the.com/battering ram
a tree trunk with one job and zero patience for your front door
means a heavy wooden beam, often tipped with metal, swung or driven against gates and walls to break them down in siege warfare.
from From 'batter,' to strike repeatedly (via Old French 'batre,' from Latin 'battuere,' to beat), plus 'ram,' the male sheep. The naming is no accident: ancient war-engines often capped the beam with a carved bronze ram's head, the animal famed for headbutting, and the comparison to a charging ram for sheer blunt-force impact goes back at least to Greek and Roman siegecraft.
- ram head
- Romans capped them with bronze ram sculptures, literally
- crew size
- big ones swung by sixty men under a shed
- on wheels
- covered in wet hides to resist fire arrows
- still serving
- modern police versions weigh under fifty pounds
- countermove
- defenders dropped bales of wool to soften blows
for instance
siege of orleans 1428-1429 — english forces deployed battering rams during the hundred years' war before joan of arc's relief effort