Citation Needed - Siege Weapons and Fortifications

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

A siege engine is a weapon used to destroy fortifications such as defensive walls, castles, bunkers and fortified gateways.   A fortification (also called a fort, fortress, fastness, or stronghold) is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin fortis ("strong") and facere ("to make").[1]

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pop culture moms, find it wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to Citation Needed, the podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia, and pretend we're experts because this is the internet, and that's how it works now. I'm Eli Bosnik, and I'll be leading the charge tonight, but I'll need some funny bone fortifications. First up, a man for whom my every word is a delay of his orgasmic explosion in essay format,

Cecil something Italian. No walls are gonna hold this back Eli. And also joining us tonight, two men who have had their fair share of boiling oil, Heath and Tom. Okay, the hot pot has lots of leftover flavor. They have to let you drink it if you wanna drink it. Tug it, tug it.

No, no, no, no, no, no. I am not making hot oil jokes. Not after Diddy, no. It's true, it's true. Before we begin tonight, No, no, no, no, I am not making hot oil jokes. Not after Diddy. No It's true. It's true Before we begin tonight. I want to take a moment to thank our patrons patrons You are the fortifications against poverty that we huddle behind and the wall of your dollars will not fall To my son's childcare bills if you'd like to learn how to join their ranks, be sure to stick around until the end of the show.

And with that out of the way, tell us Tom, what person, place, thing, concept, phenomenon, or event will be bringing Cecil joy and expacy today? CECIL's doing clappy. He is doing clappy. I'm doing clappies right now. It is siege weapons and fortifications. Can I get a, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, into this catapult and I will commence throwing it on the audience. All right. So tell us, Cecil, what are siege weapons and fortifications? Well, as you guys and the audience know, I am a huge medieval warfare nerd.

I have, in fact, for many years participated in a medieval recreation society, dressed up like a 16th century noble, fought with steel swords, and basically played pretend for more weekends of my life than I can count I thought pretending to have 16th century values on the weekends was called church If Noah was here he would have liked that One particular site that is used every year has a half fort built out of wood It has crenellations a main main gate, a sally port. I don't think you can say that one anymore, Cecil.

Yeah, I'm supposed to call it that. It doesn't seem right. Two gate towers, corner towers, etc. etc. So I have actually attacked a castle-like building on multiple occasions in War Games. So it is with great glee that I present today's topic on siege engines and fortifications. All right. Nice. So Cecil, any advice for the average Joe if they're storming castle as part of their normal

everyday life? No. What a weird question. Let's start with fortifications and how forts work. So towns and castles were defended in ancient times. Let's start first with the walls. And who paid for those walls, Cecil? Wasn't Mexico, Tom. Wasn't Mexico. The walls of the ancient fortification were varied and had different purposes. The first type of wall is simple. Probably made of wood or mud, some stones in there for good measure. Stake walls were common and they would, they were used all the way up until colonial America.

And these were called palisades later. And then onto the, into the Roman and the medieval period, they started using more mortar and stone and the higher the walls were the better. Okay. These walls in terms of angle, usually what like 90 degrees to the ground on average. Don't rush him Heath, he's edging. Sorry. I'm so sorry Cecil. I'm Heath, I never liked anything in my life. Exactly, exactly.

What did you think of the book? Did you like it? No, let him build. Let him cook, Heathen Wright. Let him cook. All right, improving on the wall itself is pretty easy, right? You make another one. They called this a-

That didn't improve the first wall at all. I just wanna say, the first wall is still exactly the same. Yeah, first wall is the same, but then you make another wall behind- a whole other wall, Tom, behind it. This is called a double wall or a concentric wall. The second wall is the double wall. The second wall is the double. Right. You're fine. Tom, I feel like you're kind of a fortification nerd too now.

I'm getting there. I'm getting there. We're all getting on board. So this is a concentric wall and basically you would put a small patch of land from one castle wall to the next. And this is made so that when you were losing the first wall and you could retreat to the second wall and then there would be this very small and very dangerous patch of land that the invading troops would have to cover.

And this area is called a Bailey and the soldiers, they probably wouldn't be able to hump their siege protection from the first wall over to the second and their troops would still have to get through or around the first wall. So a lot of castles would have this as the outer wall and then a courtyard type area and then the inner fortifications. Okay. It's like the pegging area when you play sting. What? Okay. One, it shouldn't sting. You're using not enough lube. Two, Cecil, did they ever think of three walls? They did! Or did I just blow many times his minds?

No, man. Four, five, six walls. And next on our tour is the Gillette Mach 3 turbo castle. A major innovation before the French invented the Chic Quattro. One wall just makes your face sticky for some reason. I don't know what this is doing. I don't know what this is doing. I don't know what this is doing. Need hot oil on one of them? Next, you would want to have what they call a rampart or a wall wide enough for you to

mount a defense on. Now in earlier times, they would have just flattened off areas or tops of hills or mounds, but later they would build wide walls with a fortified smaller wall at the top of your main wall. This low wall is called a parapet and it would have what are called on it crenellations. These are gaps where soldiers can fire projectiles while remaining in partial cover. These walls can also have arrow slits in them, which are small slits from the outside, but from the inside they're much wider, allowing the archer to get a broad range from inside while still maintaining cover.

Okay. It sounds like a lot of war history was kind of like a snowball fight for a while. I bet Cecil had kick-ass snow forts. Chicagoans will also recognize this description as being pretty much identical to the brutalist architecture of the University of Illinois at Chicago campus. Yeah. Yeah. And for the same reason. Famously one of the ugliest campuses in America. They're so gross. They're so ugly. Google it. Podcast listener. It's amazing. Fucking hideous. These walls might also have machicolations, which are little areas that have protected openings that jut out from the wall.

Now these would be places where you could assault the invading troops with all kinds of things. They have a list in Wikipedia, but some are disputed. So here it is, quote, stones or other material such as boiling water, hot sand, quick lime or boiling cooking oil. And our snowball fights when I was a kid got heated. Now the boiling oil thing is documented, I guess in a few battles, but it wasn't common.

Rocks were the most common boiling water was also used, but oil was more difficult to do as a tactic. Hot sand was really devious as sand would get in all the same crevices as water, but oil was more difficult to do as a tactic. Hot sand was really devious as sand would get in all the same crevices as water, but spread over a large area. And the tiniest bit of hot sand would still burn and irritate. But really, just rocks just made the most sense. They do a lot of damage while having to do a more complicated system for moving large amounts of hot liquid or hot sand up a wall

or having just ridiculous sized fires on top to heat up that material. Yeah, a bunch of guys scaling the wall and flip flops. Put the sand away boys. They know our weakness. Oh, he brought a red pail and a shovel. We're done for. Do you ever try to walk home after you put your shoes back on and socks back on, but

there's still a little bit left. I actually liked that feeling. What is wrong with you? I was experiencing childhood. I was aware that these were the times I was going to feel okay. What dude, what so much to unpack there? Jesus. You just described one of your favorite childhood moments, I just want to be clear, as the sensation of having sand inside of your socks while walking.

And then you take them off and it goes poof. Cecil, you were saying there was a cranberry? So you're walking around sandpapering the fucking skin off the back of your heel and you're like, yes, this is childhood. Yeah. Tell another fun story. Something you find positive. I don't have any more. Cecil's talking about ramparts. Yeah, let's get back to rampart.

All right. We're going to circle back to this though. So now these ramparts would often be stretched between fortified towers. So the rampart walls in between would be called curtain walls. And these would connect towers that often punctuated the end of the walls. Now these towers allowed for all the defensive architectural engineering I mentioned earlier. These fortified towers allowed for people to stand in them and defend the wall from two directions along each of the walls that intersected it. Now some of these towers would be

called flanking towers. This is where the tower itself is built out much farther than the wall and this allows for people inside to attack invaders on their side as they're against the wall. Occasionally they would have these areas of the wall that would jut out in the same way that a flanking tower would and these were called bastions. Now these fortified towers, walls and bastions would sometimes be made sort of as a semi-circle or as a cylinder on the outside to help deflect the damage from a straight on projectile hit. A lot of people thought having MC Escher design our fortifications was silly, but it's working

out just fine, let me tell you. Alright Bill, you attack from the top, silly, but it's working out just fine. Let me tell you. All right, Bill, you attack from the top bottom. I'll approach from the under top. We'll rendezvous at the central middle side point under the basement roof. And we'll draw each other into an existence while we're shaking hands. Now the most vulnerable spot on a wall is the gate. So a lot of engineering went into the gate. Gates themselves had fortified doors with ways to bar the doors. Often they would have multiple sets of doors too. Funneling troops in through a small area of a gate is actually a great way to defend and they would often have a wide wall. And the gate above the ceiling behind the gate there would be these murder holes. And these would be holes

large enough where you could drop rocks or stab spears through and then they would try to attack the invaders as they cross this space between the doors and waiting for the next door to fall. Yeah and fun fact, the version used by the famous King Bowser had the big rocks with a human face on them that would get angry when you came close. Another popular technique was a very slow moving fire stick. It would rotate through a big part of the frame of reality and you had to like fire stick game off game off. They should have used revolving doors. Everybody run in and just run right out and they didn't they all get stuck because they're

all trying to push through the same time. Protecting the door was some was sometimes a portacolus or a several. Now these were gates and they were held high on tracks above the hall and a single guard could cut a rope or pull a lever and the gate would fall into place. This would allow for things to be shot through them like thrusting weapons or arrows and they might also have spikes sticking outward on the portacolus to help protect the gate from invaders. Often these would be used in a set of two.

So they'd have a hall separating two gates. You could allow some troops to enter and then close the closest gate and then drop a gate behind the group of soldiers, effectively trapping them in the hall without reinforcements. You could just go in and kill all those troops that were inside that little area. Okay guys. Now the downside of course,

is we live in a time when a hang nail will give you sepsis that's locked in. Let's definitely try our hand fighting our way past that. What do they call? A murder holes, butcher gates and slaughter walls. It's going to go, going to go well. Also we smell really bad. We stink. Has anyone mentioned that we stink? Terrible. We talked about it extensively last week. Now often outside of the walls of the castle were motes or dry motes. The fact that a ditch in either dry or wet motes led up to your wall made your wall taller and harder to scale. It also made it so

that anything wheeled like battery rams or siege weapons would have to much harder time getting to the gate or to the wall itself. And the change in terrain or slope also caused uneven footing and slowed down anyone traversing it. So crossing that area would be slow and you'd make a really nice target, just sort of picking your way down the slope. Now this slope on the inner and outer sides was called a scarf and a counter scarf. Oh man. Those slopes are fun. If you have a refrigerator box, you know what I mean? You're all done. And if it's not a war, I mean, if you're a kid,

it's sand in your like socks. Plus it's hard to stay caught up in the glory of battle when you're doing that little down the hill scooch walk you gotta do. Everyone has something. They're all like Trump walking down a small ramp. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. The drawbridge was something that was used to both cross the moat as a bridge during

times of peace and then it was lifted up and into place. It became an outer gate in times of war. It also basically cut off any real easy way to cross a moat to the gate and thus protected the weakest point on the wall. Outside of the walls would sometimes have these barricades of sharpened sticks. These were called chevalda frieze. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly. Could be frisay.

I'm not sure. They look like a collection of sharp stakes and with all the points pointing up. Okay. I like that a place called Frisia That's where those are from. They think they invented spiky stuff like as a Named it after themselves. I came up with this. Yeah these chival de frieze. They're mostly a Cavalry deterrent but they're also heavy, very sharp barricades and they're often used to funnel troops to places where they can be more easily dealt with. These were also used in water to stop watercraft from coming closer and

they were hidden under the water so they could injure someone or sink a craft that was crossing it. All right. Well, so far fortifications seem mostly to be inspired by unpleasant things at the beach. So while I read ahead to see if sunburn and jellyfish are coming up, we'll take a quick break for some apropos of nothing. You don't have some amazing memories of sunburns and jellyfish as a kid. I actually do have amazing feel alive as a child.

I do. It's a Jason Schinder poem about... Into the breach, men! Into the breach! Ha ha! Shit! Trapped! Yeah. Sorry, I was kinda hoping to get more than just you, though. Nah, fight me, you coward! I-I just-relax, dude. I'll come down in a second. I just gotta...fuck. Uh, hey, Chris? Yeah, Dave. What's up?

I cut the gate rope too early and I've got like one guy down here Yeah, man, we heard you thank you so like what do I do? Oh, okay. Yeah Yeah, you could like pull it right? No, man. I cut the rope I mean the part that you didn't cut? Nah, I got it right, like right at the top. Ah, shit. Yeah, plus, that top part, it's like slippery now, cause Alan got shot up here. Oh no, Alan died?

That's really sad. That is really sad, I'm not actually sort of square with it yet. So, do you have like, do you have another rope? Like, on me? FOR GLORY of busy right now man relax sorry relax anyway no I don't have another rope right of course fuck I just we got rocks do you want to just rock the one guy feels like a waste of rocks, right? Waste of rocks, exactly! Also, if they break through, we're not gonna have anything to pour in them, because we use it on this one guy, so I guess we just...

We just wait, and then we pour the rocks on more people when they make it through? Yeah, I guess so, when there's more. Hey, uh, hey, enemy guy! Yeah? Do you know the movie game? one that's like horse yeah, yeah that one yeah, yeah You want to play Yeah, sure you guys play with challenges, of course, we gotta play challenges. Otherwise you just make sense Maybe it makes sense. Yeah, okay.

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It can feel exhausting, even impossible to keep up with. I'm Brad Milky. I'm the host of Start Here, the daily podcast from ABC News. And every morning my team and I get you caught up on the day's news in a quick, straightforward way that's easy to understand with just enough context so you can listen, get it, and go on with your day. So kickstart your morning, start smart with Start Here and ABC News because staying informed shouldn't feel overwhelming. And we're back. When we left off, Cecil was describing nerdy castle stuff in pure orgasmic ecstasy.

And I'll be damned if I'm going to put a stop to that. So tell us Cecil, what's next? Okay. So we spent the first part building the castle. Let's break into it. So first, let's talk about siege towers, or as they were called in the Middle Ages, a belfry. This siege engine is essentially a tower on wheels.

It's often made of wood, and it's about the same height as the wall you're trying to siege. It would certainly suck to make one roll up and be several feet too short. Sure. Measure twice, cut once. Feels like somebody on Cecil's cosplay team did exactly that thing recently and Cecil started yelling at you guys. I'm fucking pregnant! These towers would be full of soldiers and they had arrow slits and murder holes to inside of the structure So inside would be spearmen or archers and they would both Basically be making things as dangerous as possible as it rolled up to the side of the castle wall And these were covered with wet animal hides as a flame retardant

Okay, I love that the first idea for offense was, no, you're trying to break it in my castle. I know. I'm the one in the castle. It's just they've got like two murder holes violently scissoring together. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Note to self, look that up later. Okay. Way ahead of you, C-Dog, way ahead of you. Now these could also house battering rams, which I'll cover in a minute. But I want you to take a look at this image, which looks like a Persian Dalek attacking a castle wall. It's a fantastic image. It's amazing. Now this relief, which I will try to remember to put in the show notes is from

around 850 BCE. These siege towers could be huge. And one of them, the Heliopolis or Taker of Cities was 130 feet tall or 40 meters. They would be a great protected way for a group of soldiers to get to the top of a wall fast as they had ladders or stairs inside and often a drawbridge type opening at the top that allowed the troops to exit the tower onto the wall.

The very best way to thwart these of course is just to make the land leading up to your walls as uneven and as treacherous to pass as possible, which is why most forts are on hills or have big ditches in front of them. Gravel driveway men, retreat! These guys just want it more. I would quit as soon as I saw they had mowed the lawn before I got there. Yeah. Yeah. That grass looks dewy. I am a hundred percent. I'm going to sleep. I'm out. Shoes are going to be wet for hours.

I have long shoes. My shoes are going to be wet and Eli's going to fondly remember that. It's going to be ridiculous. Is a fat kid crying in the middle of it? Blowing a dandelion is a metaphor nobody gets. Next up is the metaphor nobody gets. Next up is the battering ram. Now this was something that was either carried or it was rolled into place. It was a large weight with a ramming end and you could use it to smash either the gate

or the walls of a castle in order to weaken and eventually break them. Rams would be at the bottom of siege towers or they could have like a protective canopy over the top of the device. The ram itself was often just a large log with a cap of steel on the front of it. Rams were sometimes used as handheld devices by troops, where they would just pick them up, and then they would use their bodies and their strength

to generate the momentum for the hit. Or they could be attached to a swing system where the troops would just pull it back and then use gravity to help push it forward as it swung back to its starting point. Yeah and later in history those swingy ones would be used for testing the ability of a mech suit to withstand a bear attack. May I say the pinnacle of their use. Imagine if you had a whole bunch of guys in bear suits attacking a castle though. Amazing.

Amazing. I feel like you already have imagined that, Caesar. Some listener better draw that for us. This is actually really interesting. Battery ramps could be foiled by dropping a soft thing in front of the ram as it was hitting the wall or door. I guess a popular thing was to drop a bag of sawdust at the same time the arms sort of coming in for a hit.

It's like Bugs Bunny, that's fucking awesome. You know what's even better? A bag of trampoline and then the ram, they would just fly back and hit you. Exactly. A variant of the battering ram is this siege hook, which is just a large hook on a pole that was propelled into the wall using either tension or torsion, and then it was pulled

back. Now, when it was removed, it would pull along parts of the wall with it. The canopy for these rams was also used by sappers who would use this shelter to dig under the wall. Now, the purpose of digging under the wall was not to just create a tunnel, but instead to dig out the foundation of a large section and then replace it with wood so that could all be satellite. And as it burned, the foundation would fail as a whole. And then this would bring down a large section of the wall in a single go. Now this is called

undermining. Okay, so, so my job is to be a sap. That seems yeah, that seems you know, okay. All right. No, you know, I said I'd say yes to yes. Okay, I'm in. I'm in. Okay, like the attitude. So what?

What's my weapon? Is that a? Is that a shovel? Yeah, it's a shovel. The other guy's got swords. And I'm, I'm being negative. Okay. I'm being, this is important. You're more important. Yes to yes. Yes. A shovel. Sure. Okay. Okay. I'll just put on this red shirt then. Let's away team.

The catapult had a lot of variants and it was widely used to attack walls with large stones or shot. Now these devices convert a lot of tension or torsion energy into a single release of energy that throws some large object a distance with a great deal of force. Often these had buckets on them and they would be used to fill with all kinds of objects. In some sieges, they use these devices to hurl dead plague victims over walls and into castles and catapults were even used in World War One to throw grenades at a large distance. Okay, that feels like a weird combination of time and resources that didn't result in a thing that can shoot a bomb, right?

We got a lot of wood and 18 pieces of dental floss that all fit perfectly onto the end of these grenades. I think we got to make a catapult, guys. We really got to time this better because it takes a while to crank it and you pulled the pin too early last time. Come on, we've got to time this way better. We've got to do at least three practices. Now the movies often show catapults attacking the inside of the walls of a castle from the outside but they were primarily used to throw big heavy things at walls themselves to do damage and eventually bring them

down. They weren't a troop weapon and they were not used like a medieval cannons. Some catapults had slings instead of buckets but they all had a similar arm that was held in place on a hinge and used some kind of stored energy to release it and throw the object. Yeah, but you got to be careful with the sling version if you're a catapult guy, because it's so easy for that thing to get stuck and you're just about to fire like a giant flaming whatever, just grabs in the sling, drops right next to you.

ever, grabs in the sling, drops right next to you. Trebuchets were similar. They had a sling on one end, but instead of using tension to crank the arm and release it, they would use either manpower or a large weight and gravity to get that arm moving. Now the first trebuchets were manpowered using one large pole on a swivel. And then the other side would be a series of ropes

attached to it and the soldiers would all pull in unison and the arm of the trebuchet would swing and the sling attached to it would throw a payload. We just don't appreciate levers like we used to guys. We really don't. Trebuchets are awesome. We used to fuck with levers. Levers agreed man, we really need to appreciate them

more in full crummy we don't actually. more in full crummy. We don't actually We were doing a comedy podcast Later they developed a counterweight trebuchet that would employ a very heavy bucket on one end And then the other end would be the payload. And they would release the counterweight, and the trebuchet would then throw the object placed in the sling. Again, these weapons were often used against defenses, not personnel.

And they actually have tables in the wiki to show how far these can go, and a 30,000 kilogram counterweight can throw a hundred kilogram stone 400 meters. Okay, that's amazing. But I feel like lots of catapult guys and trebuchet guys got in big trouble because they didn't know the math on that.

For sure they were just kind of guessing. And then a boulder went like way short and just smooshed their own team. Yeah. Standing there at the friend's funeral. First off, trig is hard to do on the fly. I feel like we don't talk about that enough. Yeah. Real, real great technology. All you have to do though is play light as

a feather, stiff as a board with a 60,000 pound counterweight. And exactly what does itself really. Another popular siege weapon was the ballista. Now this is a large crossbow sits on a mount. The bow itself was cranked back like all high tension bows, and then they would place large metal bolts or spikes into the device, and these would shoot out with a great deal of force. Some of these ballistae could throw rocks or other material. They sometimes use torsion, and they could be encased in like a little cube or a small room that was protected so the troops inside could fire it with little hindrance.

Okay, that feels way too powerful. Whoever came up with that first, that's like the first kid to get a super soaker when they're playing water guns. Siege ladders were also another- Okay, we're not playing no ballistas today, right? No punching faces, no ballistas. Fucked up. Siege ladders were also another way

to get around large walls. They were often carried into place and sometimes they had coverings to protect the people climbing so they would have less chance of getting hit from the side. A simple pole could easily push a ladder back away from a wall.

Once it passes verticality, it's gonna fall back. So they were often supported on the ground with devices of some kind. One particular version called an Escalade, which is basically a rolling staircase that unfolds and it gets closer to the walls. People just climbed up that.

Okay, feels like we're getting a little Looney Tunes here, Cecil. Are you gonna tell us about them drawing a big hole in the wall next to it? All right, everybody in the red shirts and the coyotes, you guys are on ladder duty. Get up there. It's just one guy with a ladder. He climbs up it, then picks the ladder up, puts it in front of him and he climbs up that

piece and then he keeps doing it. There's also a ship version of this ladder thing called the Sambuca. Now this is where they would lash two ships together and then it would extend a long ladder out the front of the boat on the bow. Now this ladder would be covered and the boat would maneuver from the outer wall facing the water and the soldiers would use the ladder

to climb up onto the bowments. And it was used in ancient history, but it fell out of favor because the top of that ladder got moving in the waves. So it was making it really difficult to scale. Yeah, I can see how that would be bad for castle fights, but we should 100% turn Sambuca duels into a televised. I would watch this out of Sambuca duel on ESPN8.

These are very weird. It's like, hey, what if we stick a big dong on the front of a barge and just come a bunch of dudes out of the top? If you touch the base the right way, the guys really poor. It's crazy. Now I didn't call cover all the tactics and such of a siege. And I may just do a siege tactics essay in the future. And that gets into how they actually plan for these, the psychological warfare, the supply maintenance, all the other factors. Yeah. Paint the walls bright pink so everyone thinks their castle's all girly.

It really lowers the morale. Now all of these amazing devices got thrown away when we finally started using gunpowder for cannons and for petards or small bombs that are used in sieges. The power that a cannon brought to the table was just immense. And you could stand far away, shoot the wall, it would come down or you could just put a bomb in front of a door and blow it up. And if you're caught in that explosion, you could be hoisted by your own petard. After the invention of the cannon walls for fortification became much smaller and thicker, taller walls were

easy targets. They also shifted back to more earth fortifications because they could absorb cannon fire much more readily than hard walls So while everything changed because a gunpowder kind of went back to where it was before the arms race of siege weapons and fortifications All right, and Cecil you have to summarize what you learned in one sentence. What would it be your escalate is in my palisade And are you ready for the quiz? Let's do this. Now obviously, sieging these castles cost a great deal of money, lost lives,

untold terrible wounds. Clearly there had to be something really just great in the castle worthy of all of this bloodshed. A, nope. B, Not really. C. Usually the castle itself was the prize. D. Which they just ruined by breaching it. Or E. Those people all had it coming because they smelled bad. You have such a grudge about these people, Tom. But it is definitely E. They definitely stunk so bad. They stunk so bad. You're absolutely right.

Alright, Cecil. With a subject this nerdy, listeners are probably wondering why Noah missed this episode. A. Due to his age, he remembers the real thing and finds the subject too triggering. B. We did a test record with him, but he wouldn't stop shouting trebuchet in excitement. Or C. He's currently under siege in the castle known as Georgia from the invading army known as Weather. Oh, yeah, that's true. It's C. Definitely he is under siege.

It is C, I'm afraid, yes. All right, Cecil, one more for you. Whenever you storm a castle, you have a wide assortment of signature victory cries. They're awesome. But which one is my absolute favorite? A. Cougat served bitches. B. Cosplaying for keeps motherfuckers. Keeps? Ah, keeps.

Clever. C. Thank you. C. L, clever. C, thank you. C, larpe diem. C's the game. Fantastic. I love larpe diem, so brilliant. It's gotta be C. That is correct, nicely done.

All right, well, Cecil, you got all of them right, which means you win. All right, well, I'm gonna pick Noah since he's not here to bite me on it. Yeah, we'll get the AI fixed by then. All right. Well, for Cecil, Tom and Heath, I'm Eli Boznik. Thank you for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week.

And by then, Noah will be an expert on something else. Between now and then, you can listen to our podcast wherever your ears connect to the Internet. And if you'd like to help keep the show going, you can make a per episode donation at Patreon.com forward slash citation pod and get bonus episodes as well as before the show shenanigans or leave us a five star review everywhere you can. And if you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media or check the show notes. Be sure to check out citation pod.com.

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YouTube YouTube YouTube YouTube YouTube I forgot we were doing work. Get the oil, get the oil. I am. I am. Hey moms, looking for some lighthearted guidance on this crazy journey we call parenting? Join me, Sabrina Kohlberg. And me, Andi Mitchell, for Pop Culture Moms. Where each week we talk about what we're watching. And examine our favorite pop culture moms up close to try to pick up some parenting hacks along the way. Come laugh, learn, and grow with us as we look for the best tips. Summon our favorite pop culture moms up close to try to pick up some parenting hacks along the way. Come laugh, learn, and grow with us as we look for the best tips.

And maybe a few what not to do's from our favorite fictional moms. From Good Morning America and ABC Audio, pop culture moms, find it wherever you get your podcasts.