Wars, Battles and Sieges: Artillery
Historical warcraft is not just limited to hand to hand combat. Just like today, most armies would have artillery, machines craft to fire objects at the enemy or a fortress. Here are some of the common artillery used in history before the creation of guns to use in your fantasy works.
Ballista
Ballistae are basically gigantic crossbows. These are probably familiar to most people, since they were used in Game of Thrones season 7 and 8. The ballistae were loaded with massive arrows and spears. However ballistae were not so flexible. Most of them would be fixed to their positions either on castle walls or in front of them. Ballistae were accurate, but not quite as strong as other artillery on the list.
Mangonel/Onagers
The Mangonel or Onagers consisted of a long throwing arm with bucket-like sling set on a wooden frame. It was fired by using levers and ropes and could fling boulders and any other projectile you can think of. Most were built with wheels in order to be more maneuverable
Trebuchet
The most powerful of the non-gunpowder using siege craft machines. The two main kinds of trebuchets ate traction and counterpoise. Traction was manned by people and counterpoise was fired by weights. Trebuchets launch the biggest projectiles, such as large boulders or heavy leaden projectiles. The largest trebuchet belonged to that long-legged dickhead Edward I. It was called War Wolf and the minute the besieged Scottish saw it they tried to surrender. Edward rejected their pleas and fired anyway, causing mass destruction.
Cannon
Cannons are not so popular in fantasy works as they should be. Cannons are rather interesting weapons and not at all like the toys we see firing cartoon characters into the sky. The cannons could fire massive balls of hardened lead or iron at the enemy. Sitting behind high stone walls? These things will fuck you up. Just take a single look at Mons Meg. It shot somebody's hand off as well has half the castle walls.
