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Comment by lelanthran | Hacker News Reader

> I've heard of this, but what's the advantage? They still need to recharge the torsion the same way, which must've taken longer than someone manually feeding the next bolt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_(2010_season)#Epis...

> They set up 5 targets at 90 yards (82 m) and brought in professional archer Brady Ellison to provide a benchmark for comparison. He hit the targets in 2 minutes, using 11 arrows. After further breakdowns and repair work, Adam and Jamie accomplished the feat with 15 arrows in 1 minute and 50 seconds.

Certainly sounds like a win to me, if it was faster and just as accurate as the worlds number one ranked recurve archer :-/

You can train a man to turn the windlass in about an hour. It takes years to get an archer to the same accuracy and speed.

So, a definite advantage.

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> He hit the targets in 2 minutes, using 11 arrows. After further breakdowns and repair work, Adam and Jamie accomplished the feat with 15 arrows in 1 minute and 50 seconds.

Faster, sure, but not more accurate--10 seconds less but 4 more arrows. Faster itself is also debatable, depending on whether or not you factor in the breakdowns.

Breakdowns aren't relevant, as Mythbusters slapped it together over a few days, and are uncertain of the design. The Greeks had years to perfect it, and great knowledge and expertise building with these materials.

As another poster mentioned, the time comparison is unfair too.

In terms of accuracy, how many days or weeks did they spend learning the tool?

If the time and accuracy comparisons are unfair, then they shouldn't have been made in the first place. Being corrected on a claim that isn't true isn't grounds for outrage.

What I wrote was factual; there are all sorts of reasons to use such machines other than being faster and more accurate than the best human archers, but it still is not correct to claim that they are.

> What I wrote was factual;

I disagree; I didn't say that it was less accurate than archers, I said that it was less accurate than a #1 ranked archer in the world.

IOW, this machine is faster than a #1 ranked archer, while being almost as accurate (15 arrows/target) vs 11 arrows/target.

What you wrote implied that this machine was less accurate than archers, not less accurate than a #1 ranked archer. I don't think that the skill level of archers are all clustered around the top. It's more likely a bell curve so the clear majority of archers are going to be both slower than and less accurate than the machine that was tested.

You're misquoting yourself and misreading me.

> if it was faster and just as accurate as the worlds number one ranked recurve archer

You said it was 'just as accurate' as the number 1 ranked archer; it isn't. I didn't say anything about other archers or archery in general; I disagreed with your initial incorrect claim.

What did you think my point was?

The advantage is you don't need very valuable people who have been training their whole life. Even if the machine is only half as good as the empire's best archer, you can have as many as you want as quickly as you like, and they still perform better than grabbing some rando off the street and slapping a bow in his hand.

I didn't claim there was no advantage; I said the advantage wasn't accuracy.

It doesn't seem like you disagree with me here, but you've phrased it as though you do.

I mean against a ballista that's the same thing but without the automatic bolt feeder that makes it a "machine gun." Against an archer, I'm not surprised, but that was the advantage of a regular ballista too (and later crossbows).

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