Smoking gun evidence of chemical weapons use in Syria!!!

[Sergei]

I am talking of using the mirrors - which were very much aimed weapons. : )

Mythbusters dismiss the mirror as a faint possibility but argue that with grapples and land based catapults Syracuse could kill galleys anyway. True but if you could use a hitherto unknown weapon to spread confusion and fear you would use it wouldn't you!

Or you could just use ordinary weapons and later spread rumours about Wunderwaffen in the hope that others would be too scared to attack again... on a sunny day, anyway. That MIT students' 'test' proves nothing, because the target is not even a ship moving on sea, and even if they could make the concept work now doesn't mean that a Greek geek could. Just imagine the cost of doing such experiments when there was no proof of it working in practise! If you have to choose between trying a concept that probably is a dud and even then has very limited applications and doesn't work on cloudy weather, or investing those drachmas on weapons known to work, I'd go with the latter. It's like the SDI combined with trumpets of Jericho.

[dieseltaylor]

The ship being at sea is totally irrelevant as it was the walls of Syracuse versus the Roman army and fleet. The fleet was a problem because it gave the attacker, if he controlled the harbour, the ability not only to starve the city but also to bombard it or launch assaults. I imagine that putting siege towers or catapults on floating barges or large galleys tied together was not impossible and compared with moving them on land infinitely easier IF you could safely sail into the harbour.

I am saying this without actually studying it in detail - just from what I know of ancient warfare. I also imagine that most galleys would also seek shelter at night. Anyway moved to check my feelings I find this:

http://www.cs.drexel.edu/~crorres/Archimedes/Siege/Polybius.html

Nothing on the mirrors in that excerpt. Incidentally if you were involved in war and a red dot started moving across terrain towards you I suppose you might decide it was not a sighting device and be relaxed? I doubt it! The whole idea of the mirrors was to demonstrate superiority and cause confusion so not necessarily an idea to dismiss casually.

I thought it time to look at Greek fire and that is very interesting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_fire

and obviously not around as such at the time of this particular siege of Syracuse.

[Sergei]

The ship being at sea is totally irrelevant

It is very relevant. Seas consist of water and have a propensity for waves, and thus ships even when anchored are wet and rock about. This is very different from the experiment's perfectly still, completely dry wood.

More over, such tests assume that the targets just sit idly while you spend minutes after minutes trying to get the wood light up. If I was the captain of a galley and noticed that the enemy was trying to light up my ship with concentrated sun beams, I would throw a bucketful of water to the spot to cool it.

[dieseltaylor]

I sometimes think you do not read my links : )

Firstly waves in harbours would be rare and very small - one might almost say a requisite state for a harbour to exist. If not existing naturally it would have structures built to provide shelter. Also ships generally do not move fast in harbours because of the room they require - true even of galleys.

As for time:

If the elements are six inches in diameter then the two foot image is smeared out to two and one half feet.

Buffon assembled 168 mirrors 8 in. by 10 in adjusted to produce the smallest image 150 feet away. The array turned out to be a formidable weapon. At 66 feet 40 mirrors ignited a creosoted plank and at 150 feet, 128 mirrors ignited a pine plank instantly. in another experiment 45 mirrors melted six pounds of tin at 20 feet.

If there is doubt about Buffon's experiment consider the following newspaper report from 1975: (probably 1973)

A Greek scientist, Dr. Ioannis Sakkas, curious about whether Archimedes could really have used a "burning glass" to destroy the Roman fleet in 212 BC lined up nearly 60 Greek sailors, each holding an oblong mirror tipped to catch the Sun's rays and direct them at a wooden ship 160 feet away. The ship caught fire at once.....Sakkas said after the experiment there was no doubt in his mind the great inventor could have used bronze mirrors to scuttle the Romans

(image of the Sakkas Experiment from a Spanish Webpage)

There seems to be ample evidence that the optics to do this was well known to Archimedes who was apparently centuries ahead of his time in this as in many other areas of science.

[Lars]

Sunshine grogs.

[Sergei]

Firstly waves in harbours would be rare and very small - one might almost say a requisite state for a harbour to exist. If not existing naturally it would have structures built to provide shelter. Also ships generally do not move fast in harbours because of the room they require - true even of galleys.

The bay of Syracuse has lots of room for galleys to maneuver and has a very wide entrance, and as you can see from satellite photos, the water is far from still. If the ancient fortification was at the same spot as the current bastion is, then it would have been approached from the open sea, anyway.

As seen from the sea:

Google Maps

[Stalins Organ]

Always a believer that Archimedes was a smart cookie and to have been made up it was an unlikely tale:

http://web.mit.edu/2.009/www/experiments/deathray/10_ArchimedesResult.html

who do you prefer to believe.

mythbusters - for starters this experiment used high grade modern glass mirrors that Archimedes didn't have.

BTW if I were trying to set alight a galley I might choose to aim at the cordage or stowed sails for a quicker result. Also the upper part of a galley I would very likely have light wood shielding the rowers from arrows. Not 1" thick for sure.

1" thick IS thin on a ship!!

and galleys going into battle leave their sails and masts behind as they are too vulnerable and make the ships top heavy.

Funnily enough if Mythbusters had done any research this may have been useful to them

http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Mirrors.htm

mythbusters had a huge number of high-polish bronze miirrors, all carefully aimed and on fixed mounts so their aim did not change, the target did not move, and the target area focused on was quite small - only a foot or 2 across IIRC.

And it failed to catch fire in any reasonable time.

It is difficult to see how the unsuported assertions from some of the sites at this link can be held up as "evidence" of anything contrary.

[dieseltaylor]

Sergei : Thanks for the pics and map. the Bay of Syracuse is large but apparently the action was on the little harbour. The only map I have found so far does not reveal any details of harbour structures but we do know there was a quayside.

http://www.cs.drexel.edu/~crorres/bbc_archive/Map_Syracuse_1.jpg

The Google shot shows the little harbour is quite big and would no doubt have been the one that was recognised as the important anchorage for the city's defence.

http://www.emersonkent.com/wars_and_battles_in_history/siege_of_syracuse.htm

for more maps.

I have gone back to previous siege to get an idea of the problems with Syracuse and this is very helpful:

http://www.livius.org/su-sz/syracuse/siege.html

[Affentitten]

Just back to the OP, I think calling it chemical warfare is drawing a pretty long bow. I know it's been interpreted that way to add news value to the story, but really, any decent amount of smoke in a confined place is going to cause the occupier grief, whether it's sulphuric gas or sandalwood incense. As for the substance used to set fire to the bodies, well, they couldn't exactly use a Zippo and human bodies aren't exactly easy to light.

In other words, calling this a deliberate act of chemical warfare is a little exagerrated. It was just an attempt to block the Roman counter-mining operation with whatever was handy.

[costard]

I can see how pitch might be handy to have in a mining operation, but sulphur? What for you need sulphur?

[Affentitten]

Becuase it's an accelerant. Helps get your pitch burning.

[costard]

Becuase it's an accelerant. Helps get your pitch burning.

ah so - you dip your (unlit) torch into a bucket of pitch, then into a bucket of sulphur and she lights first time, right?

[Lars]

Actually, you mix the pitch and sulphur (plus a few other odds and ends, like coal dust), and then dip your torch.

Google both, and then page past all the ring tones and mp3's. The old recipes are there.

[Affentitten]

Actually, you mix the pitch and sulphur (plus a few other odds and ends, like coal dust), and then dip your torch.

Exactly. It was the standard firestarting recipe of the day. So again, saying that this was chemical warfare is dumb when it was just an attmept to set fire to an improvised barrier.

In my Beyond 2000 days I had a lot to do with university press releases. The American universities generally left everyone else for dead in finding a highly marketable spin to get their otherwise pretty standard 'discoveries' out there and publicised. This is a classic example.

[John Kettler]

Sergei,

Good stuff, and many thanks for it! Am broadly familiar with Dura Europos from the weapons found there (real insights on scutum construction from recovered examples) and the employment of onagers by the defenders against Persian siege towers. Shall have to see whether any of this is covered in Kossakov's ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL SIEGE WEAPONS, which I got for Christmas.

dieseltaylor,

Such vessels (two huge galleys bearing an armored helepolis equipped with torsion artillery) have been shown in stunning detail on the History Channel program Superships of the Ancients, and there was another one which covered an array of little known, very nasty ancient military technology, to include flame bellows. Didn't see much of it, sadly, but the emphasis was on building modern reconstructions and testing them as weapons against credible target arrays with proper instrumentation. One part I did see showed how incredibly effective vinegar is at breaking down heated fire heated limestone. After such application, a boulder was broken up in minutes.

affentitten,

The ancient arsenal had all sorts of nastiness available, way beyond "mere" boiling oil. Josephus, for example, talks of using boiled fenugreek at the siege of Jotapata to render areas impassable because it killed friction, rather like some of the exotic slippery glops in use/under consideration for lower lethality weapons. Asian cultures, inter alia, were quite familiar with skin irritating agents, so effective as to drive men mad whose armor was thus contaminated. Ninja used obscurants, poisons (dust, liquid and sprays), acids, etc. As for Greek fire, I really need to read a treatise I own on that topic, called A HISTORY OF GREEK FIRE AND GUNPOWDER, by Partington, intro by Hall. Greek/Kallinikos's fire dates to 678 A.D. when its first use in naval combat is recorded. I should also point out that records exist of a naval battle in which ballistae hurled clay jars of poisonous snakes onto enemy ships. Imagine how fun that was to receive!

Regards,

John Kettler

[Affentitten]

The ancient arsenal had all sorts of nastiness available, way beyond "mere" boiling oil.

In fact the use of boiling oil is more Hollywood than it was in reality. Dumping hundreds of litres of precious oil on your attackers would have been the ancient equivalent of pouring molten gold. Much too expensive. Boiling water was much more economic, as was heated sand and so forth.

[John Kettler]

Wanted to let you all know that the Military Channel's show Weapon Masters, which airs Tuesday, February 16, is not only about Greek fire, but is going so far as to field a small galley equipped with a flame projector to attack a target boat. Clips looked tremendous!

Regards,

John Kettler

[Kanonier Reichmann]

I should also point out that records exist of a naval battle in which ballistae hurled clay jars of poisonous snakes onto enemy ships. Imagine how fun that was to receive!

Regards,

John Kettler

I can just see the Hollywood movie producers clamoring over this one. "SNAKES ON A PLANK!"

Regards

Jim R.

[John Kettler]

Misdirection = galley sans flame projector, but still cool. They cleverly nonexplained how to make Greek fire, by leaving out at lest one ingredient (doubtless "encouraged" by both Corporate Legal and Homeland Security), but I was thrilled to see a working reconstruction of the Byzantine flame projector. Love reconstructed ancient tech!

KR,

Funny! How about "Unwanted Galley Guests" as the sequel?

Regards,

John Kettler