Repeating crossbow - Books - Famous Chinese Shopping City

March 8, 2014


		1 Introduction 2 Repeating crossbows 3 See also 4 External links

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Repeating crossbow

Wikipedia

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Repeating crossbows

History
Repeating crossbows have a long history, with the oldest accurate written knowledge dating to the Han dynasty (ca. 20-220 A.D.) in China. The Chinese repeating crossbow (诸葛弩, pinyin Zhū Gě nǔ, English transcription: Chu-ko-nu or Zhuge-nu, meaning 'Zhuge crossbow' in English) is an extremely simple piece of equipment. It is claimed to have been invented by Chinese strategist Zhuge Liang (181-234 A.D.), which is arguable since the earliest drawings of the weapon have been found from the buried library of Chu, dating all the way back to 250 B.C. The Chinese repeating crossbow saw its last serious action in the First Sino-Japanese War|China-Japan war of 1894-1895, where photographs show repeating crossbows as common weapons among Manchurian troops. The basic construction of this weapon has remained very much unchanged since its invention, making it one of the longest-lived mechanical weapons.

Chu-ko-nu
One of the most simple, rugged and famous designs. This weapon was extremely easy to manufacture and use, and could easily discard ten arrows in fifteen seconds. In comparison, a standard arbalest could barely shoot one in that time. The chu-ko-nu, however, had neither the power nor accuracy of a common crossbow due to operational reasons. This gave it a shorter range, which was compensated by using lightweight arrows instead of the heavy bolts of single-shot crossbows. Thus, the chu-ko-nu wasn't very useful against more heavily armored troops unless poison was smeared on arrows, in which case even a small wound could be fatal. Since a chu-ko-nu was shot from the hip, the accuracy was horrible but could be adjusted very swiftly since the next shot was only a second away.

The chu-ko-nu was operated by moving a lever forwards and backwards. In that movement, a bolt would be dropped in place, the string would be strung, then the bolt would be shot and another one would be ready to take its place.

This put the weapon's string under heavy wear since it had forces straining it from above and below, and lifting of the magazine especially added serious pressure to the string. Nu-strings were therefore often reinforced with quill|quills of birds, preferably swan or duck.

Alterations to Chu-ko-nus included mountable siege crossbows with bigger arrows and greater power which required two men to operate: sighter and operator. There was also a heavy version using two magazines, thus doubling the number of arrows discharged. The latter were used in extreme close-quarter combat because they had extremely short range, or bigger versions which required two hands to operate were mounted on wall tops. They proved to be effective in defending gates and doorways of castles. It can be considered as a kind of submachine gun of the ancients.

It is noteworthy that the Hellenistic Greeks also had a repeating crossbow weapon which operated using a similar mechanism. Unlike the Chinese Zhuge Nu, the Greek repeating crossbow was a large weapon, shooting bolts that were a metre long. However, we are informed by the historian Dionysios of Halikarnassos that this weapon went out of fashion since the mechanism was TOO accurate - since it was a siege weapon there was little point in firing a round every second.

Demonstrations of a reconstructed Greek repeating crossbow can be seen on various television documentaries.

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