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good OP  I love the Great Turkish Bombard. A handful- no more than 5- were commissioned by Mehmed II in 1450 to be used upon Constantinople.  Each gun fired a 1500-lb projectile a range of several miles- after firing the barrel was cooled with oil and could be fired again 3 or 4 hours later. After 90 days the guns breached the walls and Constantinople, the last stronghold of Old Rome, fell to the Moslem invader. Mehmed thought they were the coolest loving things he had ever seen. He ordered 40 more. They were positioned in the Dardanelles Strait to guard against possible invaders. And there they sat for 300 years, growing into the landscape, their carriages rotted away and their barrels full of dirt. In 1803, the British showed up for some old-school Imperialism. The local garrison unearthed the ancient guns, cleaned them up, loaded them with powder and granite shot, lit the fuse, and ran like hell. The bombards worked flawlessly. The British fleet got its' poo poo torn up by 300-year old cannons- one shot was confirmed to have killed over 60 soldiers on a British ship and put a hole a foot wide through the bottom of the hull. At the foot of Mehmed the II's tomb is a single granite cannon-ball. 
Ambrose Burnside fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Jul 6, 2008 |
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Jul 6, 2008 18:34
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Aix-la-Chapelle posted:now do china  lever-action top-loading magazine-fed repeating crossbow and it's almost 2000 years old  e: trained soldiers could pull off 10 bolts in 15 seconds easy from the hip that rate of fire wasn't seen in the western world until napoleon fielded pneumatic pop-gun snipers (also cool but not an ancient superweapon) Ambrose Burnside fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Jul 6, 2008 |
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Jul 6, 2008 18:47
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http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=3777&st=0 this guy made a chinese repeating crossbow, documented it and posted plans L@@K E^^^^^^^^^^^: God-drat, whose was that? Looks European but it embodies the Musselman's sense of grandeur. Ambrose Burnside fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Jul 6, 2008 |
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Jul 6, 2008 18:55
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maria4286 posted:my time machine would bring ak47s to the indigenous americans, australians, and filipinos this is entirely possible if not loving ridiculous and sci-fi material how many 2000-year old firearms have theoretically been discarded as looters' tools after being excavated in Afganistan or Iraq?
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Jul 7, 2008 02:25
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maria4286 posted:what? if a space-man went back in time and gave Lord Tajiik of the Hills an AK-47 and it went into his grave and it was excavated later on it'd just be assumed that it was tampered with e: ridicule me because it makes no sense, i'm just pointing out that if some crazy poo poo like that DID happen we'd dismiss it without a second thought Ambrose Burnside fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Jul 7, 2008 |
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Jul 7, 2008 02:36
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Tupperwarez posted:Harry Turtledove will make you laugh and cry at the same time. you underestimate me i read his entire LIZARDS IN WW2 series, the extension going into the pseudo-70's, and HOMEWARD BOUND in the fuckin' 2030s WITH THE SAME PROTAGONIST AS IN THE FIRST
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Jul 7, 2008 02:59
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cat scratch appeaser posted:What, no Pata? i suppose that'd be useful if you didn't feel like moving your wrist at all that day
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Jul 10, 2008 22:06
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