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Comment by lfnoise | Hacker News Reader

"The slits are wider facing outward to allow a wider range of firing angles and narrow on the inside to protect the archers." That's exactly the opposite of any castle I've ever seen. That would funnel arrows into the castle. See "Arrowslit" in Wikipedia: "The interior walls behind an arrow loop are often cut away at an oblique angle so that the archer has a wide field of view and field of fire."

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Not sure if this is relevant or not, but I'm pretty sure the equivalents designs for cannons (e.g. on the walls of Fort George in Scotland) are as described and are widest on the outward part.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_George,_Highland

Sure, but those usually have a gun shield protecting the gun crew & it is done due to the gun barrel being long & the gun being heavy, so it is better to mount it on a single point, instead to jave it traverse on a curve (which is not a problem for an archer).

Did 18th century cannons have gun shields?

Apparently not [0]. IANA cannon expert but I think in the 18th C their biggest threat would have been from cavalry rather than sharpshooting infantry or precision fire from other cannon.

[0] https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=18+century++cannon&tbm=isc...

My main reference are the pre WWII Czechslovak border defenses - these do have gun shields & apertures that get wider to the outside:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:85mm_kan%C3%B3n_... https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:4cm_kan%C3%B3n_v...

Not that the apertures are stepped instead of smooth - I guess the avoid the funneling effect mentioned above, possibly changing a near miss to deflection and hit on the gun shield. Should not happen if the steps get in the way.

Even the photo that he's describing has the arrowslits as you say they should be.

I think it was typo in the article. It would be physically impossible to have a wide range of firing angles if the interior part was narrow.

I had to sketch it, but it looks like the angle of view only depends on the angles of the wall, not where the narrow part is... https://postimg.cc/ykwFjD62

Huh. It looks like you are right. The narrow inside don't actually impede the view of the defender that much. But keeping the narrow part on the outside does provide some extra defense.

Right, but the problem with having the narrow part on the inside is that any arrow that hits within the "cone" will be "funneled" right into the defender; whereas what you want is for attackers' arrows to hit only if they manage to get just the right place.

The wording is slightly unclear, but I can't imagine anyone this well-versed in medieval warfare wouldn't know that arrow slits would be wider inside than outside.

I do think the person above you is correct in that the author of the blog made a mistake. I've never seen arrow slits that are narrow inside the wall.

If I look at the old wall around my city's medieval centre we can clearly see they this:

From the outside: https://www.google.com/maps/@50.845463,5.6946097,3a,75y,330....

Inside: https://www.google.nl/maps/@50.8456076,5.6945364,3a,75y,165....

Just reviewed my photos from the Castle of Rhodes — wide on the inside narrow on the outside.

They held out for twenty years in the Ottoman siege I think.

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