Caltrop bomb

A caltrop bomb with fuse casing

A caltrop bomb is a form of tactical explosive that dispersed small caltrops across the ground, rendering victims vulnerable during a fight.

History

During Piri Reis' teenage years, he sailed with his uncle Kemal as privateers in the Mediterranean Sea. On one trip to Rhodes, both men took much glee in luring many Knights Hospitaliers away from their posts into areas covered in caltrops, where the soldiers' rush to apprehend the two quickly turned to them hopping about in full armor trying not to impale their feet. When Piri reminisced about the knights' misfortune decades later, he said that "nothing [was] more undignified".

Around 1510, the Italian Assassins' Mentor Ezio Auditore assigned the Assassins Alif, Beatrice, Clara, and Domenico on a mission to sneak into Rome and seal the Venetian Staff of Eden within the Colosseum Vault. While in the city, the group used a caltrop bomb they had acquired to escape pursuit from a guard.

When Ezio visited Constantinople in 1511, he was introduced to Piri, who taught him how to craft and use caltrop bombs, as they could be made with any shell or gunpowder type combined with caltrops. The Ottoman Brotherhood had found them to be useful at impeding enemy movement due to the metal's pyramidic shape resulting at least one of the spikes always facing upwards when they landed on the ground. As such, the bombs used the force of the explosion to disperse these spikes across the blast radius, and anyone who stepped onto them was incapacitated by barbed spikes digging into their feet. With this in mind, Ezio used caltrop bombs to escape pursuers or to impede enemy movements while outnumbered.

Ezio could also deploy caltrop bomb-wielding Ottoman Assassins during a Den Defense. Whenever they struck a Templar with their bombs, the small spikes only caused minimal damage but significantly slowed their movement speed, allowing other units to make quick work of them. The Templars' heavy siege weapons were immune to these bombs because their size crushed the caltrops beneath their weight or embedded them into the ground.

Behind the scenes

The achievement "Mouse Trap" could be earned by using a caltrop bomb to halt a total of 5 guards and then killing them with a scaffold by destroying it with the Hookblade.

Gallery

Variations of caltrop bombs

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Revelations (first appearance)
• Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood of Venice – Roma