[Pan_Yan]

"They were armed with catapults, stones, machetes, axes, knives, clubs and iron bars," the paper quoted a police source saying.

Catapults? "Achmed, grab the catapults. You never know if we might need to breech some ramparts."

[Pan_Yan]

Breach, not breech. Oops.

[BwanaNdege]

“catapults” = Slingshots in Brit-Speak.

Zimbabwe English is a form of Brit-Speak.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Catapults are really, really old school! Ahhh, I long for the days of catapults, battering rams, siege towers, and flaming arrows! Any one for some boiling hot oil?

[Clive]

Pan_Yan wrote:

"Catapults? "Achmed, grab the catapults. You never know if we might need to breech some ramparts.""

Yanks call them "slingshots". This Americanism has begun to creep into British usage also. Apparently not so in southern African English.

The term "slingshot" originally meant a sling with a receptacle for a stone. The stone was launched by swinging the stone laden sling in a circle and then releasing it so that the stone flew off at a tangent from the point of release. That is how David killed Goliath