Wednesday 6 June 2012

Petraria Arcatinus

Petraria Arcatinus  roughly translated means  Bow - powered Rock - thrower
There is little  historical evidence for its existence but various drawings from the medieval period do show bow powered siege engines and such a weapon would be a pretty obvious step in weapon design, combining a crossbow with a  torsion powered throwing arm type of catapult.. There is mention of King Louis of France having a Petraria nicknamed "Malvoisin" ( bad neighbour ) at the siege of Acre 1189 - 1191 but what it´s actual design was ?
This model was scratch built by Tommy and Tina, the builders of the Medieval Castle.



All I have done is paint it up a bit.

The Throwing arms are made from what looks like strips of Joghurt pots, put together as a leafspring which means the machine actually fires.

10 comments:

  1. That is quite possibly the coolest thing I've seen today! A bow powered yogurt pot, absolute genius!

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  2. I should have been surprised if it didn't fire. And if it din't you would have worked out something that it would. ;-)
    Very nice build, and when you know what it's made of, it's even better!

    "A bow powered yogurt pot"; good one Michael!

    Greetings
    Peter
    http://peterscave.blogspot.be/

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  3. Wow...and awesome weapon. Beautifully modeled.

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  4. Great little model, unleash hell!

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  5. hehe first you use rockets to attack your neighbours, then trebuchets and now bow powered yoghurt pots!!!! I would hate to be your neighbour when you decided to unleash hell :-P nice work... and great work to those other guys

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  6. a working mini catapult...now, is that cool or not? :-)
    Gifted people..you did an excellent painting Paul.

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  7. looks good Paul - but will you use it for Little wars games?

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  8. More firepower for your collection. Superb.

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