Tod’s Workshop Rebuilds the Storm of Crows as an Ancient Chinese Shotgun

Hearing the name Storm of Crows might bring to mind fantasy games or dark forests, yet the real item comes from Chinese military records of long ago. Tod Cutler at Tod’s Workshop took the idea of a cup arrow, the romantic label for a bundle of smaller shafts, and set out to launch it from his Tzusun siege crossbow. That machine copies the Ox Bow design, a triple-bowed frame that once required oxen to draw and sent broomstick-sized bolts downrange with hundreds of joules of force. Single large arrows could punch through armor or men, but they left groups of infantry largely untouched unless the targets lined up neatly. Chinese engineers therefore developed a way to send many short arrows at once, creating a spread of hits that covered more ground.

Records don’t say much about the cup itself, so Cutler went with what he saw. He was able to gather about 19 incredibly narrow shafts, each with a strong metal tip and no feathers, and hack them down until they all fit together in a bundle about 45 millimeters wide. That diameter should just about allow him to fit a wooden cup inside that can withstand the arrows being pushed around by the string. At the same time, he built a stronger carrier shaft with a nock to hold the cup, and when he put everything up, it weighed roughly 640 grams, which is twice as much as a standard single bolt. The thread on the early prototypes snapped off, and the way the string pushed the cup from the side caused the entire thing to flip up when it left the bow.

Cutler had a rethink and began utilizing a lightweight poplar sled weighing only 50 grams. The sled simply lies under the arrows and holds them in place until the string sends it, at which point it drags itself out of the way using a cord or streamers to allow the shafts to split. He experimented with several cup designs, some deep, others shallow, added side rails, and even tried a tether to prevent the carrier from flying away after release. Some of the footage they got from the range showed arrows detaching at approximately 15 meters, while others remained stuck or crashed over. However, at 25 to 50 meters, the pattern became erratic, as described in the ancient descriptions of how imprecise this item was, and the arrows continued to fly out too unpredictably for any good impacts. Some just swerved off since the tips of the shafts had nothing to keep them on track once they were free of the sled, no spin to speak of.

It is worth mentioning, however, that historical records indicate that Chinese crossbows had already discovered that naked shafts worked for them, thus the same concept should have worked for these large siege machines. These things first appeared in Chinese forces during the Warring States period and continued to be employed until the 16th century, when black powder rocket launchers such as the Huo Che and Korean Hwacha appeared. Cutler’s efforts have yet to yield a reliable system, but each shot demonstrated one thing: the sheer speed of the device attempting to rip the bundle apart is a major issue, and any more weight or misalignment simply results in crazy splintering. He plans further changes to cup shape, arrow count, and release timing, and he has invited viewers to suggest better ways of keeping the shafts aligned until the string has finished its work. The project sits at the edge of what sparse records allow, turning a half-remembered ammunition type into a series of practical experiments on a working siege frame.
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