Historical weapons: the repeating crossbow.

Now, this is a cool little thing. It was invented by Chinese and was probably used already around 200BC! The most interesting thing is the fire rate. While normal crosbow can fire 1 arrow per 12-15 seconds (longbow has 1 per 5-6secs), this one was able to fire 10 per 15 secs=1 per 1.5 second! It was something like the ancient submachine gun (or more like bolt action rifle).
The most famous model is "Chu-ko-nu".



It has a magazine with 10 arrows (that rectangle thing forward) and is operated by handle in left hand and lever in right. The bow it's made from bamboo.

Release mechanism is quite simple and effective. It is known as the peg and hole release. The release pin (the peg) fits down into a stepped hole in the magazine base plate. It is T-shaped, with its bottom portion having a square cross section, 6mm on a side. Its height (19mm) is precisely equal to the vertical thickness of the magazine base plate. In this crossbow, the release pin and the hole have been precisely cut and accurately fitted so that, with only the force of gravity, the pin drops to its bottom with hardly any play.

Basically all you need to do to fire is operating the lever. The new arrows are added to the magazine through the hole in top. A hundred man with such crosbows could put 1000 arrows into the enemy in just 15 seconds. The verson with 2 arrows per shot was also made creating the impressive rate of fire - 2000 arows per 100 man and 15 seconds! Such storm of arrows could devastate the attacking army in few minutes.

However it had also disadvantages - it's power was not so big as arbalest or longbow and accurracy also sucked. That was the reason why it was used only on short ranges against massed attacks. The arrows were also often poisoned to achieve sufficent lethality (because the good armor could stop them easily). The max. range was 150-200 yards, with effective range only 80 yards.

The last time this weapon was used was against Japanese in 1894-1895!

If you want to know more about the working mechanizm, history etc. try this links

www.atarn.org...

www.arco-iris.com...



[edit on 8-2-2005 by longbow]

When I was in high school, I drew up plans for a semi-automatic crossbow, but never implemented them. I still probably have them somewhere. The idea was sound, it functioned much like a revolver, but the trigger was about a foot long to give you the leverage to load the next bolt and pull back the string at the same time.

I also made a semi-automatic rubberband gun, which was remarkably simpler, but a lot less cool

I was attempting to design a semi-automatic 12ga shotgun, but because it's not really legal, I never build one, besides, I needed materials...

Very nice little crossbow! good find

[edit on 9/2/2005 by GrOuNd_ZeRo]

Semi-auto shotguns aren't legal? How on earth are double barreled shotguns llegal, then? In the hands of someone who knows how to use it, it couldbe considered fully automatic (1 press of the triggers) for 2 shots...

Heh, looking at that photo, I wish I had thought of that handle style trigger. Mine was more gun shaped with a trigger shapped trigger (no crescent, tho, really hard to make with wood) coming down and holding 6 bolts in a revolver style cylinder. The way this one is designed (that you have pictured), you could integrate a clip into the design, and have no limit, except by wieght,to the number of bolts each clip could hold. Dang, I kinda want to design another based on that model now...Wonder how you could do that with rubberbands...(those are legal, automatic and semi automatic crossbows may not be)

Hmm...For that matter, could you design an automatic crossbow...I suppose conservation of energy would prevent that from being possible using a single bowstring. What about somehow incorporating 6 bowstrings with a 6 bolt clip where, as you load the clip, it pulls back all the bowstrings at the same time via some pullies so a human could do it, and not a machine? Hehe, this is fun...forget designing a semi-automatic crossbow, I'm going to design an automatic one with a quick reload time.

And I wanna integrate a three shot burst Oh man, this is going to be a blast! Wonder if I'll get any real work done at work tomorrow...(we have cad there, but I don't at home)

EDIT: Unlike Dan Quayle, I forgot the "e"

[edit on 2-9-2005 by junglejake]

Actually, autoloading shotguns are completely legal; just about every major manufacturer makes one. Not only that, but Saiga, a Russian company, makes a shotgun based on the Kalasahnikov delayed-blowback action; it actually looks like an oversized AK-47 ( world.guns.ru... ).

[edit on 10-2-2005 by Off_The_Street]

Originally posted by junglejake
... How on earth are double barreled shotguns llegal, then? In the hands of someone who knows how to use it, it couldbe considered fully automatic (1 press of the triggers) for 2 shots...

No, because there is no repeating mechanism. A double-barrel gun is basically 2 seperate rifles side by side (or vertically paired), some models even have 2 triggers. An automatic weapon has to be a self-loader AND have the capability of sustained fire with trigger press.

Please read the original thread. This has nothing to do with shotguns! Stop trying to hijack this thread!

Too bad this weapon is never made into seige size

Imagine the horror it can do if it fires 3 feet long bolts