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50 mins ago answer added Thucydides timeline score: 0
8 hours ago comment added Nuclear Hoagie Agree with @Cadence that the whole point of a crossbow is that it lets you put in energy relatively slowly, store it, and then release it all at once. But if you're already storing the energy that would automatically draw the string somehow, you may not need the bowstring to store the energy at all - you're just turning one form of potential energy into another.
9 hours ago comment added Navicula Not a solution for a single semi-automatic re-arming crossbow, but the real-life solution to "how to shoot more arrows / bolts faster" was simply to have multiple shooters, working in pairs or threes, so that one is aiming and firing while another reloads. Thus the group, as a whole, is pseudo-semi-automatic.
9 hours ago answer added Pica timeline score: 1
15 hours ago answer added Nosajimiki timeline score: 2
20 hours ago comment added Cadence @JBH Air rifles date to ca. 1580 and saw considerable use in war, so while anachronistic for a da Vinci type, it would be less anachronistic than many things people are willing to credit to fictional da Vincis (tanks, helicopters). But yes, it was simpler and easier (and done) to simply launch the projectile directly without using a bow.
20 hours ago answer added Crowley timeline score: 4
21 hours ago history became hot network question
yesterday answer added JBH timeline score: 12
yesterday answer added Monty Wild timeline score: 3
yesterday comment added JBH @Escapeddentalpatient. Story canon from VanHelsing (2004) is that the weapon worked on compressed gas. I'm just not sure if even by the end of the Medieval period (~1450ce) that was possible. But a better question is what's the point? If you have the energy to draw the bowstring, you have the energy to directly launch the bolt... right?
yesterday history edited L.Dutch
You want medieval tech and then put a video of an electrically driven crossbow?
yesterday answer added Kilisi timeline score: 2
S yesterday history suggested user139480 CC BY-SA 4.0
Grammar, capitalization, and some more specific tags (weapons and medieval) were added.
yesterday answer added g s timeline score: 2
yesterday answer added Escaped dental patient. timeline score: 8
yesterday comment added Gault Drakkor It takes energy to arm a bow. Where is that energy coming from? In firearms the energy is bled off from a fired round to cycle in the next round. Once you have a energy supply the mechanism is easier.
yesterday comment added Escaped dental patient. The video you linked had an impossible mechanism, the string cocked without any energy being put into it - it was purely for a fantasy film with no realistic prospect of working. I.e "no, can't be done" as JBH says. If there's another way of doing it, we'll find it.
yesterday review Suggested edits
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yesterday history edited JBH CC BY-SA 4.0
deleted 257 characters in body; edited tags; edited title
S yesterday review First questions
yesterday
S yesterday history asked Karan Damera CC BY-SA 4.0