place. For example, in the Battle of Jaxartes Alexander used catapults to clear the further bank of the river. The artillery pieces were transported in disassembled state, and it took long time to assemble, install and adjust them. In many cases only few essential parts of artillery pieces were transported, the rest could be made on the place of a siege if timber was available. Artillery was used in naval battles, as mentioned in Diodorus, book XX. Both Alexander and Demetrius mounted catapults on ships for the purpose of attacking fortresses. Testing modern replicas Many attempts were made in modern times to reproduce the ancient artillery pieces, following their ancient descriptions, and to test them. The first success was due to German general E. Schramm in collaboration with A. Rehm. They used horse hair for the springs, and achieved the distance of over 300 m with 1 pound lead shot, and using another machine, 370 meters with 1 meter bolt. This bolt penetrated an iron-plated shield 3 cm thick to half of the bolts length. Nowadays many working replicas of various types exist. See also Carroballista Cheiroballistra Hellenistic armies Lithobolos Polybolos Scorpio (weapon) References External links