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Author Topic: practical scientific advancement.  (Read 3626 times)

blue sam3

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Re: practical scientific advancement.
« Reply #60 on: December 31, 2010, 05:47:47 am »

Quote
Agreed, but keep in mind that firearms from 1300's up to ~1500 were pretty crude, and close quarters combat was still extremely common (if not dominant), knights and stuff included!  What changed the face of combat more than anything, at least in Europe, was the rise of the lower classes, which (though guns were a factor) could have happened with or without guns, as it was an economic phenomenon more than anything.  That and cannons.  Cannons had way more effect than guns.  Basically, with certain areas becoming more economically stable and, with it, the ability to fund large centralized professional armies composed of non-nobility (armed with things like pikes, crossbows, and, later on, guns), and a subsequent loss of reliance on the feudal system to provide protection (as in nobles (knights) being responsible for raising their share of an army), the role of the noble on the battlefield waned, and it no longer became financially appealing to fund the training of an elite noble warrior essentially from birth that would give you shit and oppose you if you didn't appease them.  Sure, guns could kill a knight (or anyone for that matter) in one hit if you were lucky.  Again, keep in mind well into the 1400's, a knight's armour was frequently made to be able to withstand the strongest guns and crossbows at the time that could be held by a footman.  Guns were important, but even then, there were other weapons (like the crossbow) that existed for much longer that could accomplish the same things as guns (i.e. kill an armoured knight in one hit if lucky).  And there was the pike, which combined with the afore mentioned ability of city-states and centralized governments to field large armies of non-nobility armed with said weapon, was as much (if not more so) the bane of the knight as the gun.  The pike is an ancient technology.  So were large pike formations.  The economics and political situation of the time determined the nature of warfare as much (if not more so) than technology throughout the middle ages, even up to ~1500, which is beyond the cut-off point.  I hope I make sense.   

Just to add to this, Wellington requested a squad of longbowmen at the battle of Waterloo (1815). Right up to the turn of the century, the longbow was vastly more powerful than any gun available. The only reason that guns were preferred was that you could train someone to fire a musket reasonably quickly in a week, whereas training an archer was a matter of committing years to it. Perhaps something similar could be implemented, with bows training very slowly from virtually useless without skill to deadly killing machines at high skill, whilst other ranged weapons (crossbows?) could be pretty decent without skill and not change much as the user grows more skilled.
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Andeerz

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Re: practical scientific advancement.
« Reply #61 on: January 01, 2011, 10:42:13 pm »

Capntastic?  :3  If you don't respond to my post, it's cool.  I really wanna know what you think, though.  Forgive my bumpage.
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