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
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
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.
Reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polybolos, at least some of these used a windlass to rearm. That may explain part of the speed difference over one using a separate lever or one that’s rearmed purely by hand.
These weapons also may have given up on some firing power for firing frequency.
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?
I'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.
Even a short surprise can be crucial in an ancient battle, where breaking formation can be fatal
The psychological advantage can't be discounted either
Maybe one less operator required? Less chance of losing a hand?
Yeah I figured it's more convenient, but they're claiming it's also twice as fast.
With the chu ko nu I get it, you only have two hands, so the auto reload was faster.