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This is a list of siege engines invented through history. A siege engine is a weapon used to circumvent or destroy fortifications such as defensive walls, castles, bunkers and fortified gateways. Petrary is the generic term for medieval stone throwing siege engines.
| Name | Image | Date | Location | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Siege tower |  | 9th Century BC | Assyria | A giant mobile tower, often constructed at location. |
| Battering ram |  | 9th Century BC | Assyria | First siege engine recorded to be used, soon adopted by Sparta. [1] |
| Catapult |  | 500 BC | Greece | A signature siege engine, used until World War I. [2] |
| Lithobolos |  | 5th Century BC | Magadha, India | Siege engines that propel a stone along a flat track with two rigid bow arms powered by torsion. Invented by the Kingdom of Magadha. |
| Siege ladder |  | 6th Century BC | China | Consists of attacking soldiers advancing to the base of a wall, setting ladders, and climbing to engage the defending forces. |
| Assault cover |  | China | Protective covers were used in sieges. The most typical were mobile screens and assault wagons. More complex contraptions such as plaited galleries were used for mining and filling in moats. | |
| Watchtower cart |  | China | Static observation towers such as the nest and watchtower carts were used to see into the city. Static towers were also used in close proximity to enemy walls to rain down projectiles on the defenders. | |
| Ballista |  | 400 BC | Syracuse, Sicily | A very large and powerful crossbow. Could be mounted on carts. Similar weapons mounted on elephants were used by the Khmer Empire. [3] |
| Onager |  | 353 BC | Rome | The Onager was a Roman torsion powered siege engine. It is commonly depicted as a catapult with a bowl, bucket, or sling at the end of its throwing arm. |
| Trebuchet |  | 4th Century BC | China | Similar to the catapult, but uses a swinging arm to launch projectiles. It is usually considered to be stronger than the catapult. [4] |
| Oxybeles |  | 375 BC | Greece | An oversized gastraphetes, a composite bow placed on a stand with a stock and a trigger. |
| Helepolis |  | 305 BC | Rhodes | Greek siege tower first used in Rhodes. [5] |
| Polybolos |  | 289 BC | Greece | A siege engine with torsion mechanism, drawing its power from twisted sinew-bundles. |
| Sambuca |  | 213 BC | Sicily | Roman seaborne siege engine build on two ships. |
| Siege hook |  | 189 BC | Rome | A siege hook is a weapon used to pull stones from a wall during a siege. The method used was to penetrate the protective wall with the hook and then retract it, pulling away some of the wall with it. |
| Scorpio |  | 52 BC | Gaul | Similar to the ballista, but smaller. Was sometimes mounted on a mule-drawn cart. [6] |
| Harpax |  | 36 BC | Rome | A catapult-shot grapnel created by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa for use against Sextus Pompey during the naval battles of the Sicilian Revolt. |
| Carroballista |  | 101 AD | Rome | A handheld siege engine which shot bolts that were smaller than those in other forms of ballistae and generally made of metal. |
| Catapulta | Rome | A Roman siege engine for throwing arrows and javelins. The name comes from the Greek katapeltes because it could pierce or 'go through' (kata) shields (peltas). The catapulta was made of wood and were placed on stands. | ||
| Mangonel |  | 6th Century AD | China | A type of trebuchet which uses traction. |
| Springald |  | 11th century | Byzantium | An inward shooting piece of siege equipment. [7] |
| Artillery |  | First seen in 14th century, only called artillery around the 15th and 16th century [8] | China | After the invention of gunpowder in China, the ability to create firearms and siege artillery was open, siege technology advanced from here but, under the artillery category. There is fewer use for this kind of technology today after the invention of rockets and high grade explosives. [9] |
A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder during the late 19th century. Cannons vary in gauge, effective range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees, depending on their intended use on the battlefield. A cannon is a type of heavy artillery weapon.
A catapult is a ballistic device used to launch a projectile a great distance without the aid of gunpowder or other propellants – particularly various types of ancient and medieval siege engines. A catapult uses the sudden release of stored potential energy to propel its payload. Most convert tension or torsion energy that was more slowly and manually built up within the device before release, via springs, bows, twisted rope, elastic, or any of numerous other materials and mechanisms.
The howitzer is an artillery weapon that falls between a cannon and a mortar. It is generally aimed lower than a mortar but higher than a cannon. With their long-range capabilities, howitzers can be used to great effect in a battery formation with other artillery pieces, such as long-barreled guns, mortars, and rocket artillery.
The ballista, plural ballistae or ballistas, sometimes called bolt thrower, was an ancient missile weapon that launched either bolts or stones at a distant target.
A trebuchet is a type of catapult that uses a rotating arm with a sling attached to the tip to launch a projectile. It was a common powerful siege engine until the advent of gunpowder. The design of a trebuchet allows it to launch projectiles of greater weights and further distances than that of a traditional catapult.
The siege of Yorktown, also known as the Battle of Yorktown and the surrender at Yorktown, began September 28, 1781, and ended on October 19, 1781, at exactly 10:30 am in Yorktown, Virginia. It was a decisive victory by a combined force of the American Continental Army troops led by General George Washington with support from the Marquis de Lafayette and French Army troops led by the Comte de Rochambeau and a French naval force commanded by the Comte de Grasse over the British Army commanded by British Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis.
The mangonel, also called the traction trebuchet, was a type of trebuchet used in Ancient China starting from the Warring States period, and later across Eurasia by the 6th century AD. Unlike the later counterweight trebuchet, the mangonel operated on manpower-pulling cords attached to a lever and sling to launch projectiles.
The PGM-11 Redstone was the first large American ballistic missile. A short-range ballistic missile (SRBM), it was in active service with the United States Army in West Germany from June 1958 to June 1964 as part of NATO's Cold War defense of Western Europe. It was the first US missile to carry a live nuclear warhead, in the 1958 Pacific Ocean weapons test Hardtack Teak.
A siege engine is a device that is designed to break or circumvent heavy castle doors, thick city walls and other fortifications in siege warfare. Some are immobile, constructed in place to attack enemy fortifications from a distance, while others have wheels to enable advancing up to the enemy fortification. There are many distinct types, such as siege towers that allow foot soldiers to scale walls and attack the defenders, battering rams that damage walls or gates, and large ranged weapons that attack from a distance by launching projectiles. Some complex siege engines were combinations of these types.
Schwerer Gustav was a German 80-centimetre (31.5 in) railway gun. It was developed in the late 1930s by Krupp in Rügenwalde as siege artillery for the explicit purpose of destroying the main forts of the French Maginot Line, the strongest fortifications in existence at the time. The fully assembled gun weighed nearly 1,350 tonnes and could fire shells weighing 7 t to a range of 47 km (29 mi).
Karl-Gerät (040/041), also known as Mörser Karl, was a World War II German self-propelled siege mortar (Mörser) designed and built by Rheinmetall. Its heaviest munition was a 60 cm (24 in) diameter, 2,170 kg (4,780 lb) shell; the range for its lightest shell of 1,250 kg (2,760 lb) was just over 10 km (6.2 mi). Each gun had to be accompanied by a crane, a two-piece heavy transport set of railcars, and several modified tanks to carry shells.
The Ordnance BL 9.2-inch howitzer was a heavy siege howitzer that formed the principal counter-battery equipment of British forces in France in World War I. It equipped a substantial number of siege batteries of the Royal Garrison Artillery. During World War II a limited number were used in the Battle of France, with the remainder being kept in the United Kingdom.
In military contexts, a train is the logistical transport elements accompanying a military force. Often called a supply train or baggage train, it has the job of providing materiel for their associated combat forces when in the field. When focused on provision of field artillery and its ammunition, it may be termed an artillery train. For sieges, the addition of siege engines to an artillery train was called a siege train. These military terms predate, and do not imply a railway train, though railways are often employed for modern logistics, and can include armoured trains.
A torsion siege engine is a type of siege engine that utilizes torsion to launch projectiles. They were initially developed by the ancient Macedonians, specifically Philip II of Macedon and Alexander the Great, and used through the Middle Ages until the development of gunpowder artillery in the 14th century rendered them mostly obsolete.
19th Indiana Battery Light Artillery was an artillery battery that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. It was often referred to as Harris' Battery.
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Princess Anne's Battery is an artillery battery in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. It is located on Willis's Plateau at the northern end of the Upper Rock Nature Reserve, below Princess Caroline's Battery. It was named after Anne, Princess Royal and Princess of Orange, the eldest daughter of George II. However, its name is often confused with those of other batteries in the area. In 1732, guns were first mounted on the battery, which also saw action during the Great Siege of Gibraltar. Princess Anne's Battery was updated in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with the latter modernisation entailing the installation of four QF 5.25 inch guns with both anti-aircraft and coastal defence capabilities. The battery was manned into the early 1980s, after which it was decommissioned. The guns were refurbished in the early twenty-first century, and represent the world's only intact battery of 5.25 inch anti-aircraft guns. Princess Anne's and Amelia’s Battery are listed with the Gibraltar Heritage Trust.
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