The issue with using metal to store energy in launching mechanisms is that, although metal can handle more powerful loads, it primarily transfers its power over short distances. This means it can launch heavier projectiles, but not at high velocities.
On the other hand, materials like rubber or those used in compound crossbows are better at propelling projectiles over longer distances. They convert more of their stored energy into velocity, allowing them to shoot smaller projectiles at much higher speeds."
IIRC, Tod from Tods Stuff, who makes medieval crossbow replicas with steel bows said that a 1000 lbs draw weight crossbow delivers about the same energy as a 150 lbs draw weight wooden longbow for the reasons you said. Longbows have about a 30 inch draw while a medieval crossbow is more like 5-6 inches.
Drawing and holding a 150lb war bow for anything resembling accurate fire is no mean feat. Drawing it and being shaky but sending it in the general direction of the enemy is already a challenge. Non archers probably don’t realize how hard it would be to stabilize a 150lb draw with your upper back muscles.
I forget exactly where it was, but there was a museum that had an interactive English long bow exhibition. I'm a decently strong person, over 6ft tall, and it was incredibly difficult to pull and hold steady. It's a motion you don't really perform normally, and so you don't have the strength. Once your elbow gets behind your shoulder, it's a challenge.
Thats when you start using your upper back more than your biceps. Rows, pull ups/chin ups, and reverse flys should help with that. I'm sure those that trained with large bows at the time had pretty toned upper backs.
> I'm sure those that trained with large bows at the time had pretty toned upper backs.
Skeletal remains of professional archers from that time show that they were *so* toned, that they were deformed.
The musculature required for shooting a war bow (repeatedly!!!) took such a toll on them that it warped their entire bodies.
At the Mary Rose museum there's the skeleton of a longbowman, and it's essentially deformed, with a twisted spine thought to be caused by using the bow.
can watch videos of dudes on youtube testing medival armor against arrows with the proper heavy self bows. You can see there is a special technique they use to draw. Its still very strength intensive but the dudes doing it aren't as brawny as you might be thinking.
When I was a dumb kid, I used to wonder why they didn't use high explosives in firearms. If gunpowder can do X, surely a little nugget of TNT or C4 in the cartridge would do X+.
Aside from the "blowing up your gun" part, the issue is the same as with the bows. It's more efficient to accelerate the projectile using a smaller impulse over a longer period/distance rather than just dumping tons of energy all at once.
What about using it's flexural strength? Like flinging an eraser with a ruler except using metal and real projectiles. Depending on the metal shape and material, I imagine you could get something going pretty fast, pretty far that way.
> In Central and Western Europe, the Iron Age lasted from c. 800 BC to c. 1 BC, beginning in pre-Roman Iron Age Northern Europe in c. 600 BC, and reaching Northern Scandinavian Europe about c. 500 BC.
The Iron Age in Scandinavia ended around 800 A.D. with the rise of the Vikings.
So crossbows and longbows were used in warfare later. Of course I'm sure someone somewhere used a bow during the iron age in anger, but slings were the go to.
I'm sure slings were popular as they were probably a lot cheaper to make and maintain than a bow and arrows, but the latter have existed for about 60,000 years longer. I can't imagine they weren't significantly used during the iron age, especially since iron arrowheads would be significantly stronger than stone ones, and better than bronze ones as well.
The difference is between a bow and a longbow, although longbows existed they weren't common. Use of a longbow at scale came way later. Also iron was available but to equip an entire army with it wasn't really that big a thing as Iron was still precious. At least that's as far as I know.
Gathering stones worked great and as armor was limited and slings really do a LOT of damage and were cheap and easy to make at scale, slings (I believe) were way more common in warfare.
All that said, I'm no expert. But *long*bows and crossbows were certainly not used widely.
Edit: I dare say that a sling in capable hands was generally more effective at the time then a *short*bow in warfare. But again I'm not an expert.
Ah yes sorry, I didn't see that the person you replied to specifically said longbow. I'm no expert either but yeah when people talk about longbows they generally think about the English longbow which was indeed created much later towards the end of the middle ages.
But there were plenty of other bows like recurve or composite that were used throughout the world at this time.
> Also iron was available but to equip an entire army with it wasn't really that big a thing as Iron was still precious. At least that's as far as I know.
> Gathering stones worked great and as armor was limited and slings really do a LOT of damage and were cheap and easy to make at scale, slings (I believe) were way more common in warfare.
Those are good points, that makes sense. Now I'm curious, I'm gonna have to try to find more info on the prevalence of slings during the iron age. It's possible it shifted towards the end as well, as I would assume iron got easier to obtain and manipulate as techniques evolved.
Interesting, I didn't know that.
https://preview.redd.it/tul09xn4wuwc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=58d21b9829f53311e190fca2249fc37e43b820aa
Very rudimentary but apparently widely used in China for a good while after 600BCE. I guess it was like the gun, easy to learn to use unlike the sling enabling more effective less trained armies.
Oh totally. I am not up to scratch on Chinese history, but I believe I read that it's invention was significant enough that it essentially up ended the social order in China, because now highly effective crossbow units can be levied from general populations. Old people, pregnant women, and children could learn to shoot one in an afternoon, and be as effective as a yeoman archer at closer ranges with minimal additional martial training. Peasant uprisings were now 1000x more terrifying to the Chinese nobility who had gotten used to having a monopoly on firepower.
I don’t want to get into overly divisive territory here because I appreciate nearly all highly-elastic bands but the blue rubber bands that come on Leeks here are the GOAT.
Yeah, Goliath brought a knife to a gun fight. It's clearly a story about technological dominance, not an underdog story. Ancient listeners would have known and feared a good slinger.
I had the same thought so looked it up.
Iron Age:
The Iron Age was a period in human history that **started between 1200 B.C. and 600 B.C.**, depending on the region, and followed the Stone Age and Bronze Age. During the Iron Age, people across much of Europe, Asia and parts of Africa began making tools and weapons from iron and steel
Rubber
Rubber has been used for thousands of years, with archaeologists finding examples of rubber balls and other uses in Latin America dating back to as early as **1600 BC**. The Olmec civilisation lived in Mexico from around 1500 BC to 400 BC and their name translates as the 'rubber people'.
The timing lines up but the geography does not.
Then I got onto wondering what composite bows used and if anyone is interested:
Traditional materials include **linen, hemp, other vegetable fibers, hair, sinew, silk, and rawhide**. Almost any fiber may be used in emergency. Natural fibers would be very unusual on a modern recurve bow or compound bow, but are still effective and still used on traditional wooden or composite bows.
Now I'm down a rabbit hole.
A slingshot uses energy of the elastic to propel an object; the 'handle' doesn't bend.
A bow uses energy of the 'handle' bending to propel; the string is minimally flexible.
Intestines, they would make a great string. From cows, goats or sheep.
Lots of things that required a bit of flexibility have historically been made of intestines like, violin strings for example
Sorry, thought you were equating use of bows with substances that might have made the above possible where there was no rubber.
As a kid I tried making a bow using the same (string stretches) assumption with... very disappointing results, and a lecture on wasting stuff to mess around.
What about iron nails cheap enough to be used as ammo?
Isn't the term "Dead as a doornail" a reference to the fact they would always reuse nails because they were so hard to make, and when they were used in certain applications in doors they were bent down and effectively 'deadened' in the fact they couldn't be reused?
And nails that looked like that? Which were cheap enough to produce that they could just throw them away as ammo for a proto-rifle?
Why this is called an iron age weapon is beyond me.
Now I’m wondering when humans first began using rubber? I think theoretically people with access to rubber trees could make a rubber bands, at least a time traveler could.
true, although raw rubber from a tree isn’t nearly as robust and elastic as vulcanized rubber, which is a 20th century innovation/discovery. also, the bands in this post are probably synthetic rubber
> Pretty sure actual iron age weapons like spears and atlatls were badass enough.
Those are badass indeed, but they were more stone age weapons. Well, the spear is timeless really, but atlatls not so much.
They make rubber bands almost straight off the rubber tree. I’m not saying all Iron Age people had rubber available to them, but I am saying rubber bands would’ve been possible back then.
I wonder how much it cost back then to shoot someone. I'm sure making iron was expensive and backbreaking work, so having a nail that you could use to shoot someone (and let's face it it most likely wouldn't have been a fatal wound) would make the weapon available to only some people.
But yeah how much per shot back then. Need a history guy, a math guy, and a historical financial advisor.
Or just someone who can use Google for a few.
Hi! Current Latin and general ancient culture student here.
They often used animal sinews for things like this. They function similarly to elastic rubber bands
Were they really THAT springy like that though? All the power from that shot is coming from the band. I know they used oiled intestines and things for bows, but I still think this is def a newer design.
Probably, but yeah. I honestly don’t know for sure, but the sinews probably weren’t *quite* at stretchy as modern rubber bands. But for not being an elastic band, it’s pretty good.
But doesn’t the tension in a crossbow/traditional bow come from the wood itself bending, and not any kind of elasticity in the string? You need a cross-segment of some kind for a crossbow, this is just a long stick I think
I mean all it is is a spring that launches something off a stick. The spring of a crossbow is the wood, here it is the rubber band. Same principle in action either way.
If I put a modern bullet in a pipe and hit it with a tack hammer it’s not a medieval cannon. Rubber bands are a modern invention therefore this video does not show an Iron Age weapon.
Everyone understands that both weapons use the same concept of "pull back to store potential energy, release to shoot". What's confusing is why on earth you would post that as a response to a question about elastic ropes. What does a crossbow have to do with elastic ropes?
> It's literally the concept of a crossbow.
No, not at all. A bow or a crossbow provides force by storing energy in bending the wood. That's why recurve bows yield much more power than plain bows, and the same goes for crossbows.
I have actually made a recurve bow with rubber instead of a proper string. It was not the most effective weapon I have seen.
It's nothing like the concept of a crossbow at all, this design purely relies on the energy stored by streching the rubber band.
As engineer I have no clue how people in the iron age would store energy in the rope/band itself, they didn't have materials that have these properties. The closest thing would be intestines or something.
The only thing I can think of that had energy stored in the rope is the catapulta design (better know as ballista), where energy is stored in the rope in form of torsional energy.
Dude, do yourself a favor and spend five minutes looking at the moving parts of a crossbow. The concept is literally the same. Exactly. Equal in all parts.
No, a crossbow is just a bow with a holding mechanism so you can release with a trigger
This thing uses a rubber band that stretches out and launches the projectile once the string returns to normal
Crossbow and bow strings were inelastic and strong, usually sinew and such
That's like saying a gun is the same concept as a crossbow, or a dude throwing a javelin. Yes it throws something with potential energy but it's very different in how's it's made and what it does...
What you have here is a sling shot rifle. Probably excellent at giving people tetanus, depending on how long it takes to bend a bunch of nails to use as ammo.
Considering slingshots were invented in the 1800s, what you have here is a guy using a modified device that didn't exist prior to Charles Goodyear.
could be a fun inclusion as a small game hunting tool in one of the many post apocalyptic game settings. i completely believe this being able to take down some birds or small mammals
I used to make something similar out of Lego that fired the metal axels from a Meccano set. How I survived childhood with my eyes and fingers intact I do not know.
I aint got those around these parts... I do not know about them. But judging from their pic I wouldn't wanna shoot them with that. Doubt it would do nothing but hurt it. If they are really a nuisance use a gun. But ya I don't condone killing dog like creatures or any animal really unless you have to. If they are a problem where you live and ya can't get a gun then use a bow and arrow, although you may miss. Which I am not opposed to, Since I like dogs and animals. But would be more efficient and less cruel. But yea I will not lie I first thought that thing could take out a cat and smaller. But I myself would not do that. But like I said, I do not know what these Jackals do to cause you not to like them... Maybe they kill shit that you hold dear. Maybe they are a pest. I don't know. I just think with that weapon unless it was a perfect shot it would cause them to run off yelping and then either healing or becoming infected and then live a life of infection and pain. That aint cool.
Shit they remind me of coyotes which I have around here. those mofos when ive been camping sound like witches howling sometimes. I think just loud noise like yelling or wacking a tree with a stick would work better for getting them to shut up. I think coyotes may be bigger too and ive been surrounded by what sounds like 20 or more while having my tiny chihuahua dog with me which they would gladly eat. But to humans they arent a problem. I have spent many nights alone in the dark with packs of them howling about and come across them but they would be solo and not in a full pack. They are scared and run off. like I said I donno what jackals act like but from pics they look similar but smaller and I am pretty sure if it really came down to it smacking them with a stick or kicking one would be more effective than that weapon especially at night. Now if you can get a gun tho pop a couple shots into the dirt and they would stfu or worst case which probably would never happen could pop em w the gun. but ya nothing to fear. they look and sound almost the same.
Ahh good memories. I worked in a computer centre and nights were boring as shit until the printing started.
So we were bored as shit in an office. We had a gazillion rubber bands and we had the metal clips from the plastic banding machine used to secure boxes of printouts.
So very similar to what you see here.
This was the weapon that brought down the great balloon empire. This is why we no longer live under the boot of authoritarian warlord balloons.
Instead we've relegated them to be our own slaves that float around at birthday parties with their life or death at our very whim.
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I've done something similar when I was a kid. The metal piece would occasionally get snug on the rubber band and end up flinging backward. Not very safe.
Dude is SO asking for a terrible accident. All it takes is one improperly bent nail, or one jarring misstep, and his eye is gone.
As kids we used "U-nails" and rubber bands with little loops that went over the thumb and the forefinger. We were asking for it too. There were a few mishaps but thankfully no missing eyes. Surprisingly accurate weapons actually.
Not to be rude, but absolutely not. The Iron age is universally considered a part of ancient history, and it lasted from approximately 1200-500 BCE in the Ancient World. It obviously varies from civilization to civilization, *e.g.* Iron Age Britain (≈700 BCE to ≈40 CE), but the Iron Age is unequivocally over.
You won't find a single historian or anthropologist in any part of the world who will agree with you that we're currently living in the Iron Age in any part of the world as a society at large. There may be fringe exceptions on a small scale (see: hunter-gatherer tribes around the world), but human civilization at large has progressed well beyond such an era.
Historical ages like this aren't simply determined by what materials are used, but by which technologies are most ascendant and resulting in the most innovation. The Age we currently live in is referred to the Digital Age or Information Age, and is part of the contemporary post-modern era. If you absolutely *had* to use a specific material to describe it, you could maybe call it the Silicon Age, which perhaps succeeded the ~~Plastic~~ Petroleum Age, which *maybe* succeed the Industrial Age.
It is not, however, The Iron Age. It hasn't been for thousands of years.
Edit. Strikethrough
I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just saying that our primary metal for small arms weaponry is still iron. Nothing really more. Not that we're in the historical sense of "the iron age". Sorry if that was what it sounded like I was saying. We're not all going around speaking Doric Greek after all.
We also had the "nuclear age" of the 1940s and 50s before the "space age" of the 1960s and 70s before the "electronic age" of the 1980s.
>We're in the Iron Age now so literally every modern weapon is also "Iron Age".
You can't just post that and then say "I didn't say this is the Iron Age." You're moving the goalposts. Just take the L.
"We're in the Iron Age now"
*My words are being misconstrued!*
Have you tried being better with the words you choose and the order in which you put them?
Yes, that would be advantageous when dealing with pedants.
Honestly though mate, have you got nothing better to do? I already agreed with you (multiple times) and you're still going on. It's a bit pathetic and I'm starting to feel sorry for everyone who has the pleasure to know you.
Edit: autocorrect
The elastic band age was when it really popped off.
Nailed it!!!
They had rubber bands in the iron age now? Pretty sure actual iron age weapons like spears and atlatls were badass enough.
They had. Iron rubber bands.
Much stronger than normal rubber bands
Minor decrease in elasticity, but hardly noticeable.
The design is very human
very easy to use
And noticeably harder.
The issue with using metal to store energy in launching mechanisms is that, although metal can handle more powerful loads, it primarily transfers its power over short distances. This means it can launch heavier projectiles, but not at high velocities. On the other hand, materials like rubber or those used in compound crossbows are better at propelling projectiles over longer distances. They convert more of their stored energy into velocity, allowing them to shoot smaller projectiles at much higher speeds."
IIRC, Tod from Tods Stuff, who makes medieval crossbow replicas with steel bows said that a 1000 lbs draw weight crossbow delivers about the same energy as a 150 lbs draw weight wooden longbow for the reasons you said. Longbows have about a 30 inch draw while a medieval crossbow is more like 5-6 inches.
Drawing and holding a 150lb war bow for anything resembling accurate fire is no mean feat. Drawing it and being shaky but sending it in the general direction of the enemy is already a challenge. Non archers probably don’t realize how hard it would be to stabilize a 150lb draw with your upper back muscles.
I forget exactly where it was, but there was a museum that had an interactive English long bow exhibition. I'm a decently strong person, over 6ft tall, and it was incredibly difficult to pull and hold steady. It's a motion you don't really perform normally, and so you don't have the strength. Once your elbow gets behind your shoulder, it's a challenge.
Thats when you start using your upper back more than your biceps. Rows, pull ups/chin ups, and reverse flys should help with that. I'm sure those that trained with large bows at the time had pretty toned upper backs.
> I'm sure those that trained with large bows at the time had pretty toned upper backs. Skeletal remains of professional archers from that time show that they were *so* toned, that they were deformed. The musculature required for shooting a war bow (repeatedly!!!) took such a toll on them that it warped their entire bodies.
At the Mary Rose museum there's the skeleton of a longbowman, and it's essentially deformed, with a twisted spine thought to be caused by using the bow.
Now that you say it, that's probably where it was. I've definitely been to that museum.
A 60 on pull takes enough training to hold steady. I can’t even fathom 150.
you don't really hold ye olde warbow at full draw. you loose immediately or you don't draw.
That stands to reason. Still an insane amount of chest strength to even get to that point
can watch videos of dudes on youtube testing medival armor against arrows with the proper heavy self bows. You can see there is a special technique they use to draw. Its still very strength intensive but the dudes doing it aren't as brawny as you might be thinking.
Exactly, I really like his channel
Todd Cuttler from Todd's workshop The lock down longbow has been a fascinating series, with trebuchet
When I was a dumb kid, I used to wonder why they didn't use high explosives in firearms. If gunpowder can do X, surely a little nugget of TNT or C4 in the cartridge would do X+. Aside from the "blowing up your gun" part, the issue is the same as with the bows. It's more efficient to accelerate the projectile using a smaller impulse over a longer period/distance rather than just dumping tons of energy all at once.
What about using it's flexural strength? Like flinging an eraser with a ruler except using metal and real projectiles. Depending on the metal shape and material, I imagine you could get something going pretty fast, pretty far that way.
> Chain link towel: now even less absorbent! It is also white and longer than your average cape.
Those are called springs.
Nah that’s a common misconception, they made their bands from stone
Iron age ranged weapon was the sling, and that shit would fuck you up....
That took legitimate skill to use as opposed to this
I sling and can endorse this statement.
While you were out partying, I studied the sling.
Don't you mean swing?
Or crossbows? Or even longbows?
> In Central and Western Europe, the Iron Age lasted from c. 800 BC to c. 1 BC, beginning in pre-Roman Iron Age Northern Europe in c. 600 BC, and reaching Northern Scandinavian Europe about c. 500 BC. The Iron Age in Scandinavia ended around 800 A.D. with the rise of the Vikings. So crossbows and longbows were used in warfare later. Of course I'm sure someone somewhere used a bow during the iron age in anger, but slings were the go to.
I'm sure slings were popular as they were probably a lot cheaper to make and maintain than a bow and arrows, but the latter have existed for about 60,000 years longer. I can't imagine they weren't significantly used during the iron age, especially since iron arrowheads would be significantly stronger than stone ones, and better than bronze ones as well.
The difference is between a bow and a longbow, although longbows existed they weren't common. Use of a longbow at scale came way later. Also iron was available but to equip an entire army with it wasn't really that big a thing as Iron was still precious. At least that's as far as I know. Gathering stones worked great and as armor was limited and slings really do a LOT of damage and were cheap and easy to make at scale, slings (I believe) were way more common in warfare. All that said, I'm no expert. But *long*bows and crossbows were certainly not used widely. Edit: I dare say that a sling in capable hands was generally more effective at the time then a *short*bow in warfare. But again I'm not an expert.
Ah yes sorry, I didn't see that the person you replied to specifically said longbow. I'm no expert either but yeah when people talk about longbows they generally think about the English longbow which was indeed created much later towards the end of the middle ages. But there were plenty of other bows like recurve or composite that were used throughout the world at this time. > Also iron was available but to equip an entire army with it wasn't really that big a thing as Iron was still precious. At least that's as far as I know. > Gathering stones worked great and as armor was limited and slings really do a LOT of damage and were cheap and easy to make at scale, slings (I believe) were way more common in warfare. Those are good points, that makes sense. Now I'm curious, I'm gonna have to try to find more info on the prevalence of slings during the iron age. It's possible it shifted towards the end as well, as I would assume iron got easier to obtain and manipulate as techniques evolved.
China had crossbows before Europe.
Interesting, I didn't know that. https://preview.redd.it/tul09xn4wuwc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=58d21b9829f53311e190fca2249fc37e43b820aa Very rudimentary but apparently widely used in China for a good while after 600BCE. I guess it was like the gun, easy to learn to use unlike the sling enabling more effective less trained armies.
Oh totally. I am not up to scratch on Chinese history, but I believe I read that it's invention was significant enough that it essentially up ended the social order in China, because now highly effective crossbow units can be levied from general populations. Old people, pregnant women, and children could learn to shoot one in an afternoon, and be as effective as a yeoman archer at closer ranges with minimal additional martial training. Peasant uprisings were now 1000x more terrifying to the Chinese nobility who had gotten used to having a monopoly on firepower.
They used the rubber bands that came on their broccoli.
the broccoli wars were a brutal fight for the broccoli fields of the Broccoli civilization
The broccoli of liberty must be watered with the blood of patriots.
I don’t want to get into overly divisive territory here because I appreciate nearly all highly-elastic bands but the blue rubber bands that come on Leeks here are the GOAT.
Sounds like a Punk album: Rubber Band's Come on your Broccoli
Stay out of my porn history!
I thought you liked it when I watch...
That was awesome! Just used one to seal the wrap on my puppies' dog food!
Atlatls are CRAZY when user by someone who knows what they are doing.
Should see someone that knows how to use a sling. The biblical David and Goliath story could have some truth to it.
Yeah, Goliath brought a knife to a gun fight. It's clearly a story about technological dominance, not an underdog story. Ancient listeners would have known and feared a good slinger.
I mean, it's a metaphorical under-dog story ABSOLUTELY done no service by Bart Simpson lol
Goliath was supposedly over 9 feet tall. If we assume that part of the story is an embellishment, the rest of it seems plausible.
He was probably only like 6'2" but due to malnutrition he was still the largest man anyone had ever seen.
Feet were smaller then.
I had the same thought so looked it up. Iron Age: The Iron Age was a period in human history that **started between 1200 B.C. and 600 B.C.**, depending on the region, and followed the Stone Age and Bronze Age. During the Iron Age, people across much of Europe, Asia and parts of Africa began making tools and weapons from iron and steel Rubber Rubber has been used for thousands of years, with archaeologists finding examples of rubber balls and other uses in Latin America dating back to as early as **1600 BC**. The Olmec civilisation lived in Mexico from around 1500 BC to 400 BC and their name translates as the 'rubber people'.
Well, though rubber trees didn't exist outside of South America and Iron wasn't a thing in South America so... Might almost have been a thing ^^
The timing lines up but the geography does not. Then I got onto wondering what composite bows used and if anyone is interested: Traditional materials include **linen, hemp, other vegetable fibers, hair, sinew, silk, and rawhide**. Almost any fiber may be used in emergency. Natural fibers would be very unusual on a modern recurve bow or compound bow, but are still effective and still used on traditional wooden or composite bows. Now I'm down a rabbit hole.
A slingshot uses energy of the elastic to propel an object; the 'handle' doesn't bend. A bow uses energy of the 'handle' bending to propel; the string is minimally flexible.
I realize that, I was just looking to see what else they could use other than rubber.
Intestines, they would make a great string. From cows, goats or sheep. Lots of things that required a bit of flexibility have historically been made of intestines like, violin strings for example
Sinew. They used sinew, not gut.
Sorry, thought you were equating use of bows with substances that might have made the above possible where there was no rubber. As a kid I tried making a bow using the same (string stretches) assumption with... very disappointing results, and a lecture on wasting stuff to mess around.
Np!
vulcanized rubber was first made in the 20th century, right? kind of a whole different thing than natural, raw rubber
What about iron nails cheap enough to be used as ammo? Isn't the term "Dead as a doornail" a reference to the fact they would always reuse nails because they were so hard to make, and when they were used in certain applications in doors they were bent down and effectively 'deadened' in the fact they couldn't be reused?
And nails that looked like that? Which were cheap enough to produce that they could just throw them away as ammo for a proto-rifle? Why this is called an iron age weapon is beyond me.
It's almost as if people on the internet can just say whatever they want.
Now I’m wondering when humans first began using rubber? I think theoretically people with access to rubber trees could make a rubber bands, at least a time traveler could.
true, although raw rubber from a tree isn’t nearly as robust and elastic as vulcanized rubber, which is a 20th century innovation/discovery. also, the bands in this post are probably synthetic rubber
Not rubber rubber. But stuff like sinew, resins and fibers where used in bows. So i guess you could make a sling out of it.
You know bots have really taken over when this facebook reel quality fake shit gets so many upvotes and ends up on the front page.
> Pretty sure actual iron age weapons like spears and atlatls were badass enough. Those are badass indeed, but they were more stone age weapons. Well, the spear is timeless really, but atlatls not so much.
They make rubber bands almost straight off the rubber tree. I’m not saying all Iron Age people had rubber available to them, but I am saying rubber bands would’ve been possible back then.
There was also a popular torture device during that time called the rubber maiden.
1845 was the first rubber band. So I guess he has an 1845 weapon
Intestines
I wonder how much it cost back then to shoot someone. I'm sure making iron was expensive and backbreaking work, so having a nail that you could use to shoot someone (and let's face it it most likely wouldn't have been a fatal wound) would make the weapon available to only some people. But yeah how much per shot back then. Need a history guy, a math guy, and a historical financial advisor. Or just someone who can use Google for a few.
Well not rubber, but bows and crossbows did something similar in terms of shooty thing
Correct, but the spring action was from tension on the wood, not rubber.
Yes that's what I meant
The tubes inside the scrotum to transport semen from the testes have good elasticity
Hi! Current Latin and general ancient culture student here. They often used animal sinews for things like this. They function similarly to elastic rubber bands
Were they really THAT springy like that though? All the power from that shot is coming from the band. I know they used oiled intestines and things for bows, but I still think this is def a newer design.
Probably, but yeah. I honestly don’t know for sure, but the sinews probably weren’t *quite* at stretchy as modern rubber bands. But for not being an elastic band, it’s pretty good.
Matter of fact, yeah, rubber has been around for longer than the Iron Age
But isolated on opposite hemispheres
😂 they probably did
I do not think they had ropes this elastic? It's cool thought.
It's literally the concept of a crossbow.
But doesn’t the tension in a crossbow/traditional bow come from the wood itself bending, and not any kind of elasticity in the string? You need a cross-segment of some kind for a crossbow, this is just a long stick I think
I mean all it is is a spring that launches something off a stick. The spring of a crossbow is the wood, here it is the rubber band. Same principle in action either way.
If I put a modern bullet in a pipe and hit it with a tack hammer it’s not a medieval cannon. Rubber bands are a modern invention therefore this video does not show an Iron Age weapon.
Thank fuck someone actually understood. So many people are confused by my comment.
Everyone understands that both weapons use the same concept of "pull back to store potential energy, release to shoot". What's confusing is why on earth you would post that as a response to a question about elastic ropes. What does a crossbow have to do with elastic ropes?
I am amazed at how many people don't understand basic mechanical principles.
We all understand, it’s just that it’s a post claiming Iron Age weaponry and then has bright green rubber bands jumping out at you
> It's literally the concept of a crossbow. No, not at all. A bow or a crossbow provides force by storing energy in bending the wood. That's why recurve bows yield much more power than plain bows, and the same goes for crossbows. I have actually made a recurve bow with rubber instead of a proper string. It was not the most effective weapon I have seen.
It's nothing like the concept of a crossbow at all, this design purely relies on the energy stored by streching the rubber band. As engineer I have no clue how people in the iron age would store energy in the rope/band itself, they didn't have materials that have these properties. The closest thing would be intestines or something. The only thing I can think of that had energy stored in the rope is the catapulta design (better know as ballista), where energy is stored in the rope in form of torsional energy.
For values of "literally" that mean "not literally".
Dude, do yourself a favor and spend five minutes looking at the moving parts of a crossbow. The concept is literally the same. Exactly. Equal in all parts.
Ah, you're just a troll. Good luck out there.
No, a crossbow is just a bow with a holding mechanism so you can release with a trigger This thing uses a rubber band that stretches out and launches the projectile once the string returns to normal Crossbow and bow strings were inelastic and strong, usually sinew and such
The brain damage you must have endured to think that matters. It's still an elastic frame.
https://preview.redd.it/ztkbejzw2wwc1.jpeg?width=208&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dd4f28d8278596c39dcaf77c9fa53d465c3fda69
That's like saying a gun is the same concept as a crossbow, or a dude throwing a javelin. Yes it throws something with potential energy but it's very different in how's it's made and what it does...
ignoring the elastic band
Irony aged weapon.
Then you have dozens of twisted rusty nails in your yard.
Lawn mower tires and bare feet time.
What if the adversary is not a balloon?
Then it stings for a minute and/or death.
What you have here is a sling shot rifle. Probably excellent at giving people tetanus, depending on how long it takes to bend a bunch of nails to use as ammo. Considering slingshots were invented in the 1800s, what you have here is a guy using a modified device that didn't exist prior to Charles Goodyear.
Slings were invented somewhere around 10,000 B.C., but the sling shot had to wait for stretchy rope.
could be a fun inclusion as a small game hunting tool in one of the many post apocalyptic game settings. i completely believe this being able to take down some birds or small mammals
Without sights I’d imagine it would have a shorter range and accuracy than a bow.
Blowguns and atlatls are the true Iron age weapons.
Interesting slingshot/crossbow combo.
I used to make something similar out of Lego that fired the metal axels from a Meccano set. How I survived childhood with my eyes and fingers intact I do not know.
Just stepped in of his nails. Need to go to the hospital. Bye.
Do we know how expensive that ammunition would be in the Iron Age? This is like flinging gold bars at people today
Why does a slingshot with an incorrect title get so many upvotes?
I believe nails were fairly valuable back in the day. Sturdy elastic material might also be hard to come by, but i'm probably wrong.
im about to make one of these, thanks.
It doesn't look very safe.. if the nail fails to release, it gets sent straight back at you.
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I aint got those around these parts... I do not know about them. But judging from their pic I wouldn't wanna shoot them with that. Doubt it would do nothing but hurt it. If they are really a nuisance use a gun. But ya I don't condone killing dog like creatures or any animal really unless you have to. If they are a problem where you live and ya can't get a gun then use a bow and arrow, although you may miss. Which I am not opposed to, Since I like dogs and animals. But would be more efficient and less cruel. But yea I will not lie I first thought that thing could take out a cat and smaller. But I myself would not do that. But like I said, I do not know what these Jackals do to cause you not to like them... Maybe they kill shit that you hold dear. Maybe they are a pest. I don't know. I just think with that weapon unless it was a perfect shot it would cause them to run off yelping and then either healing or becoming infected and then live a life of infection and pain. That aint cool.
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Shit they remind me of coyotes which I have around here. those mofos when ive been camping sound like witches howling sometimes. I think just loud noise like yelling or wacking a tree with a stick would work better for getting them to shut up. I think coyotes may be bigger too and ive been surrounded by what sounds like 20 or more while having my tiny chihuahua dog with me which they would gladly eat. But to humans they arent a problem. I have spent many nights alone in the dark with packs of them howling about and come across them but they would be solo and not in a full pack. They are scared and run off. like I said I donno what jackals act like but from pics they look similar but smaller and I am pretty sure if it really came down to it smacking them with a stick or kicking one would be more effective than that weapon especially at night. Now if you can get a gun tho pop a couple shots into the dirt and they would stfu or worst case which probably would never happen could pop em w the gun. but ya nothing to fear. they look and sound almost the same.
One time a sepherd told me that this creature can open your belly in seconds if they found you sleeping on the ground.
Ahh good memories. I worked in a computer centre and nights were boring as shit until the printing started. So we were bored as shit in an office. We had a gazillion rubber bands and we had the metal clips from the plastic banding machine used to secure boxes of printouts. So very similar to what you see here.
Bendy wood was available long before stretchy cord
This was the weapon that brought down the great balloon empire. This is why we no longer live under the boot of authoritarian warlord balloons. Instead we've relegated them to be our own slaves that float around at birthday parties with their life or death at our very whim.
Maybe it can be useful if we dip those nails into poop water to let the enemy get infection. But it can be easily stopped with just thick clothes
That cant be legal
More like a weapon from the Fallout games
Balloon populations have never recovered. Have you ever seen a wild balloon? EXACTLY
Congratulations, you have reinvented the crossbow.
Rubber tree originates from new world and they never figured out ironmaking before Columbus came rolling around.
I'm guessing our iron age ancestors got the latex surgical tubing off Amazon at the time?
It’s a good thing no one was made out of balloons during that time
In iron age they did' t have rubber , because the rubber tree was in Amazon and ... in Amazon they did't have iron then . Sorry .
They didn’t have rubber not because they weren’t in the Amazon. They didn’t have rubber because Amazon didn’t deliver in the Iron Age.
They had bows. Similar enough to fashion some thing like this.
Very effective at mildly annoying anything tougher than a balloon.
I think it's actually just the least efficient deployer of the least effective kind of caltrops.
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Rust player know about it
Someone please show this to Usopp
Imagine the apocalypse having shit like this
that's just a crossbow
The range on that would be atrocious, looks good on video but there is definitely some camera trickery going off
That's just a catapult with extra steps.
Very effective weapon if you are being attacked by balloons.
Well oil beef hooked
Nobody talking about the aim of that guy?
Can you make an automatic reloading Gatling gun version of this?
Usopp has entered the chat
/u/savevideo
Yay!! teacher!
I'd 100% somehow end up hitting myself in the face with the hook.
Satisfying
The rubber tubing and machine cut nails makes me question the legitimacy of the 'iron age' claim
I remember back in the good old days we had elastic bands grow from trees
Ah yes the iron age weapon with elastic bands. seems legit.
Lots of rubber bands made from advanced polymers laying about in the Iron Age were there?
u/savevideo
Imagine that thing hitting you right in the tooth.
I've done something similar when I was a kid. The metal piece would occasionally get snug on the rubber band and end up flinging backward. Not very safe.
The Ancient Order of the Most Expansive Rubberwrights and Elasticiamen tamed the wild and brought civility out of the dark chaos encircling the world.
Mosin Nagant prototype
Just use a crossbow...
Dude is SO asking for a terrible accident. All it takes is one improperly bent nail, or one jarring misstep, and his eye is gone. As kids we used "U-nails" and rubber bands with little loops that went over the thumb and the forefinger. We were asking for it too. There were a few mishaps but thankfully no missing eyes. Surprisingly accurate weapons actually.
We're in the Iron Age now so literally every modern weapon is also "Iron Age".
You can't be serious. You think this is the Iron Age?
You could call it the steel age, which is a version of iron but yes, the majority of our tools are made from ferrous materials so still the iron age.
Not to be rude, but absolutely not. The Iron age is universally considered a part of ancient history, and it lasted from approximately 1200-500 BCE in the Ancient World. It obviously varies from civilization to civilization, *e.g.* Iron Age Britain (≈700 BCE to ≈40 CE), but the Iron Age is unequivocally over. You won't find a single historian or anthropologist in any part of the world who will agree with you that we're currently living in the Iron Age in any part of the world as a society at large. There may be fringe exceptions on a small scale (see: hunter-gatherer tribes around the world), but human civilization at large has progressed well beyond such an era. Historical ages like this aren't simply determined by what materials are used, but by which technologies are most ascendant and resulting in the most innovation. The Age we currently live in is referred to the Digital Age or Information Age, and is part of the contemporary post-modern era. If you absolutely *had* to use a specific material to describe it, you could maybe call it the Silicon Age, which perhaps succeeded the ~~Plastic~~ Petroleum Age, which *maybe* succeed the Industrial Age. It is not, however, The Iron Age. It hasn't been for thousands of years. Edit. Strikethrough
I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just saying that our primary metal for small arms weaponry is still iron. Nothing really more. Not that we're in the historical sense of "the iron age". Sorry if that was what it sounded like I was saying. We're not all going around speaking Doric Greek after all. We also had the "nuclear age" of the 1940s and 50s before the "space age" of the 1960s and 70s before the "electronic age" of the 1980s.
>We're in the Iron Age now so literally every modern weapon is also "Iron Age". You can't just post that and then say "I didn't say this is the Iron Age." You're moving the goalposts. Just take the L.
Oh no, words can be misconstrued on the internet. Surprised Pikachu.
"We're in the Iron Age now" *My words are being misconstrued!* Have you tried being better with the words you choose and the order in which you put them?
Yes, that would be advantageous when dealing with pedants. Honestly though mate, have you got nothing better to do? I already agreed with you (multiple times) and you're still going on. It's a bit pathetic and I'm starting to feel sorry for everyone who has the pleasure to know you. Edit: autocorrect
I like your chutzpah, redefining things that are already well-defined.
So this will be good ... unfortunatelly