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
I'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.
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
I'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.
You can't imagine why a quick succession of bolt fire might be more advantageous than a slow reload?
I mean how is it actually faster if the rate limiting step is the same. People are claiming it was 2-3X as fast.
Maybe it's harder to deal with ten projectiles in a minute followed by a nine minute reload than one a minute for ten minutes?
Maybe one less operator required? Less chance of losing a hand?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polybolos
Apparently it was on MythBusters, but I don't remember that one.
Could it be this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN-V3nUCvpI