Editing Sling (weapon) (section)

=== Combat ===
[[File:Balearic Slinger.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Artistic depiction of a slinger from the [[Balearic Islands]], famous for the skill of its slingers]]
Ancient peoples used the sling in combat—armies included both specialist slingers and regular soldiers equipped with slings. As a [[weapon]], the sling had several advantages; a sling bullet lobbed in a high trajectory can achieve ranges in excess of {{convert|400|m|abbr=on}}.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Harrison, Chris |title=The Sling in Medieval Europe |journal=The Bulletin of Primitive Technology |volume=31 |date=Spring 2006 |url=http://chrisharrison.net/index.php/Research/Sling}}</ref> Modern authorities vary widely in their estimates of the effective range of ancient weapons. A bow and arrow could also have been used to produce a long range arcing trajectory, but ancient writers repeatedly stress the sling's advantage of range. The sling was light to carry and cheap to produce; ammunition in the form of stones was readily available and often to be found near the site of battle. The ranges the sling could achieve with moulded lead [[#Ammunition|sling-bullets]] was surpassed only by the strong [[composite bow]].

Caches of sling ammunition have been found at the sites of [[Iron Age]] [[hill forts]] of [[Europe]]; some 22,000 sling stones were found at [[Maiden Castle, Dorset]].<ref name=Cunliffe133>{{cite book |last=Cunliffe |first=Barry |date= 2005|title=Iron Age Communities in Britain: An Account of England, Scotland and Wales from the Seventh Century BC until the Roman Conquest |edition=4th|publisher=Routledge |page=136 |isbn=978-0-415-56292-8}}</ref> It is proposed that Iron Age hill forts of Europe were designed to maximize the effective defence by slingers.

The hilltop location of the wooden forts would have given the defending slingers the advantage of range over the attackers, and multiple concentric [[Rampart (fortification)|ramparts]], each higher than the other, would allow a large number of men to create a hailstorm of stone. Consistent with this, it has been noted that defences are generally narrow where the natural slope is steep, and wider where the slope is more gradual.