Most Devastating Siege Weapons

Ballistas acted like giant crossbows, using the same torsion ideas as onagers. Ballistas fired straight at enemy walls, unlike others that shot over them. They used stone 'cannon balls' just as much as the 'arrow' bolt. Ballistas smashed enemy walls, but they could also hit advancing soldiers.

Since aLord of the RingsGrond, Hammer of the Underworld, is a reference here. Yes, Grond was a real thing. Most invading armies lacked orcs. Most rams lacked carved, flaming wolf heads. Most rams looked like the one shown: logs tied with ropes and covered with a roof against arrows.

Some had flat faces; others had points; some used metal spears depending on if they battered walls or wooden gates. Some, like the Romans, even had molded metal ram's heads.

Siege towers were also called 'siege engines.' Towers served as much for psychological warfare as practical fighting. Siege towers were giant ladders. Invaders wheeled them up to enemy walls to scale them and attack in large numbers. Seeing many siege towers over the horizon often broke a defender's will before the siege started.

Cannons and big guns changed siege warfare fast. They altered history quickly. In 1453, the Ottoman Empire used its metal-working to make huge guns like the one pictured.

Mehmet II used these guns to break down the walls of Constantinople's Christian Byzantine city, walls thought unbreakable.for more than a thousand years.

Fire has been used in sieges for a long time. Infiltrators (sappers) burned wooden supports from under walls. Others shot flaming arrows and projectiles into fortifications. Smoke itself became a weapon. Armies loaded burning items with nasty stuff like chicken feces and poison ivy, turning the smoke into stinky tear gas.

Infiltrators have a long military history. Ancient 'special ops' groups shifted battle tides many times. Some were traitors in their cities. Others were agents placed by invaders. Some sneaked into cities during invasion: the Trojan Horse is a classic example.

Some say Joshua's invasion of Jericho involved Hebrew special ops soldiers getting into the city early.

Moats in movies and fiction, showing alligators and water, are usually fiction. Some moats had water at the bottom only because digging a big trench in a rainy area caused it. Defenders and attackers dug moats to slow troops. Troops then had to climb down into the trench and try to attack up a steep slope.

Why not just fill them with water? Two simple reasons exist. Water was not always present. Invaders could swim or build rafts and floating bridges, defeating the moat's goal.

Before land mines, these devices kept the area near a besieged fort clear. The design works well. A caltrop always has a spike facing up, no matter where it lands.

Imagine thousands of these devices hiding in the grass around a city. That stops anyone from walking in no man's land.

Trenches function as mobile fortresses, not just obstacles for enemy soldiers. Trench warfare developed over centuries, especially during World War I's deadliest siege. Modern airpower and guided missiles have mostly canceled out the benefits of digging in.

Circumvallation is a wall built around a besieged city or fort. Commanders often build this first when attacking a defended spot. Walling in a fort turns it into a giant prison for the besieged.

The circumvallation creates a clear killing zone between the fort's walls and any army leaving the city.

Plague is the oldest known bio-weapon. It was any agent invaders used to make an enemy sick. Figuring out how plague worked took time before anyone understood it.

In 429 B.C.E., Athens and Sparta clashed. The Spartan army saw the Athenians had barricaded themselves in their crowded city. A plague entered the port and quickly spread, killing two-thirds of the city's people in weeks.

The Spartan army feared entering. They turned back and went home.

In World War I's global siege, machine gun emplacements replaced arrows and circumvallation. The 'wall of lead' served the same job as any other wall; it kept enemies pinned down and stopped their advance. Later wars, like WWII and Korea, used 'pillbox' emplacements to do the same thing.

Today, armies use mobile machine guns. Early on, fixed machine gun emplacements served the same role as walls or moats.

Missiles and rockets are modern trebuchet fire. Ships and ground crews launch these missiles from hundreds of miles away. Missiles possess range, mobility, and GPS guidance, so they are slowly replacing older artillery.

Sieges vary in size. They become huge when the target, like Britain, is an island. Germany attacked Britain in WWII on an international scale through siege. Instead of a wall, Germany surrounded Britain's waters with deadly U-Boat "wolf packs."

If the Reich cut England and Russia's supply line to America, they would have won the war. Hitler's submerged death wall had just enough gaps. America had enough industry to supply food and war materials to Europe and Russia.

Armed drones can become the best siege tool. A siege aims to sever enemy supply lines and starve them into surrender. Drones can circle an area for over 30 hours, like vultures. They can set up a "do not cross" line. Imagine 20 or 30 Hellfire-missile drones circling a city perimeter.

Rats spread disease. They also entered enemy food stores, eating grain and vegetables. Though hard to catch or deliver alive by catapult, rats in large numbers could shorten a siege quickly.

Bugs and pests have served as siege ammunition. Scorpion bombs at the siege of Hatra stand out. Defenders of Hatra (present-day Iraq) launched large jars of scorpions over the walls toward the Roman general Trajan's invading forces.

This type of biological warfare caused Trajan to lose one of his few men. Trajan abandoned the siege a few weeks later.