Engineering:List of siege engines

Short description: None

This is a list of siege engines invented through history. A siege engine is a weapon used to destroy fortifications such as defensive walls, castles, bunkers and fortified gates.

By age, oldest to newest

Name	Date	Location	Notes
Siege tower	9th Century BC	Assyria	A giant mobile tower, often constructed at location.
Battering ram	9th Century BC	Assyria	First siege engine recorded to be used, soon adopted by Sparta.^[1]
Catapult	500 BC	India
Escalade	5th Century BC	China	Consists of attacking soldiers advancing to the base of a wall, setting ladders, and climbing to engage the defending forces.
Ballista	400 BC	Syracuse, Sicily	A very large and powerful crossbow. Could be mounted on carts. Similar weapons mounted on elephants were used by the Khmer Empire.^[2]
Onager	353 BC	Rome	The Onager was a Roman torsion powered siege engine. It is commonly depicted as a catapult with a bowl, bucket, or sling at the end of its throwing arm.
Trebuchet	4th Century BC	China	Similar to the catapult, but uses a swinging arm to launch projectiles. It is usually considered to be stronger than the catapult.^[3]
Helepolis	305 BC	Rhodes	Roman siege tower first used in Rhodes.^[4]
Siege hook	2nd Century BC	Rome	A siege hook is a weapon used to pull stones from a wall during a siege. The method used was to penetrate the protective wall with the hook and then retract it, pulling away some of the wall with it.
Sambuca	213 BC	Sicily	Roman seaborne siege engine build on two ships.
Scorpio	52 BC	Gaul	Similar to the ballista, but smaller. Was sometimes mounted on a mule-drawn cart.^[5]
Cheiroballistra		Alexandria	A Roman imperial era siege engine designed by Hero of Alexandria and mostly composed of metal. It shot bolts that were smaller than those in other forms of ballistae and was the next major improvement after the scorpio.
Catapulta		Rome	A Roman siege engine for throwing arrows and javelins. The name comes from the Greek katapeltes because it could pierce or 'go through' (kata) shields (peltas). The catapulta was made of wood and were placed on stands.
Mangonel	6th Century AD	China	A type of trebuchet which used traction.
Petrary		Medieval Europe	Generic term for medieval stone-throwing siege engines.
Springald	11th century	Byzantium	An inward shooting piece of siege equipment.^[6]
Artillery	First seen in 14th century, only called artillery around the 15th and 16th century ^[7]	China	After the invention of gunpowder in China, the ability to create firearms and siege artillery was open, siege technology advanced from here but, under the artillery category. There is fewer use for this kind of technology today after the invention of rockets and high grade explosives.^[8]