Automatic crossbow launcher portable#
Despite its crude and outdated appearance, it performed well and was appreciated by the Allied troops before light mortars like the Stokes could replace the various catapults.īesides there large and stationary crossbows, the actual antique portable variant saw action too. Designed by a French artillery officer in early 1915 the Sauterelle was fired by leaning it up against a trech wall or slope, launched the grenades from a cup and was operated by one or two men. The Arbalete Sauterelle type A (French for grasshopper) was essentially a large crossbow, weighing in at 24 kg, which launched regular French or British hand grenades up to 140 meters. In this war the crossbow was not used to fire arrows however, but instead to launch grenades into enemy trenches. This led to many peculiar sights on the battlefield, with antique mortars and fuse lit "hand bombs" making a reappearance, as well as a slew of improvised throwing devices and hand grenades.Īmong the many different catapult-like weapons deployed as stopgaps before modern trench mortars arrived in numbers, another antique weapon type would once more be put into action the crossbow. The prevalence and proximity of the trenches called for many more grenade throwing weapons than were available early in the war. The enormous and unexpected challenges of Industrial war put all combatant nations in strained situations, finding themselves lacking enough weapons suitable for the trench warfare that had settled on the Western Front in 1914.
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