After spending some time surfing the web I decided to try my hand at using a sling. Not a sling shot, mind you, but a David and Goliath kind of sling.
www.slinging.org has a really cool site on the sport.
I decided to go with tennis balls for starters, on the theory that I'd be less likely to harm myself and others that way. Also, since there's a 25 foot tall cinder block wall by my place I thought if I slung against that I wouldn't have to run to
retrieve them all the time.
Turns out it's very fun and relaxing, although I'm not very good at it. Still, I'm better than I expected. The first 4 or 5 throws I actually couldn't hit the wall from 20 paces (it's bigger than a
barn too). But I got better and soon I was able to reliably hit about a 4 foot area most of the time (squirrels beware!).
Much to my consternation, however, when I picked up and threw the ball without the sling I found my throwing arm to not only be more accurate but a tad bit more powerful. What's the point of a sling if I can throw it farther with my bare hands? I think that the problem here was that the cord/rope I used was way too heavy. Most of the energy of my throwing arm was being transferred to swinging the weight of the cord and to helping the thick cord cut through the air. A thinner and lighter cord would enable this energy to be better transferred to the ball itself.
Anyway, here's a picture of my grip. My ring finger is through the loop on one end of the sling and my thumb/index finger holds (and releases) the other end. The knot makes it easier to grip as well as gives a guide for how much to 'choke up' (so to speak) on the cord. I was using an overhand throw and only one partial revolution. The whole swinging it multiple times looks good in the movies, but it seems to me that when used for warfare and (especially) hunting one revolution is best. You might get more power with multiple revolutions but no animal or halfway competent soldier is going to stick around waiting for you to swing it around 3 or 4 times.
Now a bit of a history lesson. Much of this comes from the
slinging.org site. They have a number of very informative articles
here as well as a forum
here. Another cool site is
here. The origins of the sling are unknown since it was developed in prehistoric times and is made of materials that biodegrade easily. But it has been very important in warfare up until a little after the gun was invented. It even rivals the bow in some respects. In
the hands of a master it is thought to have a range of around 300 yards, which is more than all but the more recent versions of the bow. Also, rocks in flight are harder to make out from the ground than arrows, so frequently soldiers would be struck by them unawares without being able to bring their shields to bear. And as
Goliath can attest they are more than capable of penetrating a human skull. The
terminal ballistics are even better when lead pellets are used in place of stones. The Greeks and Romans used some that were shaped like a football and since they hit point first and were denser than rock they penetrated very well. While I was in London I saw some cool ones in the British Museum. If I remember correctly the ones I saw were about 2" in diameter and maybe 3" long. They were inscribed with clever Greek sayings like 'duck' and 'take that.'
Another advantage over the bow was that slings were much cheaper and easier to make. Since they were more compact a soldier or hunter could easily carry a spare. They were a more natural fit for peasants than the bow because bows and arrows were expensive and rocks and cord were much more plentiful.
Their primary disadvantage is the steep learning curve required. True mastery required learning it at a very early age. The bow, on the other hand, could be learned much quicker. And battlefield tactics of the time required only massed fire on enemy formations - not precise accuracy. Even an inexperienced peasant with a modicum of training could hit a group of men from 100 yards away provided he had enough upper body strength. As the world moved away from an agrarian economy (where shepherds had time to learn the sling) to a more urban and industrialized structure (where bows could be made quicker than in antiquity) the sling fell out of favor in place of the bow. It seems to me that this transition was less because of stopping power and more a factor of the skill being lost as society changed. The arrow does have significant more penetration capacity through armor, but lead pellets from a sling are more than capable of shattering armor and have a greater range than the arrow.
Here is a Discovery Channel piece that makes the argument that the Spaniard victory over the Aztecs was not due to superior firepower, but in fact was due to plague.
There are still people nowadays who are very skilled with the sling. Shepherds in North Africa and South America use them to hunt and to direct their flock's movements from afar (they hit the ground in front of a wayward sheep). And there are a number of elders among the Navajos, Apaches, Comanches and other Native American tribes who are still deadly with a sling. An interesting video is
here. A 60 (or so) year old man who learned how to sling from a Comanche can throw with enough force to shatter granite stones.
Anyway, I hope this post isn't too long. I need to go to bed. I'll keep you posted on my progress with this new hobby.
