An instructional history of the development, construction, and use of siege weapons.

There is something alluring about ancient methods of warfare that have been made obsolete by this modern era of computers and machines. Before the days of tanks and machine guns, there were scaling ladders, battering rams, siege towers, throwing machines, bores, and agger. Weapons such as these symbolize power, protection, control, and defiance. Ancient and Medieval Siege Weapons allows readers to actually re-create their own medieval weapons with clear, step-by-step instructions.

Military history buffs can find siege weapons of Ancient Egypt, Judea, Assyria, Persia, Greece, and Rome, as well as those of the Gauls and Teutons, the Byzantine Empire, the Muslim World, and Medieval Europe, all described with incredible detail and accompanied by illustrations and photographs. Konstantin Nossov offers new ways to reconstruct various siege weapons that are based on his analyses of the works of ancient and medieval authors, including: Vitruvius, Vegetius, Apollodorus, Athenaeus, Heron, Biton, Philon, and many others.

With chapters covering the history of siege warfare, siege weapons, different strategems and methods of attack and defense, readers will not only walk away with ideas of how to re-create siege weapons, they''ll also take with them a better understanding of history from ancient times through the end of the fifteenth century AD.