From: Will Martin Students of medieval and ancient military technology should be sure to take a look at the Wall Street Journal of Tuesday, July 30 '91. There is a delightful front-page article about the working full-size (4-stories-tall, 30 tons) trebuchet built by Hew Kennedy on his estate in Shropshire. (For those unfamiliar with the term, a trebuchet is a gravity-powered lever/sling device that hurls heavy objects, and which was used as a seige engine in pre-gunpowder warfare. This model will throw a grand piano 125 yards or so; the piano-tossing record is 151 yards for an upright.) The inspiration for this full size model came from Kennedy's cousin in Northumberland, who had built a smaller model of one of these toys, which was used at a fair to hurl gasoline-soaked blazing toilets. The local newspaper headline for the event was "Those Magnificent Men and Their Flaming Latrines." So far, the device has been used to hurl cars, the aforementioned pianos, dead horses and hogs (they seemed to have a large supply of dead animals...), and man-sized logs. One pig was fitted with a parachute to see if it would lower it gently to earth, and it did. Unfortunately, accelerometer readings indicate the device imparts 20Gs to the cargo. Some sport parachutists are still interested in volunteering to be lofted by the trebuchet, but Mr. Kennedy demurs. "It would be splendid to throw a bloke, really splendid," he says wistfully. "He'd float down fine. But he'd float down dead." I next expect to read that the British gun-control legislation has been expanded to include trebuchets, catapults, and ballistae... :-( Regards, Will wmartin@stl-06sima.army.mil OR wmartin@st-louis-emh2.army.mil