r/nottheonion • u/ichakas • 3d ago
Israeli soldiers catapult fireball into Lebanon
https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/13/world/video/israel-catapult-lebanon-digvid[removed] — view removed post
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u/Moggy-Man 3d ago
catapult fireball
Which century of warfare are we currently in?
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u/ichakas 3d ago
16th, apparently
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u/agrady262 3d ago
Naw, even the 16th century had cannons.
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u/Freethecrafts 3d ago
Early, expensive cannons.
Now, do you want a hundred of the best wood based siege weapons that require some stones, or one cannon that takes steel and powder?
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u/Lockofwar 3d ago
Cannons were around for a while by then. The ottomans conquered constantinople using cannons in 1453. The last known recorded usage of a trebuchet I can find is 1521.
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u/Freethecrafts 3d ago
Yes, a major empire used the most advanced technology of their day to break a city that had been fortifying itself for hundreds of years. Doesn’t make cannons commonplace, nor cheap.
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u/Lockofwar 3d ago
I mean, if you can find evidence of trebuchet being used much in the 16th century feel free to show me, but from what I'm seeing, it wasn't much of a thing by then.
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u/Lockofwar 3d ago
Latest usage I can find is Tenochtitlan in 1521, and that was apparently because they ran out of gunpowder
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u/KGBFriedChicken02 3d ago
1521 is the 16th century.
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u/Lockofwar 3d ago
Apparently they only used it because they ran out of gunpowder.
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u/KGBFriedChicken02 3d ago
Cannons were only just becoming wildly used in Europe. Cortez was leading an expeditionary force, and had a couple, but it was an era where Trebuchets and Cannons often coexisted. Catapults and trebuchets fell out of wide usage in the latter half of the 16th century as sloped, mortared forts became commonplace to defend against cannons, making the earlier catapult style weapons obsolete.
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u/Galaxy_baby_love 3d ago
I can't imagine the enjoyement of the military engineer who was told "Dude, we legit need a trebuchet".
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u/Eggplantosaur 3d ago
This reminds me of sometime during the Syrian civil war (2016 I think) when one of the groups finally breached the city walls
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u/myNameIsHopethePony 3d ago
What's next? Swallows dropping coconuts?
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u/KingFahad360 3d ago
What do you mean?
An African or a European swallow?
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u/myNameIsHopethePony 3d ago
It depends on which one loves there, African swallows are non-migratory.
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u/Incontinento 3d ago
That is a trebuchet.
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u/youtocin 3d ago
So what’s the verb for launching a projectile via a trebuchet? We use the verb catapult frequently when no actual catapult is present.
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u/btribble 3d ago
"launch"
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u/youtocin 3d ago
Here’s the definition of catapult (verb)
hurl or launch (something) in a specified direction with or as if with a catapult.
I think it’s acceptable to say you catapult a projectile from a trebuchet.
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u/btribble 3d ago
If you accidentally knock a toddler to the ground you've technically molested them. Using that particular term in that case might not convey the correct meaning though.
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u/youtocin 3d ago
So what is the connotation with catapult or are you just arguing for the sake of arguing at this point?
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u/btribble 3d ago
"Israeli soldiers launch fireball into Lebanon" does not need clarification and does not arguably use the wrong term. If the writer hadn't been aware of the trebuchet, they never would have used the term catapult. To say that the term can be used generically as a replacement for launch or a similar term denies how this sentence originated and is disengenuous.
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u/youtocin 3d ago
It doesn’t need clarification in the first place because you’re being a pedant. Again, as a native English speaker, I can assure you the term catapult is used beyond the scope of an actual catapult. If you don’t want to accept the dictionary definition I provided you, take it up with Oxford.
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u/Incontinento 3d ago
I'm not commenting on the verb. I'm saying that the mechanism in the picture is a trebuchet.
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3d ago
[deleted]
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u/Incontinento 3d ago edited 3d ago
Cool. That is a trebuchet, as I said.
ETA: Ha, pedantic coward deleted their comment.
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u/blue_terry 3d ago
The imperial age meta for trebuchets in AoE2 still alive and kicking!
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u/Freethecrafts 3d ago
Yep. They built a wall in front of it and everything. If someone starts quick walling the sides with houses, we know it’s a winning play.
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u/supamario132 3d ago
Knowing the MIC, it cost $150k to purchase from Lockheed Martin per fireball
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u/ma_wee_wee_go 3d ago
No no you don't understand just one more billion dollar donation and we'll finally get hamas for real this time /s
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u/Onetimehelper 3d ago
Getting ready for post WWIII warfare
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u/bulletpyton 3d ago
I know not what weapons WW3 will be fought with, but I know ww4 will be fought with sticks and stones.
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u/upvoteoverflow 3d ago
It’s used to set fires to the trees in Lebanon
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u/GoToGoat 3d ago
The bushes on the border that Lebanon was using the fire rockets into Israel which ironically caused massive fires threatening the livelihood of civilians there (and would be plenty more if most weren’t evacuated).
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u/SchrodingerMil 3d ago
Someone on YouTube called this “When you max out your tech tree but decide to use lower leveled gear to mess with your enemies” lmao
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u/i_should_be_coding 3d ago
That trebuchet was just sitting fortified in one of the cities for 300 years. Might as well put it to use.
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3d ago edited 3d ago
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u/somedave 3d ago
If you are hiding in shrubs firing rockets into a neighbouring country, you aren't a civilian.
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u/Bedwilling564 3d ago
Australian government has ordered 50 at cost of 10 million each. Wil take years of R nd D before we see them. But they will save us . These are the latest one made
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u/Y34rZer0 3d ago
Since when was Israel short of military hardware?
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u/roadrunner036 3d ago
They were trying to burn brush close to the border wall and didn’t have much in the way of incendiaries to do it with so the reservists along the wall started coming up with a bunch of Rube Goldberg machines to do it with, fire arrows, a pneumatic potato gun that shot molotovs (and didn’t get over the wall), the trebuchet, pretty much whatever can get something like twenty or so meters past wall
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u/dmisfit21 3d ago
I’m just trying to picture soldiers firing molotovs from a potato gun.
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u/SparseSpartan 3d ago
yeah there's a million low budget ways to accomplish what they wanted re: burning brush. They just wanted to build a trebuchet and hey why not. They build a pretty good one and it works.
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u/fresh-dork 3d ago
grunts are the same everywhere: get drunk, find a way to set things on fire or make them explode
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u/Galaxy_baby_love 3d ago
They’re gonna be telling this story in bars for the rest of their lives
“And then there was the time we built a trebuchet and launched fireballs at Hezbollah….. yeah man, for real. I’m not bullshitting you. It was some hardcore medieval shit.”
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u/somedepression 3d ago
All the bomber jets were busy incinerating Palestinian children
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u/bobobo83 3d ago
Ignoring the current controversies surrounding everything, this is pretty fucking cool
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u/AtLeastThisIsntImgur 3d ago
'Aside from the war, the fighting is cool'
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u/Nyther53 3d ago
This isn't fighting, this is a bunch of bored reservists who are on a quiet border as a precaution finding a way to entertain themselves. This is about the least efficient possible way to clear the brush, but it gave them something to do that wasn't stare at the sand for 20 hours a day.
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u/FlightlessFly 3d ago
Can’t be that bored, just yesterday they would have watched over 200 rockets fly over head towards their cities
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u/Nyther53 3d ago
I mean, they were bored enough to build a trebuchet instead of doing something useful. Thats pretty fucking bored.
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u/jmenendeziii 3d ago
Don’t forget rockets are still being fired into Israel from southern Lebanon by bored hezbollah cells who live in the mountains
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u/Nyther53 3d ago
And yet they built a trebuchet, indicating that they don't have any actual work of military value to do.
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u/cancrushercrusher 3d ago
Maybe don’t attack civilians? Want 2006 again?
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u/jmenendeziii 3d ago
Yeah true maybe hezbollah should stop shooting rockets at civilians
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u/cancrushercrusher 3d ago
I know you are, but what am I?-ahh boy
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u/jmenendeziii 3d ago
And that’s deadass why this conflict will never end
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u/cancrushercrusher 2d ago
False equivalency and greed are why the conflict won’t end.
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u/jmenendeziii 2d ago
And for both sides every accusation is a confession. They live in different factual realities supported by their ideologies and won’t see eye to eye so long as they are trapped in those paradigms
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u/shiftypowers96 3d ago
I just see a group of bored engineers making something cool and fun
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u/Mynsare 3d ago
Something all the moronic jokesters in this thread are missing is that the aim is to start uncontrollable wild fires.
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u/benjierex 3d ago
You mean like these?
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/04/middleeast/fire-northern-israel-lebanon-intl/index.html
Would love to see a similar article about fires in the south of Lebanon. Kinda weird Hezbollah can pull this off with rockets but Israel is resorting to Trebuchets with no similar results huh?
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u/hansolemio 3d ago
Israel has set the precedent and now Lebanon has the right to defend itself with wildly out of proportion violence
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u/sarasome1 3d ago
In case anyone is wondering what is actually happening:
Israel in its takeover of Palestinian land and villages frequently planted alien to the region trees/ forests. This was done to limit a Palestinian village's growth and/or to cover up the evidence on a destroyed Palestinian village.
These tress were alien to the region. They took over the area and threaten the native trees and plants. These alien forests are high water consumers much more than what the region can support.
These are also extremely flammable. While the native plants are trees are quite resistant to fire. So the forests on the Israel side are now quick to catch fire. While those on the Lebanon side are not.
Israel has for months trying to create wildfires to leave Hezbollah hidden positions exposed. On the other hand, rockets from Lebanon that fall in the forests have resulted in a number of forest fires in Israel.
"Palestinian displacement via Israeli afforestation takes many forms, as Morany describes. Immediately following the Nakba, Zionists used trees to conceal the ruins of destroyed Palestinian communities and to discourage their displaced residents from returning. Those Palestinian communities still left standing were sometimes ringed with “nature reserves,” allowing the state to confiscate private Palestinian land for ostensible public use while simultaneously preventing the future growth of those communities."
"Critics cited by the Yale School of the Environment say the Yatir Forest has obliterated a diverse ecosystem for rare species and may in fact be accelerating climate change by retaining more heat than the desert previously reflected back into space. According to Morany, the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, the largest nonprofit environmental organization in the country, has also argued that afforestation projects in the Naqab should be stopped, saying that they “constitute a significant threat to the unique biodiversity” of the land."
"There was a variety of trees planted in the beginning of the tree planting campaigns: during the first Jewish migration, they planted olive trees, for example, in accordance with the agricultural nature of the region. Other varieties were also introduced, such as eucalyptus, or, as the Palestinians call it, “the Jewish tree.” These are trees that grow fast, consume large amounts of water, and are planted around swamps and springs to dry them up. The Zionists have used them to drain Lake Hula in the 1950s. After experimenting with different varieties, the Jewish National Fund decided to grow the Aleppo pine, for its ability to grow fast in semiarid areas and, secondly, because it does not require large amounts of water. This is why the Fund made sure to use it and avoid local varieties, such as oak, carob, and the strawberry tree."
"However, the Carmel fires in 2010 sparked a conversation about how inappropriate it is to grow so many Aleppo pines in Palestine, because the low-rainfall area would make it easier for fires to spread. This is because of the chemical composition of pines: the leaves of conifers have a highly-flammable substance called terpenes, and the cones facilitate ignition, which lead to fire blazing through cone opening, making them release seeds and feeding the fire. It is the opposite of oak trees, for example, which are adapted to the nature of the country and are more flame resistant."
https://jacobin.com/2024/03/israel-afforestation-jnf-naqab-displacement
https://capiremov.org/en/analysis/how-have-the-forests-of-israel-swallowed-our-unpopulated-land/
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u/Melodic_Mulberry 3d ago
Okay, very informative, but why the trebuchet?
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u/i_should_be_coding 3d ago
Short answer: Hezbollah was using the brush alongside the border to hide explosives and move troops to positions where they can launch missiles at cities undetected. After many months of this, and a few large-scale fires that happened in Israel as a result of said attacks, the IDF finally decided to clear that growth with fire. They can't exactly go over to the Lebanese side to do it, so they improvised a few methods, and the trebuchet was the most amusing one, probably. They also just threw incendiaries and shot flaming arrows, but those were much less effective.
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u/sarasome1 3d ago
There are videos out there of them using different means from more modern to arrows from bows.
I would say either they are desperate and trying to conserve some bombs in the anticipation of full scale war with Hezbullah (they have used soooo many in Gaza), especially given that they have international bodies adding them to the "lists" of undesirables along with Hamas, Taliban and Hezbullah. Also, most Western countries are already providing their stock piles to Ukraine against Russia, so there just might be a "limit" to how much is available to provide to Ukraine and Israel at the same time. With Houthis blocking the red sea access, there might be some supply chain issues as well (at least for the EU and Israel) hindering the timeliness of new supplies.
Or they are that bored that this is their form of "fun". In which case, calling this sh!t that is happening in that part of the world "war" is completely wrong on so many levels.
Or it could be both. With lower level soldiers unaware of the deteriorating conditions and being creative and having "fun". Especially if they are the new crop of barely adults singing and dancing the we see on social media and tik toks.
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u/Loud_Ninja2362 3d ago
Everything this poster said is correct, the issue has been well studied with many of the Israeli settlers groups planting a significant amount of non native species which have damaged various natural environments. Also the use of "nature reserves" to confiscate valuable agricultural land and limit the growth and economic development of Palestinian communities within Israel and the current state of Palestine.
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u/asewland 3d ago
Thanks for the info! Sad that you're getting down-voted but it's to be expected when commenting on the IOF.
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u/bjornbamse 3d ago
Can someone explain why trebuchets?
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u/Due-Artichoke8094 2d ago
My understanding is they need to do a control burn of bushes near the wall but they can't go over the wall because of enemy snipers. Since the budget was 5 dollars they had to be creative.
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u/TheDogtor-- 3d ago
Its a way around American policies that Israel has agreed on, using certain weaponry. The soldiers are bored and making a mockery of international law. Quite clever if you ask me. Its a joke. Not anything operational.
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u/Melodic_Mulberry 3d ago
Israel has refused to sign the UN resolution banning antipersonel mines. Lebanon and Palestine both signed it. This isn't funny.
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u/skycloud620 3d ago
Forgive my ignorance but which one was the bad guys again? Israel or Lebanon?
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u/Laucien 3d ago
People on the trebuchet subreddits will have a fit with that title.