" Then, give both sets of gallows plenty of captives to practice their technique on."
Based on this mornings report of the gallows decapitation of Soddom's half-brother, it sounds as if they need a bit more practice.
It sounds as if they had too far a drop or too many ankle weights.
Weight-drop distance tables are out there if they can do the arithmetic.
Well, it's not like that kinda stuff never happened in the U.S...