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They lost me at dropping hot oil. There is no evidence of anyone dropping oil, it would have been expensive and hardly better than boiling water.

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We have historical evidence of using hot oil, especially pitch (which is "oil" in the sense of petroleum, not plant oil), e.g. see [1], which provides academic sources.

If we go beyond Medieval Europe, using hot oil was observed by Josephus in AD 67 [2].

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/26l4ae/was_b...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_thermal_weapons#Hot_oil

Imagine being under siege and dropping pitch on someone.

Give it 8-or-so years and they'll be in real trouble

Hot pitch is very fluid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4UDAa0i0tw.

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