Page 64 - All About History - Issue 56-17

Greatest Battles

Terrible trebuchets Mighty tower Garrison artillery
The Crusaders constructed man- The Anglo-Norman siege tower dwarfed The Moors had their own siege artillery
powered trebuchets to batter the walls the walls of Lisbon so that the Crusaders mounted on battlements atop the
with large stones. A wooden beam could lower the bridge onto the rampart. massive gates of the city and also in
swung on a vertical axis to hurl stones The tower was draped in dampened the citadel. The defending trebuchets
loaded into its sling. In the final weeks animal hides meant to absorb the force were able to inflict casualties on the
of the siege, the Anglo-Normans battered of stones from enemy trebuchets and attackers, as well as damage their siege
one stretch of wall around the clock. thwart efforts to set the tower alight. equipment through direct hits.

Sinister cat
The Anglo-Normans built a ‘Welsh cat’
designed to protect miners who dug
underneath a section of the western wall in
order to collapse it from below. The cat was
a wheeled siege engine with a roof made of
hides designed to absorb the force of stones
dropped on it from the battlements.

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