# Reconstructing the Ancient Chinese Storm of Crows Weapon

> **Key takeaway:** The Chinese had been using large crossbows – akin to Greek and Roman ballistae – for warfare for many of the same reasons that European armies loved them.

**Published:** 2026-10-23T20:00:09+00:00 
**Source:** Hackaday Hardware 
**Category:** open-hardware 
**Canonical URL:** https://fosswire.org/news/reconstructing-the-ancient-chinese-storm-of-crows-weapon.html 

## Summary
The Chinese had been using large crossbows – akin to Greek and Roman ballistae – for warfare for many of the same reasons that European armies loved them. Their single, large arrow was effectively unstoppable, though this also was rather useless against large groups of infantry unless they were so kind to neatly line up. Old Chinese records mention a special kind of ammunition, called a cup arrow, or ‘storm of crows’, which involves launching many smaller arrows instead of a single large one, a feat that [Tod] really wanted to try and recreate .