Were trebuchets used as field artillery?

[companion]

I don't know much about medieval era, but my impression was that pre-gunpowder medieval artilleries, especially counterweight trebuchets, were exclusively used for sieges.

Were they also used for field battles as well? It was rather shocking to see in game Mongolians firing trebuchets rather accurately against moving cavalry.

[Athos1660]

Rule of thumb : what is in game was IRL (apart from a few cosmetic details due ressource limitations).

As for the horses being a target of trebuchets, as I see it, horses certainly didn’t move fast outside the last paces of the charge and didn’t move all the time on the battlefield. Moreover, an horse and his horseman are a bigger target than an infantryman and an horse can be frightened.

[VenG]

At the Battle of Mohi the Mongols used siege engines against the Hungarians

[tyronec]

I wonder how effective a lobbed missile would be against troops.
Greek and late Roman light artillery were I think bolt throwers, so if you don't hit the guy in the front rank you can always hit the one behind. I seem to remember a test where they concluded the bold could go right through one guy and skewer the one behind. Overall is going to function in a similar way to cannon ball, you have the line of the projectile and anything along that line is at risk.
With a trebuchet there is an impact point, so it has to be accurate in two dimensions instead of one. I don't know what sort of missiles they would use against troops, maybe a number of smaller projectiles rather than one large one.

[companion]

At the Battle of Mohi the Mongols used siege engines against the Hungarians

Out of curiosity, do we have detailed records of the battle about number of engines used, types of targets attacked, and effectiveness per target type?

Targeting large, strongpoint type area targets such as wagonfort or war camp sounds reasonable. But if those catapults/trebuchets could hit smaller, moving targets with a reasonably threatening accuracy, then the engineers must have been more skilled at the art of ballistics and had access to better standardized ammunition (shape and weight) than I originally assumed.

[Athos1660]

At the Battle of Mohi the Mongols used siege engines against the Hungarians

Out of curiosity, do we have detailed records of the battle about number of engines used, types of targets attacked, and effectiveness per target type?

Targeting large, strongpoint type area targets such as wagonfort or war camp sounds reasonable. But if those catapults/trebuchets could hit smaller, moving targets with a reasonably threatening accuracy, then the engineers must have been more skilled at the art of ballistics and had access to better standardized ammunition (shape and weight) than I originally assumed.

imho what mattered was not the actual number of casualties and the objective effectiveness of the trebuchets but the psychological impact of their shooting that could make enemy units "disrupted" or "fragmented".

[zakblood]

artillery use through the ages caused more fear that real damage, having something thrown at you in the open or when your behind a wall matters little what hits and doesn't, as the sound of one firing and the noise of a miss would make most run from the post behind a castle wall, so who knows what the feeling would be like in the open, just seeing one let alone being fired at would i guess put many off, veterans maybe another matter altogether, but like most formations, they are few and far between,...

The casualties suffered by the participants in World War I dwarfed those of previous wars: some 8,500,000 soldiers died as a result of wounds and/or disease. The greatest number of casualties and wounds were inflicted by artillery, followed by small arms

for every one person who died from artillery fire, 4 to 5 more would be wounded

It has been estimated that the number of civilian deaths attributable to the war was higher than the military casualties, or around 13,000,000. These civilian deaths were largely caused by starvation, exposure, disease, military encounters, and massacres.

so i'd guess the numbers wouldn't be that much different through the ages for any advanced weapons system used, a spear may kill one held by 1 solider, but once launched at a line, who knows,...

add in any projection weapon, and the numbers goes up with the chances of multiply hits or follow on rolls, break ups (shrapnel damage associated with any projectile)

[tyronec]

add in any projection weapon, and the numbers goes up with the chances of multiply hits or follow on rolls, break ups (shrapnel damage associated with any projectile)

But are trebuchet projectiles going to have follow on rolls - on the TV reproduction program I saw it just landed into the ground with a thump and sank a few inches in. That would be the difference between an arced projectile and a cannon ball. Later period mortars are explosive so that is completely different.
Likewise there is not going to be any shrapnel damage unless it is landing on a rocky surface.

Unless they had exploding projectiles like in the movies, maybe they had the technology.

[Jack-3kBattery]

While it might not exactly be a Trebuchet, as far as I know using such siege weapons against people were used in some cases throughout history. Like the Mongols example above, another one is Alexander and his use of catapults against the Saka horse nomads.

[companion]

imho what mattered was not the actual number of casualties and the objective effectiveness of the trebuchets but the psychological impact of their shooting that could make enemy units "disrupted" or "fragmented".

Well, in-game iteration of the "trebuchet" inflicts on average very respectable casualties in addition to the extra cohesion roll, behaving almost like P&S heavy guns just with reduced range and synergizes rather nicely with all the shooting cavalries just like P&S Ottomans. This might not be historical if actual casualties inflicted was minimal.

But, to be fair, from a non-nerd gamer perspective siege artilleries killing chunks of men per salvo "feels right" and intuitive.

Anyway, it was nice to know that trebuchets were used in at least one significant battle.

[rbodleyscott]

Anyway, it was nice to know that trebuchets were used in at least one significant battle.

They would probably have been rope-pull stone throwers at that date, but we could not figure out how to animate a rope-pull stone thrower, so we went with the slightly later counterweight variety for the model. It looks cooler anyway. Also has a nicer sound effect than 20 men grunting in unison.

[companion]

It looks cooler anyway. Also has a nicer sound effect than 20 men grunting in unison.

Add a drum beat and a low-tone grunt normally expected from a generic fantasy ork race. Might look cooler

[Athos1660]

For those interested in "traction trebuchets", see Tarver's The Traction Trebuchet: A Reconstruction of an Early Medieval Siege Engine : https://www.jstor.org/stable/3106344?or ... sref&seq=1 (free reading after registration)

[tyronec]

Had a look at a couple or descriptions of the battle of Mohi. The siege engines were effective against troops defending the bridge and also against the Hungarian camp when the Hungarians had retreated there. There was nothing about them having an impact in open battle.
IMO indirect fire weapons like trebuchets should have a malus when firing against mobile units. Direct fire artillery like cannons and bolt throwers are effective against moving targets so that is fine as the game is. There is already a cohesion hit for being an artillery target so that aspect is already covered.
In game that would make them effective to force an enemy out of a defensive position, like on a hill or behind a river line but less so in open battle.