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Lastly, the enemy were hastily recruited mercenaries, not intensively trained troops, not disciplined troops, perhaps having the same Home Stone, troops familiar to one another, troops having confidence in themselves and their officers. - (Avengers of Gor, Chapter 41, Sentence #22)

It was certainly capable of lofting great weights but perhaps it was less capable, less precise, when it came to meeting certain challenges of adjustment, those pertaining, for example, to distance and targeting. Secondly, catapult engineers, "gunners," and such, are rare and highly paid. If one is looking for the best representatives of that profession, one would not be well advised to go to Thera, Daphna, or Chios, but to Ar or Turia. Lastly, the enemy were hastily recruited mercenaries, not intensively trained troops, not disciplined troops, perhaps having the same home stone, troops familiar to one another, troops having confidence in themselves and their officers. In short, after several mishaps or mistakes, such as great stones falling short, falling amidst advancing mercenaries, or mercenaries arriving too early at the wall and being afflicted with their own fire, or mercenary contingents lagging or holding back to avoid such fates, thus subverting the whole point of the supposedly coordinated attack, the enemy generalship apparently decided to leave the tactic in question in the manuals, where its peril was considerably minimized. "You are no Merchant," had said a man, startled. "I think he be not Kenneth Statercounter," had said a council member, then in a begrimed tunic, bearing a basket of rocks to be carried to the parapet. - (Avengers of Gor, Chapter 41)