Artillery Penteres - Greek Onager (Ship)
With deck-mounted artillery pieces, these ships can rain down destruction on the enemy.The crashing arrival of a large rock does much to humble arrogant foes.
The 'five', called a quinquereme in Latin and a penteres in Greek, was a ship first used by the Syracusans against the Carthaginians sometime around 398BC. Like other polyremes, a term meaning many-oared, the chances were that it did not have five banks of oars but that the word 'oar' was used to mean 'rower'. In such a case, the arrangement of rowers would be two-two-one going up from the waterline. It makes sense to keep as much weight as possible low in the vessel to help its stability; a high centre of gravity makes any ship liable to capsize if struck from the side. The quinquereme, then, would be a formidable vessel both in terms of appearance and combat value. With a large fighting contingent aboard and plenty of deck space, this heavy vessel could cope with most enemies and threats.
(Greek Onager (Ship))
Named after the wild ass with a dangerous kick, the onager catapult had a mighty kick all of its own, as crews quickly discovered. Although not accurate, it could hurl extremely heavy missiles over significant distances. Its throwing arm was pushed through a twisted bundle of animal sinew, held in a solid wooden frame. Pulled back, the tension in the sinew held an incredible amount of power until the arm snapped forwards and the deadly cargo was launched. The arm smacked into the frame, and it was this impact on every shot that made the entire machine lurch about unpredictably. An area-attack weapon, the onager was best suited to siege work, but it could be fired against tightly packed units of troops as well. The missiles launched could be as varied as rocks, clay pots filled with incendiary mixtures, and even dead bodies to spread disease and despair. Severed heads were gruesomely fired into besieged towns from time to time, as a warning of what was to come. Easily constructed from timber, the onager was used throughout the ancient world.
Unit Name Artillery Penteres - Greek Onager (Ship) |
Main Unit Key Gre_Onager_Five |
Land Unit Key Gre_Onager_Shp |
Naval Unit Key greek_onager_five |
Soldiers 40 |
Category Medium Ship |
Class Artillery Ship |
Custom Battle Cost 760 |
Recruitment Cost 760 |
Upkeep Cost 152 |
1020 |
└ Ship greek_five_art |
Ship Speed 5 |
200 |
├ Engine onager_ship |
├ Missile Weapon rome_onager_shp |
├ Projectile shp_rock_flammable |
├ Missile Damage 130 |
├ Missile Ap Damage 70 |
└ Base Reload Time 27 |
Accuracy 40 |
Range 350 |
Reload 4 |
Shots Per Minute 2 |
Ammunition 1 |
Melee Attack 9 |
24 |
├ Melee Weapon rome_shortsword |
├ Melee Damage Base 20 |
├ Melee Damage Ap 4 |
├ Armour Piercing No |
├ Bonus vs. Large 0 |
├ Bonus vs Elephants 0 |
└ Bonus vs Infantry 0 |
Charge Bonus 6 |
14 |
├ Base Defence 14 |
├ Shield none |
└ Shield Defence 0 |
10 |
├ Armour cloth |
├ Armour Defence 10 |
└ Shield Armour 0 |
45 |
├ Man Entity rome_infantry_medium |
├ Man Health 40 |
└ Bonus Hit Points 5 |
Base Morale 40 |
Abilities
Artillery Penteres- Row Hard 20
Increases speed for 20 strokes.
Ship speed
Attributes
No Attribute
Strengths & Weaknesses
Artillery Penteres- Good hull strength
- Skeleton crew
- Average speed
- Average ramming
- Abysmal boarding
- Exceptional missile combat
- Long range
- High damage with its different rounds
- Hard to destroy
- Inaccurate
- Average rate of fire
Requires Buildings | |
---|---|
Lv. 0 |
Naval Yard
(east_port_military_3) Level 2
Drydock
(east_port_military_4) Level 3 |
Faction Availability | |
---|---|
Grand Campaign | |
Samnite Wars | |
Caesar in Gaul | |
Hannibal at the Gates | |
Imperator Augustus |