Caltrop (quadruped)

Thousands of years ago, humanity invented a weapon whose shape and purpose have not changed at all over time.
This passive combat tool has been used by various armies since Ancient times. It is not an impressive weapon, often overshadowed by more complex armaments. It is not launched from a ballista and is not intended to cut off limbs, but it is known as an effective tool to stop the enemy’s living force – it can injure infantry, cavalry riders, and generally all those who have legs (horses, elephants, camels). This weapon is still used today.

 

The Ancient Greeks called it tribolos, meaning three spikes, and the Romans called it tribulus. From Old English calcatrippe (heel trap) and French chausse-trape (shoe trap) evolved the name of this weapon – caltrop (English caltrop). Caltrops are also called crow’s feet, hedgehogs, or simply tetrahedrons.

 

These small metal devices made of four spikes have a special design – no matter how you throw them on the ground, one spike will always point upwards. Caltrops were easy and cheap to make, and easy to use and apply. There were several versions of this weapon, one of which was metal balls with spikes, another two bent iron spike parts welded at the center, and some devices were essentially wooden boards with nails sticking out. But all these weapons served the same purpose: to stop the enemy and prevent him from moving forward.

Caltrops were probably first used in 331 BC in the Battle of Gaugamela between Persian King Darius III and Alexander the Great. The Ancient Romans called caltrops tribulus and used them in many battles, such as the battle at Carrhae (modern Haran, Turkey) in 53 BC between the Roman Republic and the Parthian Empire, and also in the 217 AD clash at Nisibis, where the Romans successfully repelled a Parthian cavalry attack.

 

Roman writer Flavius Renatus Vegetius wrote in his book “De Re Militari”:
Armed Antiochus’s and Mithridates’s war chariots initially terrified the Romans, but later they easily dealt with them. If one of the horses was killed or wounded, the war chariot fell into enemy hands. Roman soldiers neutralized war chariots in this way: before battle, they scattered caltrops across the field, and horses with chariots running at full speed stepped on them and fell. Caltrop is a device made of four spikes arranged so that it always rests on three spikes and the fourth points upwards.

 

Caltrops continued to be used on battlefields, for example, during Muslim invasions of Persia in 637 AD and Genghis Khan’s campaigns in China in the early 13th century. In the Middle Ages, they were important weapons in quelling various conflicts in Europe, especially when it was necessary to stop cavalry. The Japanese version of the caltrop is called makibishi. The iron makibishi was called tetsubishi, and the one made from dried water chestnut (Trapa genus) seed pods was called tennenbishi. Both types of makibishi could pierce thin shoe soles, such as the waraji sandals worn in Japan from the 12th to the 16th centuries.

 

Although the advent of firearms reduced the importance of caltrops, they were later successfully used in defense, and in the 20th century – as a means to puncture rubber tires: during World War I, this slowed down both enemy soldiers and their vehicles.

During World War II, the US Office of Strategic Services mass-produced caltrops and supplied them to resistance fighters in Europe. They were simpler and more reliable than explosives and could be placed on roads to stop enemy vehicles, so they were used both to hinder and in ambush attacks. According to the Director of the Research and Development Department of the Office of Strategic Services, Dr. Stanley Lovell, the caltrop was “the simplest weapon ever made.”

 

The Germans also used caltrops during World War II, calling them hedgehogs or crow’s feet. To use this weapon more effectively, they created a special container equivalent to a 500-kilogram bomb, which could hold 1,000–1,500 caltrops. When dropped from a bomber and activated by a timed fuse, it exploded in the air and widely scattered the caltrops. Targets were both airfields and roads. The hedgehogs were made of thin steel sheets and weighed about 60 grams. Later, other versions of these weapons, many improvised, were used in the Vietnam War and other conflicts. Their effectiveness depended on where they were placed.

 

Currently, in the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia, caltrops are successfully used to stop enemy forces – Ukrainian drones scatter them on roads.

 

Despite their centuries-old history, caltrops are still used in modern warfare and even to suppress protests and other unrest. Today, they can be made from modern materials such as plastic, but their function remains the same. Nowadays, caltrops have taken modern forms, such as the tire-puncturing tetrahedron, used by both military and law enforcement. The construction and efficiency of these weapons have not changed over time, making them a constant, though unassuming, participant in warfare.

 

The National Museum of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania houses a caltrop found in 1996. Discovered during archaeological research at the future monument site of the Grand Duke Gediminas in Cathedral Square, Vilnius, it was found in a mid-17th-century cultural layer and most likely relates to the battles for Vilnius fought between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Moscow armies during 1655–1661.