespan of over 700 years in an area ranging from Britain to India meaning lots of local as well as temporal variation in models, denomination etc

[@rageoftheredphoenix]

There was a version of this seen by the audience in the first few minutes of the popular film called gladiator. The one I saw didn’t have those two copper looking canisters on either front end of the weapon and the bolt were spear sized, larger than the one seen here.

[@SockAccount111]

These canisters are just there to contain (and to shield from hits/humidity/etc.) the vertical sinew/hair ropes which propel the throwing arms forward. The ones in Gladiator use instead an all-wooden frame but the purpose is always the same. Projectile length and weight would vary depending on the model and tension power of the engine, both dart-sized as well as small-spear sized ones could be thrown by different engines (I mean, technically one engine can throw everything from small to large projectiles, but each machine was calibrated on a specific length/weight for maximum performance)

[@wrhabbel]

"long range" > 8 meter max, "armor piercing" > a sheet of plywood

[@JoaoSoares-rs6ec]

That's the test, the average range for a small one was more like 50 to 160 meters, the larger ones 400 to 500 meters

[@blipco5]

WOW! That blasted right through (almost) that 1/4 inch luan plywood. 😂

[@fmoa2541]

its a defensive weapon meant to fire from high elevation on castle walls and thats about it, it wasnt use for assault or on main battlefield, the thing in real life can only fire 30 to 50 yds if on level ground, you bow and arrow can reach 80 to 100 yds on level ground..this guys got it wrong..also theres mention of them in roman or greek battle accounts.

[@Art-is-craft]

They most certainly had assault versions as well.

[@AGHathaway]

I'm convinced that the Roman Empire was only 200 years away from Space travel.

[@gordtron]

its like the Bofors gun of ancient Rome! i could use a few of these out in the yard.

[@fredericklockard3854]

Impressive. Very nice. Let’s see Paul Allen’s siege weapon.

[@MARK-gp9hb]

that's a scorpio not really a manuballista

[@gmanky]

So this vid popped back up on Recommended viewing after two years. I still contend that it’s 3/8” plywood, from twenty feet, and I’ve got a 30 year old Crossman pump pellet rifle that will outperform what that old guy lovingly recreated and the Smithsonian Channel over hyped.

[@VictoriaAlfredSmythe]

jeez guys, siege weapon | it looks dangerous with 50 coming over the wall down from the sky

[@CarlJohnson-oq1oj]

Combined Warfare😮 so that's where we got that from😊

[@Zerpersande]

Wow! A steel bolt penetrated a 1/4” of plywood from 10’.

[@MrBottlecapBill]

"We know they were all thrown at the same time because they're in the same archaeological strata". Duh of course they were. How much new strata do you expect to build up during a siege? Ridiculous statement. lol.

[@daviddiehl-gy2sq]

Wonder where the fort got the 1/4" thick plywood.

[@markm8188]

Same as you, Home Depot

[@sharkusvelarde]

Ooh devastating at point blank range, like a thrown potted plant

[@Art-is-craft]

Imagine 500 of them being fired at 100 per time so that they could fire every 12 seconds 100 bolts. And they would be doing it for days on end. And on top of that they would be firing heavier artillery systems along side thousands of arrows, bullets and stones. They would be besieging a fortified position for days on end.

[@jackstraw1756]

That was 1/4 board at best. Would have thought it had more punch.

[@Art-is-craft]

They were probably designed to get stuck in shields.

[@guaporeturns9472]

15 feet away from their target.. using its “great advantage in range” I see

[@RCPlaneReviewer]

The wood is super thin..

[@Quinntus79]

Can we turn the ballista into a workout machine?

[@NealX_Gaming]

Obnoxious they only show a slomo firing, not the real-time firing -- afraid of it looking underwhelming?

[@purdysanchez]

Obviously they'd all be in the same archaeological strata. That has nothing to do with the projectiles being launched at the same "time".

[@FLORIDIANMILLIONAIRE]

The more interesting thing for a simple American like me is to figure out is if Romans eat beans with toast

[@Audit-The-Auditors]

Quick to reload? You cannot be serious.

[@julianjrobertson]

Cool expect you didn't show us the part where it reloads which is the entire point of the weapon

[@noahboat580]

I mean for a weapon in ancient times it has its quirks. For it to take 2 people to set up a 'light' weapon like that, against foes who usually have melee weapons with the occasional bowman, it isn't the worst weapon in the world. I just don't understand the weapon test being against plywood, why not a historically accurate shield?

[@Art-is-craft]

Roman legions had thousands of men. They just did not use one such weapon. They had artillery teams, smaller more mobile teams and also high volume projectiles firing at targets. The romans could be saturated a target for days under constant fire. Now imagine 500 of those firing in strategic formations at a fort with rotational teams providing rest.

[@CB-vf7fu]

1/4 inch plywood

[@RubenDeanda-lb9wr]

Imagine to be a barbarian and see your feelas crushed by this weapon

[@billyshane3804]

Thank you Maximus Alanus Wilsonnus

[@franciscocunha3232]

Ancient M2 Browing heavy machine gun

[@peetsnort]

You mean to tell me that the romans didnt have compound cam bows..?

[@Art-is-craft]

No they had artillery and rapidity moving teams.

[@cristsan4171]

Real Roof: turn boulders into pebbles, etc

[@bcelik6238]

No long range shots, no armor shots, no animal carcass shots.. what exactly are they testing ffs?

[@Art-is-craft]

It just shows the principle of the weapon piercing armour.

[@laurentdechauliac7114]

Ich dachte immer Manuballiste heist Handballiste und wurder nur auf Schiffen bzw Booten verwendet...

[@laurentdechauliac7114]

Das sieht eher aus wie eine leichte Skorpion nach dem man abgegeangen ist von der hellenistischen Bauart. So um 150 n.C.? Genau weiß ich es nicht mehr. Habs vergessen....

[@AbdulhamidMohammed9000]

This is not a manuballista

[@AbdulhamidMohammed9000]

It’s literally a cheiroballista

[@SockAccount111]

@@AbdulhamidMohammed9000 Cheiro in Greek means hand and Manus in Latin means hand technically cheiroballista and manuballista are the same thing

[@donelmore2540]

What was the range? You mentioned that it out ranged the enemy, but how do you know if you don’t know the range?

[@Art-is-craft]

A real weapon is known to have ranges far further than a bow. Probably out to about 300 meters.

[@HonestDepression101]

The Romans were such jerks. They couldnt leave anyone or anything they came into contact with alone.

[@Art-is-craft]

That is not the case. They only tended to react when they were invaded.

[@HonestDepression101]

@@Art-is-craft wow. You are unfamiliar with even rudimentary history.

[@Art-is-craft]

@@HonestDepression101 Romans were first invade by the Gauls. The Romans fought them to a truce and they went their own ways. Gauls invaded again the next time Romans beat them they just conquered the Gauls. That then brought the romans up to the borders of other tribes and guess what happened history repeated. When Rome sacked Carthage they did so after being attacked twice and the third time the romans realised that Carthage was building up again they just destroyed it. It was a Di eat dog world in that era.

[@NimbleBard48]

I wonder if it would be a womanubalista if it was crafted today.

[@Bellthorian]

I wonder if they would light it on fire and shoot it at wood walls to set them on fire.

[@GregGriffiths-m3b]

Pretty low power really , suprising .i load my 130lb crossbow one crank .bolt travels 182miles an hour

[@kloworsolochannelchannel8616]

Hadir bos ku sukses selalu buat bos sekeluwarga lancar Segala nya amin

[@cristhianramirez6939]

Roman M2 Browning

[@carlos-mw5ij]

It's proven they used this against dragons there's a documentary about it called GOT

[@stanisawzokiewski3308]

when proffesional filmmaking ruins the watching experience

[@n0denz]

1:48 Is he trying to say, "Iaculare"? That's just the infinitive, and he's not even pronouncing it right. The sing. imperative form is "Iacula". I guess it makes sense to incorrectly tell someone to fire an incorrectly-built ballista.

[@Happy-wb8gi]

The most amazing Empire ever. Ave Roma

[@alanfrost4661]

FIRE?

[@Philippe2008fr]

This model is way too complex and made with factory metal components, non-existing in roman times!

[@Greeknerd336]

would you look at thaaat! 😂 "Quick to reload." sounds like someone needs to define 'Quick' for them.

[@franklinsteen4721]

1/8 " plywood doorskin

[@offside_frag]

thats a scorpio

[@sharkur]

so much said and nothing learned ...

[@SRocco-dv8we]

1/8 inch plywood ….and it no go thru ? Ummmmm 😮

[@Art-is-craft]

Roman weapons were designed to pierce armour and then get stuck. Very nasty weapons.

[@juliuscaesar2792]

Skeetius ultima

[@johnshacklett2265]

Biggus Dickuss!

[@bdleo300]

You know this is accurate when they show half of Roman legionaries black.... kinda surprised that commanding officer is not a woman.....

[@andrewaarons5058]

nobody's convinced

[@AndiSchulbank]

Chivalry 2🙄

[@jamescavanagh4206]

Doesn’t look impressive at all .4 mm plywood?

[@welshpete12]

It's amazing the stupide replies on here ! What are the educators in the US doing ?

[@IGNANT4LIFE]

it's like from games of thrones.

[@keithmoore8429]

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare""""""""""

[@LicardoDeBousee]

Son: “Hey Dad! I saw what I wanna make for my wood shop class project on KZbin!” Dad: “That’s my boy! What’d you wanna make son?!” Son: *shows dad this video Dad: “I’ve never been so proud in my life.” 🥲🤩😎🤣