Things that go boom! Part 10: More Artillery Weapons

“The first stone-throwing engines
used in Europe and the Near East were adaptedfrom earlier arrow shooting
machines. The gastraphetes, or katpeltikon, which was invented around the start
of the fourth century BC, is typically judged to have been the earliest of
these arrow-shooters. It was little more than a composite bow mounted on a
wooden stock and operated by a mechanized draw and release. This defensive
weapon quickly developed to incorporate a winch, increasing the potential
energy that could be drawn from the bow.”

--Artillery in the Era of the
Crusades: Siege Warfare and the Development of Trebuchet Technology, Michael S.
Fulton, 2018

An adventurer in the Star Frontiers universe
could conceivably encounter adversaries using weapons as primitive as a
Roman-style ballista – essentially an mounted crossbow – to American Civil War
era rifled cannons or rail guns, capable of hurdling projectiles hundreds of
kilometers.

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