OT - What was it like when the first trebuchet was deployed?

[Robert Green]

I watch a lot of history-based TV shows (when you can find them - the History Channel is now the "Finding the Bigfoot/Ancient Aliens Connection" Channel.

Anyway, I couldn't help wondering what it felt like to be on the castle walls the first time a catapult or trebuchet was used. Sort of reminds me of a Gahan Wilson cartoon with two cowboys noticing the Indians had started lighting their arrows. One says to the other "They can do that?"

I assume the same "what is THAT thing?" moment occurred the first time the Roman phalanx was deployed. Same for when the first infected cows were hurled over the walls, when the first heads of prisoners of war were hurled over the wall, when giant balls of flame were hurled over the walls, etc.

By the time we got to the A-bomb the "what is THAT thing?" realization time shrank down quite a lot. I wonder how many people killed in Nagasaki and Hiroshima even knew it was a US attack that killed them?

[Kurt Ullman]

Depends on which group, always a concern in atom bombings. Those in the immediate blast radius had no idea they were killed most likely. Those in the radiation zone that took some time to die from radiation poisoning, most probably did.

[Robert Green]

I've been trying to find cites about it from Google books. These were air bursts that I believe were delivered by solo planes from very high up. It probably looked as if the sun exploded and the sky caught fire. I wonder how many hours it took to realize that it was a superbomb. It's one of those funny things. We geezers all grew up to be very bomb conscious but that was the first time any but a few human beings ever saw an A-bomb. I'll keep searching Google books. There have to have been post explosion interviews.

[bob_villa]

[Dean Hoffman]

The Hiroshima bomb was dropped from the Enola Gay piloted by Paul Tibbets. I think they made a sharp turn after dropping it and hit the throttles. There were two? trailing planes possibly for photography purposes. I read a book on it long ago but can't remember much about it. The book centered on the preparations leading up to the bombing.

[Robert Green]

I seem to recall their being at least one chase plane. I'll bet even the pilots of that plane had no idea what had happened. Certainly they had never seen an explosion and fireball of that magnitude. Nowadays everyone can recognize the traditional fireball and mushroom cloud.

Here's the best I could find:

hit+them? &source=bl&ots=BvIyUwIEue&sig=4N9G- xZ8fh3fKni2p5v57NIt2nY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CBcQ6AEwAWoVChMIwYbehZblxgIVBJyICh2Du gK9

Says that most people didn't know what hit them. The page before that talks about how many people died and how long it took. The first blast victims close to ground zero obviously didn't know what happened and those that died within the first days were also in the dark. Even their scientists might not have known exactly what sort of weapon we used. I don't recall Japan experimenting with atomic energy the way the Germans did (fortunately unsuccessfully!)

[Stormin Mormon]

That was one seriously improved trebuchet?