Rome Must Fall

"Well, not bad!" Maximus nodded in praise while looking at the bow tip: "I just briefly said a few words on the drawing, but I didn't expect you to actually make this recurve bow. Is it more time consuming?”

"With your tips from the leader, it is relatively simple to make the bow tail like this. We only need to put the planed bow wood tail end into hot water to steam, and then bend it directly to shape after it becomes soft. Hua Hua It didn’t take long for us to make specially curved skids for this purpose.”

Cititos pointed to the bow at the head of the crossbow and continued to explain: "It took us a lot of time to choose what kind of wood to make this bow. Finally, after repeated tests, everyone felt that yew wood has the most elasticity. good.

We also conducted shooting tests with this recurve bow and a non-recurve bow. The recurve bow is more elastic, can shoot farther, and the crossbow is more powerful..."

Maximus listened carefully. At the same time, he stretched out his fingers to pull out the bow string: "Is this bow string made of hemp?"

"Yes, leader." Sititus quickly introduced: "Although the flax in the tribe has long been used up, the bow strings used in the crossbows we transformed from the ballistas are still well preserved. We asked the weavers to The workshop cut them short, selected them to be thin, re-rolled and wound them, and soaked them in oil to make the kind of bow string you see now. It is tougher and finer and can withstand the crossbow arm. The strong pull.”

While listening, Maximus stretched out his right hand to pick up the bowstring. When he pulled it more than halfway, he felt a little strenuous. You must know that although his sword fighting ability is far inferior to that of Spartacus and Cross, but he is big and round, and after several years of gladiatorial training, and has never stopped training since he led the team, his strength is not bad, and he can actually pull a sword with one hand. The strings are a bit difficult.

In order not to be embarrassed in public, he held on and exerted more force, finally pulling the bowstring to the crossbow, and then it was firmly stuck by the extended hook.

He exerted force continuously without any preparation, causing slight strain on the muscles on the back of his hand. He had to shake off his numb right hand and smiled to himself: "This crossbow is indeed very powerful!"

"Chief, your strength is so great that we can't wind it with one hand." Sititus complimented loudly while taking another new crossbow from the craftsman next to him. The tail end was pressed against the abdomen, and the bow string was grasped with both hands, and the bow string was strung up relatively easily.

Maximus followed suit.

The new crossbow has a bow span of 1.2 meters and a crossbow arm length of 0.75 meters. It is not too big or too heavy. The end of the crossbow arm has specially shaved edges, so it is not uncomfortable when it is pressed with the belly. And the abdomen is not only a support point, but also a part of the force. It works together with the muscles of the hands, waist and arms, but it saves a lot of effort than before.

After Maximus finished winding the string again, he was still a little worried. He turned back to one of his attendants and said, "Marclus, come and try."

"Yes, chief." Malclus is one of the new members of the Secretariat's Attendant Department who was transferred to Maximus after the attendants such as Archer and Cassius took on new positions. He is the engineer Calpurni. Us Scapula's son was not yet 16 years old, his body had not yet grown up, and his strength was insufficient, so it took a lot of effort to string it up.

Even weak children can wind the bow, the elderly can naturally do it better, and women who have been farming for a long time can also do it... Maximus' previous worries disappeared and he picked up the crossbow arrows placed on the wooden table.

The length of the crossbow arrow is about 0.6 meters. The arrow shaft is thin and made of wood. The tail feathers are very short, with only two pieces. The arrow is slender and triangular. It is polished to shine and has thorns when touched lightly with your fingers. Pain.

Maximus put the arrow into the chute of the crossbow arm, turned to the shooting range in front of the wooden fence, and said, "Let's test it."

"Yes, leader!" Sititus asked excitedly: "How far do you want to shoot the target?"

"Put it thirty meters away first."

Soon, a square target as tall as a person was erected on the open grass. It was made of oak, about the thickness of an adult's thumb, and was tightly wrapped with dry cowhide.

Maximus held the front end of the crossbow arm with his left hand, hooked the trigger with the fingers of his right hand, slowly leveled the crossbow, raised his left eye, opened his right eye wide, stared at the sight standing above the trigger, and moved the crossbow arm. Aim at the target in front and click lightly.

Suddenly the crossbow arm vibrated, a "whoosh" sound was heard, and a cheer sounded from behind.

Maximus took a closer look and saw that the crossbow arrow had been inserted into the center of the target.

The men ran over and took the target over and showed it to Maximus: the crossbow arrow not only penetrated the target, but also penetrated the oak wrapped in dry cowhide, and exposed the entire arrowhead at the rear.

Maximus, who had seen the power of crossbows on TV in his previous life, looked quite calm. The followers who followed him to the iron workshop couldn't help but exclaimed: "This crossbow is so powerful! If this crossbow were to hit a person, wouldn't it be even possible?" The whole chest was penetrated!"

"Yes, yes! The leader told us that this crossbow can break armor. We still didn't believe it, but after repeated tests, it can always be done easily. Leader, the crossbow you designed is simply killing The enemy's sharp weapon!" Sititus praised loudly.

Maximus asked calmly: "Can it break through iron armor?"

Sititus was suffocated and lost the excitement he had just now: "...It can also break through iron armor... We tested it with the thick arm armor worn by Roman legionnaires. Ten arrows can penetrate about three times." Arrows, these three arrows... can break a small hole in the armor, and the arrows can at least pierce the skin and injure the muscles...

But this was already so powerful that even the javelin thrown with all its strength could not completely penetrate the armor of the Roman soldiers. We can make further improvements in the future, strengthen the elasticity of the bow, add weight to the arrows, and forge the arrows more times. I believe its armor-breaking ability will be even stronger! "

Maximus nodded, turned to the shooting range, and said: "Continue the test, this time it is forty meters."

At forty meters, the hit rate of this crossbow is still quite high, and the arrow can still penetrate the wood, but the range of hitting the target is lower;

At fifty meters, the hit rate is still high, but the arrow is hit further down, and only half of the arrow is exposed behind the target;

At sixty meters, Maximus had to raise the crossbow arm to ensure the hit rate. Although the crossbow arrow could penetrate deeply into the target, it could no longer penetrate;

Seventy meters or eighty meters, the crossbow arrow can still penetrate the target...

At 100 meters, the hit rate of crossbow arrows is very impressive. Maximus shoots ten arrows, and it is good to hit one arrow...

Seeing that Maximus did not fire again, but was holding the crossbow and thinking about something, Sititus hurriedly said: "Chief, after many tests, we believe that although this crossbow can shoot as far as 150 meters, Around 80 meters, but 80 meters is its farthest killing range. Within 80 meters, the closer the enemy is to us, the more lethal the crossbow arrow will be to him...

We consider that the next improvements to this crossbow will mainly focus on the bow, making its recurve better, making the bow tougher and more elastic, and giving the arrow more power, so that its lethal range should be More can be added. "

"We can make improvements in this area, but the current crossbow is already very good!" Maximus finally smiled, although there was still a trace of regret in his heart: the crossbow cannot be ejected.

Because as the target gets further and further away, the crossbow arrow falls hard during flight. If you want to hit the target, you have to continuously raise the launch angle. In the end, it is equivalent to being thrown, and then Maximus can see the arrow flying. During the process of rising and falling, the flight becomes very unstable. Not only does it deviate far from the target, but sometimes it is not guaranteed that the arrow tip will land first...

In his previous life, when he was designing illustrations for military technology upgrades in the game Civilization, he had learned that two feathers were usually used at the end of crossbow bolts to ensure that the crossbow bolts could fit well into the chute and be ejected. It's not as stable as Sanyuya's flight, and it's okay in level flight, but it's very susceptible to being disturbed by airflow when rising and falling...

Maximus continued: "Eighty meters is already very good. If the enemy approaches our crossbowmen from this distance, how many arrows can the crossbowmen shoot within this time? Have you done any tests?"

"Did it! Did it!" Sititus said repeatedly: "If the Roman legionnaires attack from eighty meters, with their attack speed, we can shoot four to five arrows; if it is like Pannoni here who is lightly armed When a warrior attacks, we can shoot two to three arrows. Those who are strong and skilled in using crossbows will shoot faster, but they can only shoot one arrow faster."

"The tests you have done before are very detailed!" Maximus nodded approvingly, raised the crossbow in his hand, looked at the craftsmen and asked: "Can this new weapon be manufactured in large quantities and quickly? ?”

Cadsos, the adjutant in charge of ironware manufacturing at the Ministry of Works, stepped forward and said: "Since you, the leader, gave us such a request, our ironworks workshop has been working hard in this area. For this reason, we have specially divided it into two categories: ironware and woodware. A large group, the iron group is divided into two groups: crossbow machine and crossbow arrowhead.

The crossbow machine with the most complex structure is led by Director Sititus and can be equipped with fifty skilled blacksmiths. From the beginning, they have focused on researching how to build the accessories of the crossbow machine better and faster. To this day, each of them They can all skillfully build qualified crossbow machines. Next, if each of them is equipped with two apprentices and provided with raw iron blanks that have been pressed by molds, they can build fifty sets of qualified crossbows in two days. Crossbow accessories;

As for the casting of arrowheads, it is even easier. We have made fifty arrowhead molds. We melt small pieces of pig iron at high temperature in a special crucible, then pour it into the mold to initially shape it. The next step is to polish it repeatedly. This is what an apprentice can do. So we only have three blacksmiths in this group, equipped with twenty apprentices, and we should be able to cast 100 arrowheads in two days..."