Lord Harland

Chapter 55 The Counterweight Catapult
It has been three years since the last orc invasion. Seeing that the war is approaching, in order to strengthen his military equipment, Richard found Sophia and Wendy, commanded some slave artisans, and successfully manufactured a counterweight trebuchet

When the main army of the Grant Kingdom was fighting, it usually temporarily organized several auxiliary brigades, one of which would be equipped with trebuchets and bed crossbows.

The craftsmanship of trebuchets is already very mature in Dawn Continent.But craftsmen who are good at making trebuchets are basically controlled by the army and the nobles.

When Li Cha was serving in the Wild Lion Army, he had seen the trebuchets equipped by the Heavy Equipment Brigade.

This kind of trebuchet is a torsion trebuchet, relying on twisting ropes to generate force to eject stone projectiles.

The ejection rod is usually upright, the top of the rod is a leather bag for projectiles, and the lower end of the rod is inserted into a tightly twisted horizontal rope.

When ejecting, first use the winch to pull the ejection rod to a position close to the level, and put the projectile in the leather ammunition bag.

When the winch rope is released, the ejection lever returns to a vertical position and ejects the projectile.

This kind of trebuchet can launch more than ten kilograms of heavy objects, with a range of about 200 meters.

But this trebuchet has a disadvantage, that is, the accuracy is very low.

The elasticity of the rope is difficult to control, and each shot will have a different trajectory.It is difficult to use the method of calculating ballistics to strike the enemy.

Manipulating this kind of trebuchet depends entirely on the experience of the soldiers. Dozens of shots may not be able to hit the enemy.

In addition, the stone bullets weighing ten catties are not powerful enough.

The main enemy of the northern lord is the orcs. The orcs are generally in good physical condition, and they march very fast. They cannot hit the enemy with several shots. The orcs have already approached the city wall and passed the range of the trebuchet.

Therefore, in the battle of defending the city, this kind of trebuchet is not very useful.

What Richard is going to manufacture is a counterweight trebuchet.

This kind of trebuchet uses the principle of leverage, with a weight at one end and a stone projectile to be fired at the other end.

Before launching, the end where the ammunition is placed must be pulled down with a winch, a pulley or directly by manpower, and the other end with a heavy object is also raised at this time. One end fell, and the stone bullet was also thrown out.

The counterweight trebuchet is not complicated to manufacture, and the principle is very simple.

The throwing force of this device comes from the gravity of the heavy counterweight, not from the torsion of the rope like the trebuchet equipped by the Legion.

As long as the mass of the counterweight and the weight of the projectile are determined, the stone projectile can be projected to a fixed area more accurately.

According to the principle of leverage, after calculating the trajectory, the shooting table can be formulated.

Even if the soldiers operating the trebuchet have no mathematical knowledge, as long as they operate according to the shooting table, set the weight of the counterweight and the weight of the stone bullet, they can accurately project the stone bullet to a fixed area.

In addition, the counterweight trebuchet is very powerful, and can project stone bullets weighing 300 jin to a distance of [-] meters.

A 200-jin stone bomb fell from the sky, and even a sixth-level orc would be reduced to a meatloaf after one shot.

The counterweight trebuchet also has disadvantages. This kind of trebuchet is very huge and heavy. It needs to be filled with 30 carriages for wood alone, which is very inconvenient to move.

But it is still very suitable for defending the city.

Richard and Sophia carefully measured the heights of various parts of Fort William, calculated the most suitable ballistic trajectory, determined the weight of the counterweight and the weight of the stone projectile, and then began to make sixteen counterweight trebuchets , placed at the head of Fort William.

With these sixteen counterweight trebuchets, it is enough to block the valley of Harland Canyon.

If the orcs invaded from here, they would definitely be beaten to death. Without paying a huge price, they would not be able to pass this road of death.

Sophia saw that the counterweight trebuchet had outstanding effects, and planned to make a few in Vicksburg.

It's a pity that Vickburg's stock of wood was insufficient, and only two counterweight trebuchets were made.

Now that the war is approaching, wood is also a very important strategic resource. Even if Sophia wants to buy wood, the wood near Heihe Castle already has owners.

There is no shortage of timber in Harland's territory, and Richard's most important job in the past two years has been to direct the slaves to log.

The felled timber has filled the warehouse.

However, the distance between the two places is tens of kilometers, and the transportation of timber requires a lot of manpower and livestock.

After all, there are no rivers in the two places, and the roads are dominated by mountainous terrain.

In the end, Richard sent the army to participate in the transportation, and only then added some wood to Fort Vic, and six of Sophia's counterweight trebuchets were equipped.

In addition to the counterweight trebuchet, Richard also installed a part of the bed crossbow at the head of Fort William.

After killing the rhinoceros, the Harland family got a lot of animal tendons.

Warcraft tendons are very tough, and can be used to make bowstrings for enchanted crossbows.

It's a pity that for a while, I couldn't find the material for the bow arm, otherwise I could make a few enchanted bows and crossbows.

Now that enchanted crossbows cannot be built, Li Cha simply used the tendons of rhino horns to make four bed crossbows.

The bed crossbow made of Warcraft tendons has a very long range, and can project spears 2000 meters away.

Even if a strong tauren professional is shot by a bed crossbow, his body will be penetrated instantly. Without the treatment of a priest, it is difficult to save his life.

The disadvantage of the Warcraft bed crossbow is that it is difficult to wind the bowstring. It requires the cooperation of sixteen soldiers to pull the bowstring.

Nevertheless, the addition of four bed crossbows on the top of the city can greatly strengthen the defense of Fort William.

Just as Li Cha was preparing for the battle step by step.

In the middle of March in 3255 Dawn Calendar, a squadron of orcs appeared at the entrance of Harland Valley.

After receiving the news from the scouts, Li Cha immediately dispatched soldiers to report the enemy's situation to Fort Heihe, and by the way notified the relatives and friends of the Harland family.

Sophia and Soros received the information successively, and Richard also wrote a letter to Soros, hoping that he would bring his mercenaries to Fort William to garrison.

In the northern region, mercenaries are the cannon fodder for fighting with the regular army.

If it weren't for William's secret care, Soros would have been assigned a difficult task long ago.

Even so, the mercenary regiment under Soros' command, the rate of replacement of soldiers is far faster than that of the regular army.

Even if some mercenaries can survive the war, these mercenaries who have experienced war will be recruited by the regular army.

If it wasn't for his elder brother, Baron Duck, who was in the way, Soros might have already served as the captain of the Grizzly Legion.

Although the mercenary captain is more free, his social status is far inferior to that of the regular army captain.

Now the Harland family has become a hereditary nobleman, such an achievement makes Soros very envious.

Having established a mercenary group and worked hard for many years, Soros' military achievements are far from being knighted.

Now he has plans to lead the mercenary group to serve the Harland family.

(End of this chapter)