I think this is a key point to its deployment

Im not a professional archer or did i shoot longbows, but shooting modern compound bows with some practise at 60-70 lbs is not that hard. And we are talking about farmers or manual laborers that had extra stamina. Also if they where fighting in phalanx formation there is no way the same guy was shooting bow and then went to form complex phalanx formation.

@@cactuslietuva shooting modern compound bows is so much easier than a classical one (including longbow). I remember going to a range with some friends, nobody had any issues with compound bows, but only few of us could fully draw a classical bow of the same poundage.

if you shoot like an archer. fast without the need for aiming it doesnt do too much tearing on the arms

Thanks Tod for the reply. And to the other points. From personal experience, I used to shoot a modern 80lbs bow and I tried to shoot a 80lbs longbow because I thought it would be similar. Nope, nowhere close. I'd say it's about 3-4 times easier to pull a compound bow. As for firing fast without aiming, the faster you fire the faster you get tired. Ten shots in a row is a lot more tiring than 10 shots waiting a minute between each shot. Just look at the video where Joe Gibbs has to shoot a heavy longbow as fast as he can. Historical archery channel also tried to shoot a 125lbs bow fast. He's clearly tired. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/j8dmoM2E3snQYIE.html

I have a cousin at Horseguards!

@@Markell1991 he who loses the king's colours, loses the king's friendship!

MAJOR LENNOX ANSWERED WITH HIS LIFE, SIR.

@@SpiderGeometry did you have to look it up like I did or was it from memory? If it was from memory you are not a Sharpe afficionardo, but a full blown expert!

Finally, a Crew-served crossbow!

That would be a nice series - thanks

@@tods_workshop It _really_ would be - and an interesting thought experiment. "Knowing what I know about the history of technology, how can I improve upon what is already being done/possible in (a given era) using only the tools and materials locally available." Carved shoulder stocks for crossbows would be one simple improvement that could be implemented _immediately_ over the simple squared wooden ones they used in most of the medieval period, wouldn't it?

Well, if you leave plywood and rubberband out of it, sounds like a nice cooperation with a big guy from southern germany.

@@tods_workshop I would watch that! Greetings from Athens!

@@tods_workshop Tod, I think this was used as fortress defense weapon. It would benefit tremendously from a swivel. Push it against a wall to cock it, put it on a swivel, aim from eye level. Snipe the besiegers at will.

*sherwp ding*

Exactly! It always struck me how good it is

Are there any contemporary artistic representations of it in use? That might offer a clue.

I thought of the same thing, there could be a way for it to be released from the shoulder

A short spear used as a monopod so shoot from head height?

@@nigelmacbug6678 i think it would weird to properly load it them, too much time wasted

Another disadvantage shooting from the belly has is that you can't seek cover on battlements very well that way. When shooting from the shoulder only the very top of your silhouette needs to be sticking out. With this you'd have to expose yourself vertically much more when shooting from the walls. We don't know many things about this weapon, like for example we don't know if there was a metal holder that keeps the arrow on. If there was, it could've been shot vertically, with the indent of the stock resting on the shoulder. A bit unintuitive, but I wouldn't rule it out.

the chinese crossbows had large quantity of archeological evidence, the gastrophetes does not have physical evidence. the chinese crossbows were mass produced. the greeks were not. the earliest archeological evidence of the chinese crossbow is earlier than the gastrophete's supposed dating. so why would tod say the gastrophetes is the earliest?

Thanks Jack and yes a very good point. I will be honest and say that to my shame I am Euro-centric in that my knowledge base is European and I know little about Chinese crossbows so I forgot about them here. So yes I should have said "in the Western world". But actually isn't the origin of the Chinese crossbow about the same date or does it predate this?

@@tods_workshop based on the burial of Qufu the earliest bronze trigger excavated is 6th century bc approximately. I’m not sure if we found physical archeological evidence of the gastrophetes.

@@tods_workshop but very likely the earliest crossbow is in Stone Age possiblly Africa if you count animal traps

wall could also be used to lean the gastraphetes on to load

We are in the same ship right now :D only difference that I am also using these for a pc game.

@@Gabrong Nice!

Would characters be allowed to make a slingshot out of dandelion rubber, or are only historical weapons allowed?

@@josephburchanowski4636 It's a ttrpg, the players can do anything as long as they can convince the GM.

@@beganfish that is the beauty of these games :)

So am I - thanks for hanging in there

I had heard of bows where you lie on your back to pull and fire - hmm.

@@ChristopherLaHaise pretty popular in Uruguay and Southern Brazil among certain groups of native people

@@theghosthero6173 I mean, it sort of makes sense. It's probably easier to aim and allows you to handle greater drawweights because you are pulling it back with stronger muscles. The downside of course is that you can literally only use it as a sniping weapon where you lie in wait until a target presents itself. In an open field battle you might need to maneuver around a lot, so laying down in order to shoot is just impractical. But if it's mostly for hunting and/or ambushes, I can see it working really well.

@@darthplagueis13 yeah it was for bird hunting and to set roof of village houses on fire during surprise attacks

Shooting down from the hip over a battlement? How would that work?

@@tullochgorum6323 Depends on the battlement. Ancient walls were not constructed like medieval once. As Tod mentioned same look often points towards simillar use.

I read it was originally invented to snipe and counter archers on walls during siege, as it outranged the hand bows used at the time.

Especially for dropping bolts onto a phalanx, when 'somewhere in the same postcode' is accurate enough.

Yes that’s a good point. I cannot pull 80 very well for certain.

@@doriangray2347 Even if you can pull a bow of equal power or more.........how long can you pull it? This device you could run for hours of continuous fire without suffering too badly I would guess. Of course that may have been it's downfall. IT was too easy to shoot........the cost of bolts adds up too quick. :D

You could also entice the maidens to fire a few shots

@@Arachnoid_of_the_underverse if you shoot over a wall with a lot of shooters the enemy would have thought that the castle is well defended by a lot of men, but in truth every woman or heavy enough child could shoot it.

What’s wrong with your feet😆

made me smile

"I've got shooting pains in my stomach" :D I guess this weapon could lead to a hernia.

I second this. Chinese Crossbows date back quite a bit more. They were already using Crossbows in China for 300 years by the time the Gastraphetes was invented.

This is a severely under rated comment.

But it kinda is at bollocks level tho

I agree. When you are extremely fatigued from combat and no sleep, this is fantastic.

Stick it on a pavise, yeah

Makes a lot of sense. You don't have to rest it against your chest, just hold it by the grips. A bit like a WWI era machine gun with spade grips. Tie a cord to the release lever and loop it around your fingers, so you can keep both hands on the grips.

What's speaking against holding it up and aiming along the arrow?

I was thinking the same, if you propped it up on something, say, the rampart of a wall, and used the handlebars like you'd move a modern machinegun around, you could keep it aligned to your eye while shooting it.

I’m guessing this was used for defending strongholds so a rampart or wall would be there already. In the field they would have a shield board to cover behind and the shield probably doubled as the stand.

That is a definite point

Yeah! Hipfire always struck me as weird no one shoots from their actual hip lol

@Mike - _ - Litoris that's not how language works man lol

@Mike - _ - Litoris Do you really want a response or are you going to keep being fascetious?

My thought as well!

If you think about it, you can make a removal cap like the windlass have to apply at the end of the stock, so you put it on when drawing and remove it when shooting, and the stock will be the same of a crossbow.

@@shaidrim your idea is really the smart, efficient and elegant solution. I've been thinking ways to rotate, compensate for sights, another design e.t.c, and really all you need is to separate the stock and the back "bow". A simple hole would do the trick. Man, I love simple solutions. Bravo and thanks.

@@-Anarion- - Why? They already had a simple solution, one that almost anyone could do & could maintain a Rate of Fire of 3-4 bolts per minute for as long as you had bolts to shoot.

@@TraditionalAnglican improved accuracy

Thanks

And used steam for the first system of automated doors

It is so strange and pockets weren't invented until around 1600, amazing.

Last time I was this early , I turned up at a shop before it opened . It started the day before , my alarm clock had stopped working . I assumed it was the batteries , so I decided to go to the shop the next day and buy some new ones , but as my alarm clock had stopped working I had to stay up all night so that I was awake when it was time to go to buy my NOBODY CARES

Love it!

To think that at 1.67m I'd be considered tall among my ancestors...

True

If you use a pump and want to achieve high pressure you would also use the technique of using your body weight to pump by pushing with the belly. I think the way Tod is pushing it is not the most effective.

It's not a "belly bow" though: it's a "belly releaser". That's why there's a lot of certainty about how it was shot.

I think he was pretty clear that nobody can know how the thing was actually used and that shooting it from the belly is just an educated guess.

I wonder if you were to rotate the belly loading push bar to one side or the other maybe 30 degrees or so or simply make it swivel, if that would allow for shoulder firing.

I was thinking the exact same thing. I copied the stance with a broomstick, and you have to hunch over somewhat to hold and aim the weapon from the hip. Bringing it up closer to the chest gives you much better stability both from not having to hunch and the harder surface the ribs provide.

Ogre Gut Archers wielding siege weapon sized Gastraphetes? Cool :)

@@euansmith3699 I like the idea but I wonder if regular wood would handle that kind of compression/weight

The knee(ling) mortar was an ingeniously simple little weapon.

I wonder if the knee mortar would actually destroy your knee, considering it's only throwing the grenade out to a max of around 500 yards. As far as I know it's never actually been recorded as fired from the knee to see if it is possible or not.

@@jimmehjiimmeehh9748 It would shatter your knee, yes.

The knee mortar was fired while TAKING a knee (usually), not from the knee, the name makes perfect sense. So by that logic, the “belly bow” was fired from a prone position laying on your belly, which makes little to no sense. I agree it might not have been FIRED from the belly (hip shot style), but i would definitely wager that it used the belly to work the mechanism, much like Tod demonstrates in the video (but, as was pointed out several times, we have no ACTUAL idea how it was it used. It could’ve been mounted as an artillery piece for all we know). I just think using modern naming schemes from entirely different languages (the Type 89 being a Japanese weapon with an American nickname) to try to make sense of ancient weapons or tools is pretty foolhardy, unless you’re an expert in Ancient Greek (a language that’s even different from its modern counterpart), which I don’t think any of us here are. Hell, the Germans call gloves “hand shoes” (Handschuhe), does that mean they wear shoes on their hands? Just an example of how meaning can be lost in translation and that’s a very modern example with modern languages. Etymology is a fickle beast sometimes.

@@zebdawson3687 that's not at all what the name implies. Because that's pretty much how you operate EVERY infantry mortar. You don't want to be anywhere near the muzzle end when a mortar finally drops on the firing pin. The name "knee mortar" itself only exists within the anglosphere and has absolutely nothing to do with it's original designation, naming or reputation by the Japanese. Knee mortar was called so because US GIs thought that the shape of the bottom of the mortar was meant to clasp your hip, right at the knee, hence calling it knee mortar. The reality is the shaped bottom plate was designed to be secured to fallen tree trunks, sandbags, rocks and other points that could take the brunt of the recoil safely and securely, without flying off anywhere. If anything it's more probable you would lean, doing so, than actually take a knee, as your hand is still supposed to control the elevation of the muzzle. Please learn what you're talking about, before making a bogus analogy.

Really? That sounds like a quick way to getting totally winded

It will be done one day, but so many films

@@tods_workshop well if it will be done, that's good news :) Also, thank you so much for helping us educate ourselves in tese themes, you and the 'comunity of the sword' are a treasure of humanity.

that would be very interesting. Maybe a challenge for our favorite slingshot maker?

looks like you could just put a shoulder stock on it, and have a plate (ie armour) on your stomach to avoid that jamming into your guts uncomfortably.

Joerg Sprave basically did this but with modern bows. A heavy crossbow wouldn't be practical because their draw weight is too high.

easily possible, but I like to work with what we know to be the case

There is a vid on the channel for that.

@@gordonlawrence1448 oh where is it?

I would find it an interesting experiment to see if turning the handle 90 degrees (or even mounting the handle on a pivot so you can turn it at will) could make it into an acceptable shoulder stock. Even if we have no evidence of this being done in history, it would be interesting to see if this tiny change to the design could improve the weapon or not.

Joerg Sprave modified.

Given the overhead angle of defenders on battlements it’s likely most shots were at a marked angle to the attackers shields.

@@Arachnoid_of_the_underverse I do get that they fire arrows that way but I was just wondering out of curiosity. Never saw any tests done so why not make a inquiry.

Indeed, but, for completly other reasons. Just think about the rate of fire. ;-)