Most terrifying weapon of the pre-modern era?

[Germanyball]

Which is small change compared to a plague infested undead Norseman charging towards you screaming and swinging his rusty broadsword as green clouds of pestilence continually leave his orifices and bits of rotting flesh fall off, continuing to crawl independently towards you on their little meaty stumps.

Oddly enough, and I'm only half kidding, that bit about meaty stumps has made me quite hungry.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Damn, now I'm kinda hungry, too. . .

itchy. . . tasty. . .

[Cameroi]

x (slow loading error)

[Cameroi]

psychological stratigy. it isn't the hardware, its how you use it. it isn't what you know, its what you can make the other guy think. sun tsu's art of war/gordy dickenson's tactics of mistake.

on the other paw, there's the prospect of peace. every tyrant seems to fear it.

[Nazis in Space]

Which is small change compared to a plague infested undead Norseman charging towards you screaming and swinging his rusty broadsword as green clouds of pestilence continually leave his orifices and bits of rotting flesh fall off, continuing to crawl independently towards you on their little meaty stumps.

Well, that escalated quickly

Hey now, he's still wearing his pants.

[Germanyball]

Well, that escalated quickly

Hey now, he's still wearing his pants.

Seeing "still wearing his pants" right over "Honor thy tool, keep it rigid" is a funny experience.

[Tagmatium]

I've looked through the thread, and the popular opinion appears to be...

...Greek Fire! This substance was invented in antiquity; however, the Byzantine (or Greek) Empire was the first nation to weaponise it on the large scale. Made to a formula that was lost in the Middle Ages (and has yet to be successfully reconstructed), it would burn on anything, including on the surface of the sea itself.

Used in both naval battles (as shipkillers) and land warfare (as defensive and offensive siege weapons), Greek fire saved the Empire at least twice, and constituted the first flamethrowers in history.

All of which puts aside the "sheer, howling terror" factor of seeing your enemies throw fire at you in the Middle Ages.

(Image)

Could also refer to the Byzantine Empire as the Roman Empire, since they did call themselves the Basileia Rhōmaiōn. They didn't refer to themselves as Greeks and it was usually done by those in the West. Although I imagine you already know that.

There are a few theories on how it was used on land - the syphons mentioned by Risottia, basically a metal tube with a plunger on the end. Another one is when it was in a container, which was heated. The heat pressurised the Greek fire liquid, which was then shot out using a pump, through a nozzle onto thems you want deaded.

Cool diagram, sourced from Wikipedia.

I did once watch a programme where they were planning on recreating this, but came to the conclusion that heating up a flammable liquid using a fire was not something they actually wanted to risk.