Whatever happened to slingers?

Andean sling - Img source Wikimedia commons

This is a question that crops up in forums and discussions about ancient combat.  Slingers were described by the ancients in very positive terms.  Suddenly they were no longer present.  There are scanty records of sling combat post-antiquity and many explanations have been postulated for their demise.

The first is that slings were replaced by bows.  Bows became predominant simply because they were better, more precise, farther reaching etc.

The problem with this theory is that while both slings and bows are biodegradable, the oldest discovered bows (Holmegaarde, 6000 BC) predate the oldest sling discovered (2500 BC, Lovelock cave) by thousands of years. 

The theory also discounts all written evidence concerning the sling.  Slings were crude but powerful weapons which could project missiles much further than an archer could shoot an arrow.  Long range throwing also depended on the type of ammunition.  Sling bullets made of lead would travel much further than stone or clay balls, as recorded by Xenophon.

Roman sling bullets were often inscribed with messages such as 'for Pompey's backside'
Img source Wikimedia commons

 The point about sling accuracy must remain unanswered if we are to ignore the writing of the ancients about it.  Accounts are made of slingers hitting and neutralising single targets with great accuracy.  Accuracy was so prized by the Balearic islanders that mothers would not give their children food until they had first struck it with a stone. 

Relief depicting the Assyrian siege of Lachish
 Img source Wikimedia commons

Modern hobbyists would go hungry for quite some time before a ruthless Balearic mother would feed them.  Modern hobby slinging competitions exist there, but many competitors cannot reliably hit targets even at ranges of 25 meters.  How would they stack up against their ancient ancestors in antiquity? No modern archery competition would display such poor results.

Sling bullets of clay and stone needed to be of consistent shape and weight
 Img source Wikimedia commons

Common sense precludes inaccuracy.  Why would the ancients use slingers as skirmishers in engagements if they were inferior to archers? Skirmishers move in loose formation and they would be single man sized targets, which opposing skirmishers would be expected to hit. If the slingers could not reliably hit their targets, but the archers could, they would have been slaughtered quickly and the art of slinging stones would have died out rapidly.

Weapon evolution happens in different ways for different reasons. It could be that a weapon is cheaper, more accurate, farther reaching or easier to train with.  A good case in point is the longbow transitioning to the crossbow.

Typical medieval crossbow with composite prod
 Img source Wikimedia commons

 The longbow is a far more powerful weapon than a crossbow with a similar draw weight.  This is because of power stroke, or the distance from the string at rest to the distance of the string from the bow at full draw.  A bow with a power stroke of 36 inches will impart greater power to the arrow than a crossbow with a 4-inch power stroke, even if the crossbow has a far greater draw weight.  If we look at just the power aspect, the bow is greatly superior to the crossbow.  Not only this, but the longbow’s rate of fire could greatly exceed that of a crossbow.  So why was it replaced by the crossbow throughout Europe?

The longbow required great upper body strength which demands constant training from childhood to adulthood.  This was the reason why men and boys in England were required by law to train every Sunday.  It could take over a decade to master a longbow. 

A crossbow was different in that it required very little training to master.  To become proficient, it only required a training period of weeks to months.  Specialised strength was not necessary given that mechanical devices such as the ‘goats foot lever’ were used to span the crossbow.  The crossbow was more expensive than the longbow, but the ease with which it was used, and the money saved in training more than compensated for its deficiencies in power and rate of fire. 

So why did the sling diminish?

There might be many reasons why the sling declined, not one simple explanation.

Perhaps a reason why the sling was replaced was because of the decline of peltasts or skirmishers among armies.  Armies in antiquity were primarily based on infantry fighting doctrine.  Cavalry played a much greater role in armies of the middle ages. 

Skirmishers like the Roman Velites were deployed some distance from the main formation to harry and break up formations.  If cavalry were common, however, these small skirmishing detachments could be easily ridden down. 

Secondly, slingers must be arranged in a loose skirmishing lines.  They need space to swing their sling.  Archers can be more effectively placed in tight formation behind the main infantry lines.

Another reason to discard the sling was its inability to operate within the confines of castles or other fortresses.  In the cramped quarters, crossbowmen, and sometimes even archers, could effectively fire out through the loopholes, but again, slinging stones requires space.  A crossbowman or gunner could reload in safety and shoot while prone, thus exposing themselves to less fire.

Slingers could never properly use arrow loops -
Img source Wikimedia commons

Another possible reason is cultural dilution.  The most prominent early slinging cultures were those on the islands.  With the increase in trade and transport, values and cultural aspects such as slinging could have diminished.

However, the greatest factor in the slings decline is the fact that the sling requires even more training to master than other weapons.  As time progressed, more people came from urban environments, where access to ranged weaponry was limited.  No weapon could be more suitable than the crossbow or gun to quickly and effectively train recruits with. 

 In conclusion, the sling was not entirely replaced.  It may have lasted in the Balearic Islands much longer than it survived in Britain.  Furthermore, a version of the sling was common during sieges.  A staff sling, which used the staff for extra leverage to launch stones of medium weight over castle walls was common in medieval sieges.  

There is also evidence that the sling was used on ships in Byzantine times to throw Greek fire.  The Americas also retained a slinging tradition long after it died out in Europe.