Hello, I am writing a fantasy novel, and one character is seeking to buy equipment for an army. So what I would be thankful for is costs of weapons, such as crossbows, halberds,and siege equipment, including ammo. How many ships would be needed for 500 halberds, 300 crossbows, 10 ballistas, and around 250,000 crossbow bolts?
I've tried googling, but did not find the cost of crossbows, or halberds, let alone shipping costs.
I'mm afraid I can't really help with the costs ... but the English ship Mary Rose which sank in 1545 was carrying similar numbers of weapons:
50 handguns, 250 longbows, 300 pole arms, 480 darts to throw from the fighting tops and a wealth of arrows.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/tudors/mary_rose_01.shtml
Consider that Mary Rose was a warship, and those individual arms were secondary to her main armament. I think it's reasonable to assume that those arms could be carried by a single ship.
Also:
250,000 crossbow bolts sounds like a awful lot for 300 crossbows. How big an army is our character expecting to face? Just counting the number of weapons you have a force of ~1,000 individuals. If they're facing an army of 50,000, they're outnumbered 50:1 yet they have enough bolts to kill the enemy 5x over. ;)
A ballista would likely be transported disassembled and the wooden parts might well be sourced on site.