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The polybolos was an advanced ancient Greek repeating ballista, often described as a "machine gun of antiquity," invented in the 3rd century BC by Dionysius of
by zeusdclxvi 6mo ago
The polybolos was an advanced ancient Greek repeating ballista, often described as a "machine gun of antiquity," invented in the 3rd century BC by Dionysius of Alexandria. It used a unique chain-drive and gravity-fed system to fire bolts in rapid succession
- mkl 6mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polybolos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polybolos Apparently it was on MythBusters, but I don't remember that one.
- josefx 6mo agoCould it be this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN-V3nUCvpI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN-V3nUCvpI
- Springtime 6mo agoMatches the name of episode 152[1] the Wikipedia article cites for the info. Seems the classification of seasons and even the season's episode order on Wikipedia differs from the one in the Youtube title. [1] Text-based summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_(2010_season)#Episode_152_%E2%80%93_%22Arrow_Machine_Gun%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_(2010_season)#Epis...
- lloydatkinson 6mo agohttps://youtu.be/IN-V3nUCvpI?t=2733 https://youtu.be/IN-V3nUCvpI?t=2733
- qingcharles 6mo agoWeirdly, not available in the USA :(
- zadikian 6mo agoI've heard of this, but what's the advantage? They still need to recharge the torsion the same way, which must've taken longer than someone manually feeding the next bolt.
- bfivyvysj 6mo agoYou can't imagine why a quick succession of bolt fire might be more advantageous than a slow reload?
- zadikian 6mo agoI mean how is it actually faster if the rate limiting step is the same. People are claiming it was 2-3X as fast.
- eucyclos 6mo agoMaybe it's harder to deal with ten projectiles in a minute followed by a nine minute reload than one a minute for ten minutes?
- ithkuil 6mo agoEven a short surprise can be crucial in an ancient battle, where breaking formation can be fatal
- b112 6mo agoBreaking a calvary would be very powerful. And horses are a larger target.
- zadikian 6mo agoI'm not even considering the magazine reload time, just the time between shots assuming a full mag. That's 10 recharges either way, as shown in the videos. It's not like a machine gun where the energy is in the powder.
- 6mo ago