Do Westerosi Armies Have Ballista's?

[juanml82]

That's what i find weird. In RL, frequent wars actually caused technological advancement over time and Europe is a great example of that.

Was that true before the invention of the printing press? Most technological advancements during the middle ages came from the East, not from Western Europe.

[Roose The Weddingcrasher]

Actually, the focus on chivalry began when it had become obsolete on the field, Turned from a tool of war to a sport. Sports can afford fair play.

Sorry, by "chivalry" I meant, well, the use of heavy cavalry rather than the culture/spirit.

Why do you presume that there are no coal deposits? No coal, no steel. Charcoal can only serve to a certain extent, but it's mentioned as often as coal mines.

My mistake but... where are the railroads in this case?

[Roose The Weddingcrasher]

There aren't that many forests, actually, and the trees grow back quicker than people manage to cut it down. What are they going to do with all that surplus timber, anyway? If i remember correctly there are three huge forests, and from Jon's chapters we hear that the nights watch have a hard time keeping the ground clear of trees.

Ships, buildings, clearing room for farming/cattle.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

Was that true before the invention of the printing press? Most technological advancements during the middle ages came from the East, not from Western Europe.

That's mostly legend. The renaissance scientists glorified the antique and had a vested interest in downplaying their immediate predessecors. East and West developed at roughly the same rate.

My mistake but... where are the railroads in this case?

Not yet invented? Coal isn't actually important for that part, metallurgy is. The Greeks sported steam engines, they just had the little :cool4: problem that they'd burst from the pressure if taken beyond the power of a toy.

[Handle]

Melisandre or the pyromancers seem to employ gun powder and similar. Why do you presume that there are no coal deposits? No coal, no steel. Charcoal can only serve to a certain extent, but it's mentioned as often as coal mines.

IIRC, while KL smiths are discussing the practical necessities of making Tyrion's Blackwater chain, they mention that they're going to need a lot of coke (serves as evidence that Westeros has sufficient coal deposits for large scale iron ore smelting operations).

As for ballistae, my understanding was that they gradually fell out of favor because trebuchets (Three Whores are evidence that Westeros has this tech) were better suited for siege warfare and highly accurate strikes could be accomplished with a greater number of smaller projectiles by longbow, crossbow or scorpions (present in Westeros).

[JonathanTheBold]

I dunno, I think it would be hard since they don't have computers to control and aim the ballistas at the dragons.

Yeah those things are hard to aim at a moving target that's why they were mainly used to shoot giant bolts in to enemy line on the open field and over walls in a siege

[Robyn El Telram]

Ships, buildings, clearing room for farming/cattle.

The riverlands and the reach have more room for farming and cattle than they can manage, ships are not built all that often, the big buildings are usually made out of stone. We see some deforestation in Meereen where the region has been cut clear of trees, which leads to the opposing army buying wood from other cities instead. Remember that Westeros is a pretty big place with sparse population. I live in Sweden, and we still have tons of forests (just look at google maps), the same goes for a lot of other countries. Even if they did cut down all the trees in westeros at some point, the region is several thousand years old, enough for the forests to regrow. How often do you need to rebuild whole towns or cities in Westeros? Sure, they have their fair shares of war, but not even close to what England had after and during William the Conqueror, and as far as I know Britain still has it's share of forest.

Edit: To put it into a modern perspective; Sweden has a big timber industry, but after a huge storm in 2005 up to 50% of all the forest just fell down in some parts of the country. Even with a modern industry, that was way too much process, so most of it is still laying around all piled up neatly by the forest owners (those who did not commit suicide because of their economic trouble after the storm, that is), moldy and useless. Usually there's just no need for cutting down all the trees on a whole continent.

if crossbows could be used to shoot a bird mid-flight... then... ballistae could be used as anti-air.

i imaged scorpions as ballistae

A crossbow does not take half a minute each time you want to change the aim. A dragon could easily fly behind the ballistae and kill the crew before they have time to adjust their aim.

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

I thought that's what the scorpions were.

[ckal]

I mean if you have maybe a dozen Ballista's it wouldn't be to hard to shoot a dragon down.

I would actually say it is probably near impossible to shoot a dragon down with ballistas, especially if the dragon/rider knew they were there.

[Fire Eater]

What Bright Blue Eyes said, ballistas are siege weapons designed for large, stationary or slow-moving targets while dragons can fly pretty fast. It would be akin to trying to swat a fly with a crane. The ballistas were replaced with scorpions, mangonels and trebuchets.

[TepidHands]

Do Westerosi Armies Have Ballista's?

Yes. Behind the counter at Starbluck's.