ive heard of giant crossbows etc can anyone tell me about these types of weapons

These giant crossbows are called Shenbi Nu 神臂弩 if I'm not wrong..

There is also the chinese trebuchet called Hui Hui Pao 回回炮, which was deployed by the Mongolian Yuan when attacking the city of Xianyang in 1279.

The main weapons were man-powered trebuchets, mobile siege towers, mobile rams, and large siege crossbows.

The best layman source you can refer to in English is Stephen Turnbull's "Siege Weapons of the Far East, Volume 1", published by Osprey. For something much more technical and advanced, look at Joseph Needham's "Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 5 Part 6 (Military Technology: Missiles and Sieges)".

No, they were called Chuangzi Nu 床子弩. The Shenbi Nu was a one-man infantry weapon, just a normal-sized crossbow with extra range.



The Huihui Pao or Xiangyang Pao was not a Chinese invention, but an Arab Muslim one (hence 'Huihui' meaning Muslim) that the Mongols brought to China. The Chinese invented the traction (man-powered) trebuchet, which spread west and got improved to the counterweight trebuchet (Huihui Pao).

Here's a few images I have.


Mortar


Continuous Flamethrower


Multiple rocket launcher


Battery of traction catapults


Wheeled traction catapult


Triple bow siege crossbow


Winged Rocket with traction trebuchet in the background

Just a sampling of various types across the board.

Jieming

I like that Multiple rocket launcher, reminds me of that US made MRL.

Thanks for Liang Jieming's Help!
I can finally post the pictures for Jieming share his cyberspace with me.
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巢车 (Chao2 Che1, Nest Vehicle)
It was possibly invented in Tang Dynasty, to play as a armored vehicle to watch the situation in the city/fortress, with a lift carriage covered with cowskin.

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冲车 (Chong1 Che1, Assault Vehicle)
It is said that Zhuge Liang (诸葛·亮) invented the vehicle, to assault the city of Chen2 Cang1 (陈仓).

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炮车 (Pao4 Che1, Camion/Cannon Vehicle)
“佛朗机” Cannon in Ming Dynasty. (I don't know 佛朗机's English spelling.)

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虎车 (Hu3 Che1, Tiger Vehicle)
It was possibly a equipment of defence used in the street battle with its cover of leather.

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火箭车 (Huo3 Jian4 Che1, Fire Arrows Vehicle)
In field operations Ming troops put the vehicles in front to defend themselves.

I can't seem to open your links.

Send the images to me to my e-mail address. I'll help you post them here.

kitmengleong@yahoo.com


Jieming

Actually the battering ram is already around since the Spring and Autumn era when taking fortresses became a goal in warfare. However, I still give some credits to Zhuge Liang for covering the ram with some sort of shielding to protect the troops from arrow fire. It was defeated by Hao Zhao with huge boulders, though.

The rest part of the pictures.
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流马 (Liu2 Ma3, Flowing Horse)
It is said that Zhuge Liang invented this kind of transport vechicle.

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洞屋车 (Dong4 Wu1 Che1, House Vehicle)
It was used by Hou2 Jing3 (侯景) to capture the city of Jian Kang (健康). The roof of the vehicle was a "shield" to prevent arrows and stones.

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偏箱车 (Pian1 Xiang1 Che1, Partial Boarding Vehicle)
It was used by Qi Jiguang (戚继光) as a kind of blindage to defend soldiers against Mongols.

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正箱车 (Zheng4 Xiang1 Che1, Boarding Vehicle)
It was another kind of 偏箱车 used to assault.

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塞门车 (Se4 Men2 Che1, Gate Stuffing Vehicle)
It was used to stuff as the city gate when the gate was broken.

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塞门刀车 (Se4 Men2 Dao1 Che1, Gate Stuffing Vehicle with Swords)
It was an amelioration of 塞门车 to avoid enemy climbing.

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云梯车 (Yun2 Ti1 Che1, Scaling Ladder Vehicle)
It was a compositive ladder with winches, shields and hooks.

How was the 流马 used?


Here's more.


Fire Oxen!


Explosive dummy rider


Single Traction catapult


Surface skimming double-staged naval rocket


Early mounted Cannon (mount is like a catapult mount)


Ming dynasty cannon on wheels. Probably used at fixed defences like walls and forts.

Anyone care to supply evidence for that stealth fighter winged rocket contraption?.

Many of the other images looklike contemporary drawings to the seige weapon but the evidence for that ancient Chinese F117 needs qualifying.......also dating to a dynasty.

I think it's Song dynasty.

Don't forget the anti-battering ram device- hanging a mattress over the gate.

How painfully simple.

It's simply a wheelbarrow, the usual explanation for the "wooden ox" and "rolling horse" that Zhuge Liang developed to carry supplies for his army. Read an alternative explanation here: http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=781

So it isn't directly related to siege warfare.



It's the "flying crow with magic fire" from Stephen Turnbull's "Siege Weapons of the Far East, Volume 2" published by Opsrey, and this book has the irritating problem of giving neither references nor a bibliography. Here is Turnbull's quotation from an unknown source:

"The body is made of bamboo laths forming an elongated basketwork, in size and shape like a chicken, weighing over a katty (1.3lb). It has paper glued over it to strengthen it, and it is filled with explosive gunpowder. All is sealed up using more paper, with head and tail fixed on before and behind, and the two wings nailed firmly to both sides, so that it looks like a flying crow. Under each wing there are to rockets. The fourfold fuse, connected with the rockets, is put through a hole drilled on the back. When in use, this is lit first. The bird flies away more than 1,000 ft, and eventually falls to the ground, the explosive gunpowder in the cavity of the bird is [automatically] lit, and the flash can be seen miles away."

Ralph Sawyer, who is generally more reliable than Turnbull, also describes bird-shaped explosive devices in his "Fire and Water: The Art of Incendiary and Aquatic Warfare in China". He first cites the Taibai Yinjing and Dengtan Bijiu, Tang and Ming military manuals respectively, that mention the use of "fire birds" - real birds like sparrows with burning moxa-filled nuts tied to their necks or feet, which are supposed to fly into the fortress and set buildings alight. Fire chickens were also used by driving them into grass around the enemy camp.

Sawyer then cites the Ming military manual Wubei Zhi regarding "two artificial birds designed to float into enemy cities and encampments. Melding kite experience and explosive technology, they were produced in two dramatically different sizes. The smallest, probably about as large as a Western pigeon, were simply small spheres with wings intended to be launched into cities where they would burst, spraying a small quantity of burning material onto troops and structures, as well as blinding them with smoke. However, they might also be used against troop deployments, the range being limited only by the strength of the wind (and length of their fuses).

The second, called a "spiritual fire flying duck", was considerably larger and depended upon four rockets mounted beneath the wings, two to a side, for lift. The bird's core was an explosive sphere fashioned into an appropriately elongated shape that would detonate while over the enemy's encampment with a brilliant flash, igniting fires. Said to have a range of over 1,000 zhang (800 Western feet), it was considered invincible in riverine conflict because it could easily set enemy boats (and no doubt bamboo sails) afire. Whether it was ever fabricated and deployed requires further research, for it is an odd contraption more expressive of simplistic thinking - flight means wings, therefore imitate birds - than weapons development, especially since rockets and large rocket-powered incendiary arrows already existed."

I suspect that Turnbull's "flying crow with magic fire" (神火飞鸦) and Sawyer's "spiritual fire flying duck" (神火飞鸭) are one and the same thing, and one of these two writers (most likely Turnbull) has mistranslated a character since 鸦 and 鸭 both read "ya".

[Edit: An old thread on these flying bombs and the principles of flight: http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=1541 ]

Hehehe, ya and those things I don't know the name for that are just huge square blocks with blades which they throw down from the walls to stomp and kill enemy soldiers only to be winched back up to be thrown again! *Stomp* *stomp*

Those are known by the wonderfully evocative name of 狼牙拍 Langya Pai (Wolf's Teeth Swatter).

PERFECT!

Which came first? The Lang Ya Pai (狼牙拍) or the Lang Ya Bang (狼牙棒) ?

The latter is a halberd like weapon, composed of a metal staff, with one end like the Lang Ya Pai, said to be the weapon of Qin Ming of Sui Hu Zhuan (Outlaws of the Marsh).

Essentially a spiked mace, the Langya Bang is first depicted visually in the Wujing Zongyao manual of the Song dynasty. The Langya Pai is also first depicted in the Wujing Zongyao, so it's not possible to say which one was developed first.

What weapons were available during the Han dynasty? Most of those shown seem to come from warring states, Song, and later.

The Yunti (mobile ladder), Dongwu Che (vinea), and the Chongche (mobile siege tower) were all described in the "Mozi", so they would have been used in the Han. The traction trebuchet is first known from the Battle of Guandu between Yuan Shao and Cao Cao, and it's possible that it was already used before that.

isn't chongche 衝車 (which in literal translation would be a ramming vechicle) a seige ram?? i thought most chinese reference for seige towers were called JinLang or something like that...

The siege ram is known in Chinese history as the zhuangche 撞车 (ramming vehicle). The reason for the chongche being called as such could be that 冲/衝 also means to charge or storm a city, and that is what a siege tower is partly for - to bring the attackers up to the level of the city walls so they can storm the walls.

The chongche was also known in the Ming dynasty manual Wubei Zhi 《武备志》 as the Linchong Lugong Che 临冲吕公车 ("Lord Lu's Vehicle for Storming from Above"). The identity of Lord Lu is not clear.

Some examples of extra large siege towers in Chinese history:

In the siege of Fengtian (in Shaanxi) in 783, during the Tang dynasty, a siege tower over 100m wide, named the "Cloud Bridge" (云桥) was used. It was protected with a layer of cow's leather on the sides, and with leather bags filled with water on the top so as to prevent it from being set on fire. This made it invulnerable to stones and fire arrows, but the defenders dug a large trench in the siege tower's path, and when it got stuck in the trench they threw horse dung and wood into the trench, lit them up, and burned the tower.

In 1621, the anti-Ming rebel She Chongming 奢崇明 beiseged Chengdu with a siege tower only 3m tall (a quarter of the height of normal siege towers), but 150m wide. It was armoured with leather, and to compensate for the lack of height, a taller tower was mounted on either side of the siege tower to look into the city. The siege tower could hold a few hundred soldiers. Because of its size, it had to be pulled by oxen rather than by soldiers. The Ming defenders simply halted the tower by using trebuchets to bombard it with stones which scared off all the oxen.

The last use of a siege tower in Chinese military history was by the Taiping rebels besieging Guilin in 1851. After failing to storm the city with mobile siege ladders (yunti 云梯), they built a siege tower as tall as the city walls and bombarded the Qing soldiers on the walls with cannons mounted on the tower. The Qing soldiers were able to destroy this tower with long poles with burning material at the ends, as well as boiling oil.

so when was seige tower and ram and catapult invented in china.in greece it was invented around 400bc

Hmm...curious my New History of Korea By Ki-baik Lee has that same picture in it...but it's called the Hwacha and attributed to King Munjong of the Joseon dynasty...

Yep, as I also mentioned on this thread: http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=2149

The Hwa'cha is almost definitely based on Ming technology, rather than an indigenous invention. King Munjong may have just introduced it to his army.

But having the claim to the same picture?....

Lee Ki-baik didn't attribute the picture to King Munjong, only the design. I suspect the picture is from a Ming military manual, since Lee dates it to 1451 but Han'gul characters were already introduced in 1446. The Chinese characters in the diagram are therefore out of place.

On a side note: I just found this old thread on the flying bombs, and Kenneth may be interested to respond to it - http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=1541

Not so...Hangul was widely discarded as a dirty and womanly script....it was only towards the formation of the Korean liberation movement against Japan that it gained popularity. Most documents would have been written in Chinese.....


I guess I was just nitpicking about the picture though...

is chinese flamethrower is considered a siege weapon??

does the chinese has massive repeating siege crossbow??

We have a record from 904 AD of a flamethrower being used to try and burn down a city gate. However, it was more often used in naval warfare.

As for repeating siege crossbows, no - the repeating mechanism just doesn't function at such a large size.

I've heard of multi-shot siege bows, that fire more than one arrow in many directions. Any info on that?

Seek what you want in the pictures by the following url:
http://www.guoxue.com/images/sort.asp?typeid=196&zhuid=26

what siege weapons are used and invented during Tang Dynasty?
between the Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty,which of them invent the most siege weapons or siege tactics?
I also heard about a spear that can burn people...can anyone gives detail description for that?

Spear that can burn people was to put it more simply a firecracker attached on a spear, (though obviously making it work require much more skill than just tieing ur average cracker on to ur spear) when the first charge is met the oppenent will suddenly have a bunch of small explosive exploding towards their face, even if it didn't seriously wound anyone the confusing effect on their formation would certainly be quiet useful.

The overall most common siege weapon was probably the cloud ladder, as it's meantion in history was a lot more common than the others. and we know that it's basic shape was completed during the early warring states/late spring and autumn with the wheel and adjustable ladders.

TMpikachu, mutli shot seige crossbows were those that could fire several shot at once, not several shots in quick succession like a machine gun or repeating crossbow. multi shot seige ballista did exist to my knowledge

Please, what siege weapons and counter (Mohist) weapons were in use during the early periods, say up to the start of the Han Dynasty? What were they called and what did they look like? THanks.
Julia

on a multi-shot bow though, are there pictures? I just can't really picture how a crossbow can fire more than one bolt effectively

Before the Han, the main siege weapons would be traction trebuchets (according to Robin Yates' analysis), widely used by the Mohists. See if you can find in a library Joseph Needham and Yates' "Science and Civilisation in China, Volume V Part 6 - Military Technology: Missiles and Sieges". Turn to pp. 207-210 for a full description and diagram of the Mohist trebuchet.

Other siege weapons were the mobile counterweighted siege ladder (yunti) designed by Mo Zi's arch-enemy, the great engineer Gongshu Ban (or Lu Ban) - see Needham and Yates, pp. 446-451; the multiple-bolt arcuballista (siege crossbow) used by the Mohists - see pp. 188-190, 440-441; the mobile siege tower (chong che, see picture below), the ram, the ramp, the belfry (chao che, see picture below), and the 'tank' or vinea (dongwu che or fenwen, see picture) - see pp. 413-419. Mining to dig a tunnel into the city or to undermine the city walls was also described by the Mohists - see pp. 463-471.

Chong che: Mobile siege tower



Chao che: Surveillance belfry



Dongwu che or Fenwen: 'Tank' or Vinea



Yunti: mobile counterweighted siege ladder

[These pictures are all also on the first page of the thread]

For TM Pikachu, a rough picture from the Ming dynasty Wubei Zhi of a multiple-shot arcuballista:



And the diagram of the Mohist trebuchet from the Needham and Yates book:

Did China ever use huge trebuchet's, like the kind used in Europe, that uses a gigantic weight instead of man-power?

that multi-bow seems... suprisingly simple. Almost too simple. It's a bow laid on a table, with lots of arrows.
That just seems too simple. I almost don't want to believe it. Rough sketch though, so I figure there's something more complex about it that's not shown?

Counterweight trebuchets only came out around the time of the Song. Before that, traction catapults were the norm. Trebuchets only appeared in abundance in Europe right after the mongol invasions. Prior to that, they hardly appeared in European records.

Actually traction catapults are "superior" to the counterweight trebuchet if you have the manpower to spare. Don't get suckered into thinking European counterweight trebuchets were advancements to the traction catapult.

Some of the benefits of the traction catapult compared to the counterweight trebuchet;
1. ability to vary range easily by just reducing or increasing number of people pulling.
2. faster reload because bringing down the swing arm doesn't require raising the massive counterweight.
3. Easy to erect, disassemble and transport without having a huge counterweight to move about.
4. traction catapults were sometimes made on swivel mounts for firing at different angles because they weren't hampered by having to shift the counterweight.

Disadvantage of course is the high number of people required to use it.

We have all been raised to believe that the more things are automated and the less labour intensive a system is, the better it is. Not always true.

Yes, basically counterweight trebuchets were a Persian development, and the Mongols after conquering Persia brought two Persian engineers to China to construct counterweight trebuchets to use in the siege of Xiangyang. This finally put an end to the long siege of the strategically vital Southern Song fortress.

Read about it in my June 17 post here: http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php...0&#entry1707460

And my December 17 post here, which revises my earlier view on why Xiangyang had to surrender under the bombardment of the counterweight trebuchet:
http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php...opic=1735&st=15

in turnballs book about medieval chinese armies there he said that counterweight trebuchet could fire a bigger stone bigger range .while
traction had a faster rate of fire.

I think you're referring to Turnbull's book (actually two volumes) about "Siege Weapons of the Far East"?

im referring to steven turnballs book on mongols
Was the Counterweight used much after it was introduced in china.
If it has a superior range surely it would be decisive in seige battle.

The problem with the counterweight treb in China was that it was developed too late. The counterweight was developed by Persian? engineers during the Mongol conquest era. It never really took off beyond a couple hundred of years because the development of gunpowder weapons quickly superseeded it.

It was used together with early cannon during the Yuan dynasty, and for a time was probably considered more effective. But during the Ming dynasty firearms became predominant.

I can't either. ... But I read somewhere that Zhuge Liang invented either a repeat firing crossbow (which I do not believe to be true) or one that fires 2 bolts at a time. Is that true? ...

Zhuge Liang invented a crossbow that could fire up to 10 bolts at one launching.

Yun,

Thanks alot. So, he did invented the crossbow that shot multiple bolts at one launch. ...
I appreciate the confirmation. ... That Zhuge Liang! ... Military thinker, writer, stateman, inventor (mechanical engineer), etc. He was so talented. ...