The Grindery is Real

[Jiang Jin]

The Empires of Asia and Europe were already industrialized and mechanized in ancient times. The Grindery is based on an actual armored war machine from history called a siege castle. Invented by Epimachus in 304 BCE, it uses capstans, powered by people or draft animals, to turn the wheels of a massive 10 story castle covered in iron plates. This enables the vehicle to reach 10km/h, considered an incredible speed for such a large machine. The siege castle is also armed with ballistae and catapults capable of firing flaming spears with pieces of burning cloth soaked in tar or oil tied to it or fire pots filled with tar or oil that have its outer surface or a wick lit before being hurled at the enemy to shatter and burst into flame upon impact. These vehicles fire their artillery through ports that can be covered by closing armored windows. They later started using exploding spears and shells filled with gunpowder starting in the 900s, cannons in the 1100s, and rockets in the 1300s. This, and the other armored vehicles listed below, were steered using tillers which were levers connected to pivoting front axles to turn them.

Below is an image of the siege castle:



The Chinese inventor Lu Ban, also invented his own armored war machine in the 500s BCE, called a siege tower, which was also powered by cranks or capstans driven by humans or draft animals, and covered by thick wooden panels:



The Chinese later armed these siege towers with cannons, starting in the 1100s, or rockets, starting in the 1300s:



Moravian inventor Jan Zizka also invented an armored vehicle in 1420 called a cannon wagon, that was pulled by draft animals or powered by cranks or capstans, and was armed with cannons:



The artillery in Jan Zizka's war machines were breech loading swivel cannons that used swivels to open and close breech loading ports where the gunpowder and shells were inserted:

[ShugoHanasaki]

That's pretty cool and great history lesson! (^.^) I didn't know that.

I do know that a lot of inspiration in video games, anime, and other things are inspired by our history.

[Kizyr]

The only reason I knew anything about these is that ages ago our DM put them in a DnD campaign during an actual siege (we were on the defending side). Though this was... after the Lord of the Rings trilogy had been released (did they have siege towers or am I misremembering?) Regardless it's pretty amazing and I know it's a great source of fantasy worldbuilding.

[Sonic#]

LOTR did have siege towers. They roll up to Minas Tirith and open their gangplanks onto the walls of the first level. The Total War game series also sometimes features them.

Historical ones weren't as far-traveling as the Grindery. Armies would usually construct them near the site of a siege since it would be so logistically costly to transport them long distances.

[Jiang Jin]

LOTR did have siege towers. They roll up to Minas Tirith and open their gangplanks onto the walls of the first level. The Total War game series also sometimes features them.

Historical ones weren't as far-traveling as the Grindery. Armies would usually construct them near the site of a siege since it would be so logistically costly to transport them long distances.

Actually, the siege towers could be moved all the way from hangars, though they also constructed them on site in many cases, turning those areas into massive lumberyards, sawmills, and factories for mass producing these massive war machines. They could even mount them on ships, turning the ships into armored battleships called naval siege towers:



Before this, around the 500s BCE, the Chinese already had armored ships called Louchuan that used wetted animal hides to protect the ship from flaming arrows, flaming spears, fire jars, and fire pots:



At the same time, the Japanese invented a house and wall armored ship called a Sekibune:



They also created a version of the Sekibune that used wooden shields in combination with the house:



Eventually, other types of armored ships were invented in Europe such as castle ships that had wooden castles with firing ports for artillery mounted on them:



The European navies also started using bomb hurlers that could hurl incendiary or exploding barrels:



The European navies also started using armored flamethrower galleys:



In 1000 CE, Erik Hakkonson of the Viking Empire invented the 1st ironclad ship called the Iron Ram, which has a wooden hull reinforced with iron bands, and eventually built a fleet of them to use in the naval battle of Svoldr:



In 1203, Admiral Qin Shifu invents the 1st fully ironclad ship propelled by a combination of sails and animal driven paddlewheels:



In the 1400s, the Koreans start using ships with armored roofs made of iron and with iron spikes called turtle ships or Panokseon:



The Islamic Caliphate also had armored ships that used wooden houses with ports called balangays, karakoas, dhows, and shalandis:









All of these armored ships were armed with ballistae, catapults, pump operated flamethrowers, cannons, mines, and rockets.

There were also other types of armored ground vehicles, such as:

Armored Horses:



Armored War Elephants:



Armored Carts:



Armored Carriages:



War Wagons:



Tower Wagons:



Mobile Yurts:



Mobile Tents:



Armored Siege Tortoises with Counterweight Battering Rams:



Armored Counterweight Battering Rams:



Cloud Ladders:



Armored Siege Towers with Counterweight Battering Rams:

[Kizyr]

The next TTRPG campaign I plan to run is an entire waterworld where ocean/ship travel is the central mechanic of the world. I am absolutely using a lot of this information...