Sling (weapon)

This man will rotate the sling around his head to build up speed, before releasing it at a target.

The term sling refers to a weapon used to send a projectile at an enemy.

In the Christian Bible David uses a simple sling to defeat his larger and more heavily armed enemy Goliath, in a symbolic single combat. In today's art this sling is depicted as a pouch, with two straps, designed to hold a pebble. The straps enable to the slinger to rapidly rotate the stone, in order to let it go, at high speed, when it is aimed in the direction of the enemy.

Slingers also used a longer range sling, where a larger stone was used, in a pouch, at the end of two longer straps, which were, in turn, attached to the end of a staff. The slinger would lay their projectile in the pouch, step forward, swinging the staff above their head.

While the accuracy of an individual slinger could be low, accuracy during warfare became less important, when a massed array of skilled slingers, all slung a projectile in the general direction of an enemy column, at the same time.