First came the cannon fodder, white-clad civilians being driven into death as a massive human battering ram.

Most ancient naval battles were fought by fast ships using the battering ram to sink opposing fleets or steer close enough for boarding in hand-to-hand combat.

They are promoting an agenda to normalize homosexuality in America using the military as a battering ram to promote that broader agenda.

The rampart was complete in the spring of 73, after probably two to three months of siege, allowing the Romans to finally breach the wall of the fortress with a battering ram on April 16.

Though a simple battering ram had come into use in the previous millennium, the Assyrians improved siege warfare and used huge wooden tower-shaped battering rams with archers positioned on top.

Assyria n attack on a town with archers and a wheeled battering ram ; Assyrian Relief, North-West Palace of Nimrud ( room B, panel 18 ) ; 865 – 860 BC.

Witnesses attest that " flame queens ", hustlers, and gay " street kids "— the most outcast people in the gay community — were responsible for the first volley of projectiles, as well as the uprooting of a parking meter used as a battering ram on the doors of the Stonewall Inn.

The passengers persisted, using a service trolley as a battering ram to break through the cockpit door.

Medieval battering ram

Replica battering ram at Baba Vida, Vidin, Bulgaria

An Assyrian battering ram attacking an enemy city.

Replica battering ram at Château des Baux, France.

A battering ram is a siege engine originating in ancient times and designed to break open the masonry walls of fortifications or splinter their wooden gates.

In its simplest form, a battering ram is just a large, heavy log carried by several people and propelled with force against an obstacle ; the ram would be sufficient to damage the target if the log was massive enough and / or it were moved quickly enough ( that is, if it had enough momentum ).

A well-known image of an Assyrian battering ram depicts how sophisticated attacking and defensive practices had become by the 9th century BC.

Defenders manning castles, forts or bastions would sometimes try to foil battering rams by dropping obstacles in front of the ram, such as a large sack of sawdust, just before the ram's head struck a wall or gate, or by using grappling hooks to immobilize the ram's log.

Alternatives to the battering ram included the drill, the sapper's mouse, the pick and the siege hook.

There is a popular myth in Gloucester that the famous children's rhyme, Humpty Dumpty, is about a battering ram used in the siege of Gloucester in 1643, during the English Civil War.

A capped ram is a battering ram that has an accessory at the head ( usually made of iron or steel and sometimes punningly shaped into the head and horns of an ovine ram ) to do more damage to a building.

Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia describes a battering ram used in mining, where hard rock needed to be broken down to release the ore.

A modern battering ram.

the battering ram's log was slung from a wheeled frame by ropes or chains so that it could be made more massive and be more easily bashed against its target.

When a larger attack was made at night two days later the iconoclasts had provided themselves with a tree trunk as a battering ram, and finally succeeded in breaking through the doors.

The gate of the city was broken by a combination of the battering ram Grond and the Witch-king's sorcery.

Striking along the Danube, they overran the military centers of Ratiaria and successfully besieged Naissus ( modern Niš ) with battering rams and rolling towers ( military sophistication that was new to the Hun repertory ), then, pushing along the Nisava, they took Serdica ( Sofia ), Philippopolis ( Plovdiv ) and Arcadiopolis ( Luleburgaz ).

In his last communication to them, Napoleon warned them not to imitate the Greeks of the late Byzantine Empire, who engaged in subtle discussions when the ram was battering at their gates.

The earliest engine was the battering ram, developed by the Assyrians, followed by the catapult in ancient Greece.

However, angry crowds and violence reappeared the following night as the newly elected Mayor of Detroit, Coleman Young, declared Chinarian's $ 500 bond " ridiculously low " ( it was raised to $ 25, 000 ); using a car as a battering ram, the crowd stormed and ransacked Bolton's Bar.

The use of vehicles as battering rams was common.

A few months later, he was arrested for thefts using cars as battering rams to enter private properties.

Decades of battering by the ocean has eroded the pylon, which was one of three pylons built to anchor a shark net following a fatal attack in 1925.

The rampart was complete in the spring of 73, after probably two to three months of siege, allowing the Romans to finally breach the wall of the fortress with a battering ram on April 16.

In January 1944, the Division was back in II Corps front line battering at the Bernhardt Line defenses.

Soon, the Tactical Patrol Force ( TPF ), originally trained to deal with war protests, were called in to control the mob, which was now using a parking meter as a battering ram.

Staggered, Ritchie was laid open to a battering, but stayed on his feet until the end of the fight.

In 1851, when the escaped Anthony Burns was threatened with extradition under the Fugitive Slave Act, Higginson led a small group who stormed the federal courthouse in Boston with battering rams, axes, cleavers, and revolvers.

For protection, a battering ram was suspended in a mobile shelter called a tortoise, or testudo.

The nearby construction site at the post office ( intended to replace the previous post office, which is now the San Jose Museum of Art ) was raided for materials to make a battering ram.

After leaving harbour in Oswego, New York on what was by all accounts a beautiful day, Marsh was suddenly overtaken by a violent storm and the battering waves ruptured her seams.

The storm was most powerful on November 9, battering and overturning ships on four of the five Great Lakes, particularly Lake Huron.

The decision to change this terminology was based on a changing body of research indicating there is more than one pattern to battering and a more inclusive definition was necessary to more accurately represent the realities of domestic violence.