I read in Wikipedia about leaf springs being used for pre-gunpowder siege engines, and it struck me as odd because I couldn't figure out how leaf springs would have been of use when the vast majority of such engines were not designed to be mobile appliances. Could it mean that the leaf springs were used as actual methods of propulsion, since some of Leonardo da Vinci's designs look like their power arms might qualify for the designation "leaf springs"? Or is the passage meant to refer to the Chinese multiple-prod siege crossbows? Or was there actually an attempt to install leaf spring suspension on certain pre-gunpowder siege engines, perhaps in order to improve their mobility? Or was the leaf-sprng suspension intended for a separate means of transportations, such as the carts used to transport some types of Roman light artillery?

I'm honestly confused. Any help would be appreciated.

I have newer heard of the use of leaf springs in any war engines, I think counter weight, torsion and bow types was the most used.

I would hazard a guess that they are referring to leaf-type springs used for propulsion, an example would be a crossbow with a steel spring for the prod (the bow). Leaf springs could have been used in place of rope bundles to drive many torsion-driven siege engines.

A leaf spring is just a name for a spring that is flat - I guess from the same kind of route that gives leaves of a book their name and they would have certainly been used for missile propulsion not vehicle suspension. I am unsure but unless I am told otherwise I beleive that vehicle suspension did not come in until the 1600's.

By definition any cross bow is in fact leaf spring powered, not just the multi stack type like the chinese repeating.

Tod

Yep, "spring engine" is a category of siege weapon and refers to the means of propelling the projectile. Think of bending back a wooden ruler then releasing one end against the eraser end of a pencil. In the illustration I've seen the spring was of wood.

Well, my first reaction was also that they might be talking about ordinary wooden, steel, or composite prods, but look at the article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_%28vehicle%29

The title and the context seems to indicate that it was meant to refer to the kind of suspension used to counteract the jolts of travel!

Maybe I'll try to dispute it and ask for references on the Talk page, then.

Hi, If this is the except you mean I would say it exactly backs up that said above.....

"Leaf springs have been around since the Early Egyptians. War engineers used leaf springs, to little success, on catapults. The use of leaf springs in catapults was later refined and made to work years later. Springs were not only made of metal, a sturdy tree branch could be used as a spring such as with a bow. Early suspension devices were developed for stagecoaches in early modern Britain. The physical laws of damping were not discovered until the 19th century[citation needed]. "

Basically I interpret this to mean Early Egytians or their contemoporaries invented them (I would dispute and say a simple bow was earlier and fits the description though perhaps they mean in the context of machinery). It goes on to say war engineers tried and failed to use them and it was only much later (medieval) that spring engines were made to work reasonably. Only now does it discuss suspension in relation to stage coaches.

Tod

Really? From a writers' perspective, that section obviously puts the subject of leaf springs powering siege engines and leaf spring as suspension in the same paragraph, leading to a horrible ambiguity that can easily be interpreted as leaf springs being used as suspension in those ancient siege engines. I forgot to edit it last week, so I guess I'd better try to kick it tonight.

Chapter 54 of Ralph Payne-Gallwey's , The Book of the Crossbow, although short deals with wooden spring powered siege type machines. He states that he constucted a working model, 5 feet in length and formed of 8 strips of ash each 3 inches broad and 1/4 inch thick and that it propelled a crossbow bolt 160 yards. All the machines illustrated are shown firing large arrows so their effectivness in a siege situation is probably dubious at best.
Regards,
Norman.

Hi!
Here is my favorite type of catapult. Unfortunately I have lost the original image so I had to search for it again and this new site says nothing about it. The original image said it was from the fifteenth century but I don't know what they resource was :(
Here is the site where I have found it now: http://www.dkimages.com/discover/Home/History...ns-07.html
Regards!
Marton

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Mmm...a springald. The illustration looks suspicious, though. It might just pass for 15th- or 16th- century stuff, but it feels 19th-century to me. Maybe it was one of da Vinci's sketches? I'd better go back and look at the Grey Company trebuchet page to be sure.

Regardless, nobody here needs to convince me about the use of leaf springs as the source of propulsion in siege negines. You're preaching to the choir. What I'm ranting about is the ambiguity in the Wikipedia text that makes it possible to interpreet the paragraph as saying that ancient siege engines had leaf springs for their road suspension.

I have to agree that leaf spring suspensions sounds like an author took something out of context. I think it more likely that this authors comments on history of suspensions are reasonably accurate.
http://www.citroenet.org.uk/miscellaneous/sus...sion1.html