Medieval Siege Weaponary !!!!!

During the Medieval ages there were many wars that were conducted with sieges against a town or manor or a castle.                    When ever a siege happened there were three ways it could work.

1. The siegeing armies could block the entrance and keep the people from getting food and water.

2. The siegeing armies could go to war against the town, manor or castle.

3. The siegeing armies could just wait until the town,manor or castle surrenders.

The Seige tower : Siege towers were used to get archers and other troops at the castle wall height or higher. The were generally made of wood and after a few years they made them with wood but covered it from the ground up with metal sheets, so it couldn’t catch fire when the threw flaming jars of oil at it. This war machine was almost unstoppable until it was at the wall of the castle. When it was at the wall of the castle it was vulnerable to attack from behind and when they had opened the draw bridge the enemy was able to throw the flaming jars of oil inside the tower and shoot arrows into it as well.The siege tower mechanism carried scores of soldiers, who climbed ladders to move between the different levels of a siege tower. Near the top of the siege tower was a strategically placed drawbridge which was lowered to allow the attackers to race onto the battlements. Siege Towers were large and expensive to construct  they were therefore the last type of siege weapon to be constructed at a siege when the castle could not be over run by ladder assault and pounding walls.  They weighed 2500 to 3500 pounds.  www.travelblog.org/…/blog-278060.html

The Battering ram : Battering rams were generally made of woods like oak, ash and fir. The reason they use this kind of this wood is because it is very hard, and very strong. Many battering rams needed many solders to work because it was so heavy and very hard to move even with wheels. They normaly used it to pound, shake, batter and punch down walls and doors. They weighed up to 1200 to 1500 pounds.  dvice.com/…/7-weapons-that-changed-warfare.php

The Ballista : The ballista was a weapon that the earlier Greek created. It relied upon different mechanics using two levels with torsion springs instead of a prod, the springs were made up of several loops of twisted skeins. Early versions projected heavy bolts, darts and spears along a flat trajectory. The force of the missiles launched from the Ballista was designed to have great penetration and were capable of skewering several of the enemy at one time during siege warfare. From the on the next generation came and was smaller and used to attack infantry and calvery. They wieghed up to 400 to 500 pounds. www.siege-engine.com/MistaBallista.shtml

The Catapult : The catapult is a machine used to throw large objects a great length at an opponents castle or lots of infantry. Even though the catapult has been used for a very long time it has proven it’s self to be the most effective during sieges. The Catapults history dates back to antiquity. Various types of catapults were used by the Chinese, Greeks and Romans. The Catapults reached Europe during the middle ages and were used extensively by the French. Catapults history notes that the weapons were introduced to England in 1216 during the siege of Dover as were many other types of siege weapons. Louis the Dauphin of France crossed the channel with a large force and laid siege to Dover Castle making a violent and incessant attack on the castle walls.The war machines weighed from 6 to 7 hundred pounds. civilianmilitaryintelligencegroup.com/?p=1383

The Trebuchet : One of the Medieval siege weapons used during the Middle Ages was the Trebuchet. The Trebuchet was an invaluable Medieval siege attack weapon, similar to a catapult, which was used for hurling heavy stones to smash castle or city walls. Medieval engineers of the Middle Ages worked hard on the design of the Trebuchet to ensure that this siege weapon and the aim of this type of catapult, or sling, would have the greatest effect. The force of the Trebuchet was capable of reducing castles, fortresses and cities to rubble. Trebuchet history dates back to antiquity. The traction trebuchet is believed to be an ancient war engine which was invented in China in 300BC. It is thought that the trebuchet may have developed from the stave sling. In the traction trebuchet a large troop of men pulled down on ropes to propel the missile. The trebuchet reached Europe during the early Middle Ages, or Dark Ages, in 500 AD and was used extensively by the French. At this time the design of the trebuchet was revised so that the troop of men used to pull down the ropes were replaced with a large fixed, or pivoting, counterbalance weight. The Traction Trebuchet used people as a power source. The Counterpoise Trebuchet replaced the people power with a weight on the short end. captainsofindustry1000.blogspot.com/2009/06/t…

Characters and Conflict

Now that I’m into the second part of my book I can see some more conflict happening between the Elves and  the Gwars and th Spider king. A few of the main characters have had a conflict of their own with the drefids who are the Spider kings assassins and a tree creature. So far in the book the biggest conflict has been the big slaughtering that happened in the very beginning when the Spider kings armies attacked the elven capital Berinfel. During the onslaught that night the armies killed 2/3 of the Elven population. They killed all seven of the elven lords. But in the midst of all that 800 elves escaped through a tunnel in the great hall. But now since the the Gwars attacked and took the lords children they were placed on earth, The Spider king wants them dead so he has been sending the drefids and tree creatures on to earth to find and kill the new elven lords. But his attempts failed and the elves who were sent to earth to collect all of the lords have found them and are bringing them back to berinfel to help defeat the Spider king and help replenish the elven races.

CURSE OF THE SPIDER KING!!!!!! Dun Dun Da

Curse of the spider king is the book I’m reading in class for an independent novel study. I like this book so far because it is action filled and the main characters are my age. The book is on seven thirteen year olds and friends teachers and all that kind of stuff but anyway. So far in the book I’ve read about all seven of the teenagers. Right now in the book all of them have been getting followed by as strange man who they have never seen or known. Most of the kids have been getting “gifts” . The gifts are books which take them into another world full of Elves and their enemies the Gwars. The elves are all in one big city called Berinfell. There are seven colonies of elves who live there. Then there is the Gwars. These guys are spider riding assassins for an evil overlord called the spider king.  The kids names are Tommy Bowman, Autumn Brairman and Johnny Brairman who are siblings but Johnny’s the thirteen year old, James “Jimmy” Lewis Gresham, Kat Simonson, Kiri Lee and Jett Green. What I’ve found interesting so far in the book is that three of the kids have gotten strange abilities. Kat has the ability to read and see peoples thoughts, Tommy has very good accuracy with a bow and arrow( which he never had before.) and Jett has the ability to be able to heal extremely quickly. So if your ever looking for a good book look for this series. Bye

The most popular television genre is……….

When you watch television what kind of genre do you watch. Do you watch religious, comedy, sports or even academic instruction.  Do you know what the most watched genre for t.v. is ? If you guessed sports then your wrong it’s actually drama. That means that there is more soap operas watched than hockey, football and baseball games. I think that’s bad I for one thought that sports was the most popular but it’s drama. Here is a graph showing the stats for the genres. When I found that out I was amazed. I have seen lots of religious show and it’s has the lowest amout of views. I wish that sports were more popular than they are. But ever since television, Ipods and laptops came in to the world most people have been forgetting about the outdoors and all of the activities that can be played. I think that the government should make a holiday were the country doesn’t watch t.v. or use the laptops and Ipods.

Cameroonian Bamboo Magic

I was looking for an interesting topic for my blog and I found this one on my igoogle page. It tells about a teacher in Cameroon who fabricates objects out of bamboo to make more income. It’s cool the way he can make just about any thing out of bamboo. Here is a blog called AfriGadget it has a lot of interesting stories that are from mainly Africa. http://www.afrigadget.com/2010/03/03/cameroonian-bamboo-magic/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Afrigadget+%28AfriGadget%29&utm_content=Google+International

This is amazing the way people are making anything out of their surroundings. I wish we could make laptop cases out of the wood we have here in Canada. If we could I would make anything and everything. I would probably even make a pencil-case for school. I would make a tire or anything from it. That would be cool. If I did do that the I probably could make a little bit of money here in Snow lake. I would take lessons if I could but I don’t think I can so I’ll just have to tough it out. The reason I could use it in Snow lake is lots of people have Ipods, Laptops and Cell phones. So if I learned how to make the covers then I could sell them at a fair price.

here is a picture of one of the objects this guy makes.  Thats awesome its made out of bamboo. That would be the coolest mouse in Canada if some one had one.  Here is a cool laptop skin made out of bamboo.  He can make some pretty amazing stuff out of bamboo. Well bye for now.