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Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
General history question, posed as a daft Time Travel scenario.

Let’s say that, for whatever reason, you have a working

When Harry Turtledove's "Guns of the South" came out, there was some discussion about whether AKs (or any other modern firearm) could turn the tide of a war.

I think an argument can be made that without the right tactics, communication, and the aforementioned logistics, it wouldn't do much. A more practical thing would be to carry back some antibiotics or germ theory since losses from disease were greater than those in battle for the vast majority of human history. Having your army stay healthy while the other one was wracked with fever would be huge.

I'm,not entirely sure about that. Looking at the performance difference between units with repeating rifles at the time, and ones without, and it's pretty stark (See Wilder's Lightening Brigade). Remember, the reason that Repeating Rifles weren't common had nothing to do with their preformance in the field, but rather concerns about logistics.

Yeah, it was the penny pinchers in the budget office who didn't want to pay for the extra ammo cost of repeaters. Which is why the US almost made it into the 20th century with a single shot breachloader being standard issue. Plus the rifles themselves were way more expensive too.

Nobody doubted their effectiveness, and those who had the money would buy their own if they could. And many regiments that were privately funded were equipped with them. But for standard government issue you would get the cheapest possible thing. Brown besses were still being issued in the US civil war for this reason.

 Just Tony wrote:
As a fan of Clint Eastwood movies, particularly Pale Rider, my little brother was champing at the bit to get this and he finally got it.

Follow up to this one: My brother picked up the alternate cylinder for this pistol, which allows it to fire forty five long colt instead of the precussion cap cylinder that it came with. He already took the new cylinder on a test drive in the gun and was surprised that how accurate it is.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Remember, the reason that Repeating Rifles weren't common had nothing to do with their preformance in the field, but rather concerns about logistics.

There's also difficulty of mass production, and maintenance in the field (this is long before the era of interchangeable parts), but yeah, money and ammunition were massive concerns for both sides. Plus when you start looking at systems like the Henry, metallic-cased ammunition was a cutting-edge technology that was difficult to provide in large quantities. A soldier given loose powder, paper, and lead could (with his own bullet mold) assemble cartridges in the field for whatever caliber weapon he was issued. Percussion caps were more sophisticated, but also easy to transport. In contrast the rimfire .44 cartridge used on the Henry (let alone the sealed 'rocket ball' of its Volcanic predecessor) was complicated to manufacture, heavy to move, and could not be produced anywhere near the front lines.

It wasn't just a matter of the guns, too; lack of live-fire training meant most infantry fought well below its theoretical capability despite the advances in small arms technology. Paddy Griffith's Battle Tactics of the Civil War disagrees with the typical framing of the American Civil War as the first 'modern' war and instead presents it as the last Napoleonic war, and contains several firsthand accounts of infantry battalions opening fire at 50-150yds from the enemy and expending all their ammunition without resolution. It also makes the case that the average soldier must have sustained a very low rate of fire- much slower than the 15-20 second reloads usually described for percussion cap muzzle-loaders- as these units could remain in contact for hours without resupply or resolution despite standard ammunition loads only being 40-80 rounds. A repeating rifle could be a decisive firepower advantage, but only for as long as ammunition held out.

 Just Tony wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
As a fan of Clint Eastwood movies, particularly Pale Rider, my little brother was champing at the bit to get this and he finally got it.

Follow up to this one: My brother picked up the alternate cylinder for this pistol, which allows it to fire forty five long colt instead of the precussion cap cylinder that it came with. He already took the new cylinder on a test drive in the gun and was surprised that how accurate it is.

Very nice- can those 1858 repros handle full-power .45LC? I know with the Colts that lack a top strap, you're supposed to stick to cowboy loads.

So on antique guns? The type you can buy and sell without worrying about licenses?

What happens if you modernise it in anyway? Is that even possible?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
So on antique guns? The type you can buy and sell without worrying about licenses?

What happens if you modernise it in anyway? Is that even possible?

how antique are we talking about?

18 century musket? 19th century one? Regular ammo using rifles of the start of the 20th century?

Big difference.

Can't think of any modernisation beyond strapping an optic on it somehow, and I guess that wouldn't change anything. At least as far as french law is concerned.

 catbarf wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Remember, the reason that Repeating Rifles weren't common had nothing to do with their preformance in the field, but rather concerns about logistics.

There's also difficulty of mass production, and maintenance in the field (this is long before the era of interchangeable parts), but yeah, money and ammunition were massive concerns for both sides. Plus when you start looking at systems like the Henry, metallic-cased ammunition was a cutting-edge technology that was difficult to provide in large quantities. A soldier given loose powder, paper, and lead could (with his own bullet mold) assemble cartridges in the field for whatever caliber weapon he was issued. Percussion caps were more sophisticated, but also easy to transport. In contrast the rimfire .44 cartridge used on the Henry (let alone the sealed 'rocket ball' of its Volcanic predecessor) was complicated to manufacture, heavy to move, and could not be produced anywhere near the front lines.

It wasn't just a matter of the guns, too; lack of live-fire training meant most infantry fought well below its theoretical capability despite the advances in small arms technology. Paddy Griffith's Battle Tactics of the Civil War disagrees with the typical framing of the American Civil War as the first 'modern' war and instead presents it as the last Napoleonic war, and contains several firsthand accounts of infantry battalions opening fire at 50-150yds from the enemy and expending all their ammunition without resolution. It also makes the case that the average soldier must have sustained a very low rate of fire- much slower than the 15-20 second reloads usually described for percussion cap muzzle-loaders- as these units could remain in contact for hours without resupply or resolution despite standard ammunition loads only being 40-80 rounds. A repeating rifle could be a decisive firepower advantage, but only for as long as ammunition held out.

 Just Tony wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
As a fan of Clint Eastwood movies, particularly Pale Rider, my little brother was champing at the bit to get this and he finally got it.

Follow up to this one: My brother picked up the alternate cylinder for this pistol, which allows it to fire forty five long colt instead of the precussion cap cylinder that it came with. He already took the new cylinder on a test drive in the gun and was surprised that how accurate it is.

Very nice- can those 1858 repros handle full-power .45LC? I know with the Colts that lack a top strap, you're supposed to stick to cowboy loads.

I'll voice your concerns to him and see if he's researched it. To be continued...

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
So on antique guns? The type you can buy and sell without worrying about licenses?

What happens if you modernise it in anyway? Is that even possible?

From a practical standpoint this isn't really possible.

Sure, you could take a pre-1886(?) gun and rechamber it in a modern cartridge. I don't think that would technically change its legal status, however doing that would likely result in an unsafe gun. Modern ammunition is operating at much higher pressures than older guns and the breach may not be strong enough.

Now, for a lot of black powder revolvers in the late 1800s there were conversion kits made to convert those revolvers to modern cased ammunition. And you could theoretically do the same thing to a modern reproduction of any of those revolvers. But then that revolver would no longer be a black powder(and unregulated) item. That isn't illegal in the US, you will have to register it if you live in an un-fun state of course.

I remember a talk I had to attend at the War College, about how a company of trained Longbow archers would have defeated a regiment of trained Musket/rifle wielding troops, based of volume of fire alone. A trained longbowman could shoot 5 arrows to ever 1 musket shot, and at double the range.

Depends on the musket in question. Rifle armed troops, even muzzle loading rifles, would be an issue for the longbows.

Early muskets would be outranged by longbows, but not the later ones. Certainly not at any range where accuracy is expected. Rifled muskets would absolutely outrange longbows in terms of accurate ranges and they would rip the longbows apart. Rate of fire does go to the longbows of course.

One thing to remember is that when rifled muskets started to appear, they were usually given to elite irregular troops. Soldiers who didn't fight in formation and took cover while fighting, and also aimed specifically for officers.

A unit of irregulars armed with rifled muskets would disperse and quickly annihilate a unit of longbowmen. The fight would last longer if the longbowmen also dispersed, but the edge would still go to the rifles.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I remember a talk I had to attend at the War College, about how a company of trained Longbow archers would have defeated a regiment of trained Musket/rifle wielding troops, based of volume of fire alone. A trained longbowman could shoot 5 arrows to ever 1 musket shot, and at double the range.

I can speak to that! At a certain point, yes, a trained bowman was equal or greater than a firearm user. The primary difference was the time to train one. A longbowman who can sustain that firing pace, range and accuracy, took years, if not a lifetime to develop. Many medieval skeletons can be identified as longbowman purely by the skeletal deformations caused by those sustained efforts.

Conversely, you can teach a conscript to handle a musket in formation in a month's time, and probably to fire from a fixed position in a week.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Depends on the musket in question. Rifle armed troops, even muzzle loading rifles, would be an issue for the longbows.

Early muskets would be outranged by longbows, but not the later ones. Certainly not at any range where accuracy is expected. Rifled muskets would absolutely outrange longbows in terms of accurate ranges and they would rip the longbows apart. Rate of fire does go to the longbows of course.

One thing to remember is that when rifled muskets started to appear, they were usually given to elite irregular troops. Soldiers who didn't fight in formation and took cover while fighting, and also aimed specifically for officers.

A unit of irregulars armed with rifled muskets would disperse and quickly annihilate a unit of longbowmen. The fight would last longer if the longbowmen also dispersed, but the edge would still go to the rifles.

Actually earlier muskets tended to be longer ranged than later muskets (not counting rifles). They had bigger charges and longer barrels. The more elite operators also had the skill to use them better for longer effective ranges, cast their own shot to eliminate windage etc.

Longbowmen also suffered from the socioeconomic factor of needing a long training period to ge t the required musculature and an extensive logistics system for replacement yew staves and arrows. Most of Europe was drained of old growth yew by England in that period. So losses were much harder to replace.

We've talked about this earlier in the thread, it's a bugbear of mine. There's a lot of sheer bs attached to the longbow that downplays the effectiveness of early modern firearms in comparison. Much of it comes from late-19th/early-20th century romanticism over the 'old ways'- the longbow was a symbol of the English national spirit, while the crude and ineffective firearm allegedly represented the rise of industrialized warfare.

In reality, it is no coincidence that arquebusiers and musketeers came about at the same time that warfare came to be dominated not by peasant levies (those are your bowmen), but by professional mercenaries and eventually standing armies. Early modern firearms were expensive, complicated, and downright dangerous to operate in battle (handling loose powder simultaneously with a length of rope burning from both ends while crammed shoulder-to-shoulder), but they were adopted en masse because the sheer effectiveness was worth the cost of hiring professionals. Not the decades-of-practice-producing-bone-spurs level of training associated with the English longbow, but no contemporary sources portray arquebusiers as easy to train, and on the contrary there are many accounts that describe firearms as effective but requiring far more extensive training in their use than crossbowmen or pikemen.

When you see comparisons that show bows as having three times the range or whatever, it's usually comparing the maximum travel range of a flight arrow (not a war arrow) fired by an English longbow by an experienced and physically fresh archer, against the direct-fire range of a typical arquebusier. Basically, about as disingenuous a comparison as you can get- the overwhelming consensus of first-hand accounts from the 16th century is that bows had significantly lesser range and this was a military liability, to say nothing of the terminal effect on target. Rate of fire might be a credible advantage for bows, but there's no evidence to suggest that this was considered militarily relevant, particularly with the difficulty of maintaining a high rate of fire along with the sheer inaccuracy of plunging fire due to lesser direct-fire range.

It's worth observing that A. by the time of the English Civil War, longbowmen were still available and did participate in the conflict but were relegated to second-rate assignments, while musketeers were better-paid and part of the regular army, and B. virtually every historical example of bow-wielding forces facing gun-wielding ones resulted in a victory for the latter and subsequent adoption of the gun by the former as soon as possible. There are basically no historical incidents that bear out the notion of trained bowmen being superior combatants, and a lot of accounts of people who did take bows up against matchlock firearms (native Americans vs European colonists, Koreans vs Japanese, Royalist militias vs Roundheads) lamenting how outclassed they were.

I am happy to dive into my literature to provide sources for any of the above claims, but tl;dr: No, longbows did not outclass early firearms, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. It's a hoary old myth that needs to be buried alongside the Victorians who made it up.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Haighus wrote:
Actually earlier muskets tended to be longer ranged than later muskets (not counting rifles). They had bigger charges and longer barrels.

This is partially a terminology thing. The 18th-century musket represented a convergence of what had previously been two different weapons during the 15th-17th centuries, the musket (big, heavy, usually fired from a forked rest) and the arquebus (light, man-portable, could be fired from the shoulder). Most forces that made heavy use of firearms during the 1500s-1600s maintained some balance of the two within the shot elements, usually 5-20% musketeers. The heavier weapons required greater physical stature to employ and were less suited to retiring by rank, but were capable of killing armored cavalry in formation at as much as 500yds, and were well-paid. Improvements in metallurgy gradually reduced the weight of the musket while increasing the power of the arquebus until they became a single weapon type, while the role of the larger, longer-ranged gun was subsumed by swivel guns and other light artillery pieces.

Here's a quick article that compares the performance of the two types, and also dives into the significance of the operator to poor battlefield performance.

Great post Catbarf, fully agree.

One caveat for the longbow is that it was favoured by many over handguns in a naval context until the late 16th century. That may be to do with difficulties keeping powder dry and managing matches on ships.

Also, longbowmen weren't good just because of the bows in their heyday (14th-15th century)- they were also highly effective light infantry and could frequently hold their own in a melee if push came to shove. This skill doesn't come from nowhere though and doesn't seem to have been there in later periods.

While the Welsh Longbow was doubtlessly an effective weapon, the more important factor was that Englishmen from the relevant time period were all required to attend weekly training in its use along with drill instruction. Which basically meant that the vast majority of English peasants were actually trained soldiers as opposed to the typical European peasant who might be handed a crossbow or a spear and at best be given a few days of training when called to war.

You could have gotten very good results out of this system no matter what weapon was chosen.

I don't think it was regarding "Range" as the winning factor, it was about how 50 trained men shooting 5 arrows a minute would completely ruin the day of 500 men firing 1-2 rounds per minute. Also, given that again, civil war military docterine was to get as close as possible before wasting shot, 200-300 meters, this meant the Archers would be shooting all while the riflemen would be advancing. That was the point. How "Doctrine" had lagged behind technology. And how we had this powerful new military tool, that was being used in the same way as they did in by-gone eras.

The speakers were using it as an analogous argument for how the asymmetric warfare model had died, and the new form of war was out-striping the current technology, and we needed to stop relying on the previous model when designing weapons/FM-11s. "React to Ambush" in the Army Manual is still used today, even though it's been basically made irrelevant by the I E D and the mode of warfare from behind Civilians.

What good is the A-10 when no one drives tanks on a battlefield? What good is the Linebacker when you opponent doesn't have planes?

Basically, stop relying on tactics designed around old Equipment/thought.

Warfare was very different by the Napoleonic wars or US civil wars though. Sure, a unit of highly trained, veteran longbowmen from 1415 might have been able to defeat a similarly-sized typical unit of conscripted musketeers from 1805, but there would be a hell of a lot more musketeers, and you could replace conscript musketeers much easier. Plus, artillery was far more advanced and any infantryman dies just as easily to the roundshot fired from the hill a mile away.

The socioeconomics of infantry that took a lifetime to train wasn't there when they still die to cannon fire or get swamped by 30 conscripts, or there would be a greater proportion of elite musketeers than there were by that point. As Catbarf's article points out, it isn't that longbows are better than muskets (they generally are not), it is that elite infantry is better than poorly trained rabble.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
.

What good is the A-10 when no one drives tanks on a battlefield?

The same thing it is good for when there are enemy tanks present, morale booster for the infantry and recruitment ad back home

 Haighus wrote:
Warfare was very different by the Napoleonic wars or US civil wars though. Sure, a unit of highly trained, veteran longbowmen from 1415 might have been able to defeat a similarly-sized typical unit of conscripted musketeers from 1805, but there would be a hell of a lot more musketeers, and you could replace conscript musketeers much easier. Plus, artillery was far more advanced and any infantryman dies just as easily to the roundshot fired from the hill a mile away.

The socioeconomics of infantry that took a lifetime to train wasn't there when they still die to cannon fire or get swamped by 30 conscripts, or there would be a greater proportion of elite musketeers than there were by that point. As Catbarf's article points out, it isn't that longbows are better than muskets (they generally are not), it is that elite infantry is better than poorly trained rabble.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
.

What good is the A-10 when no one drives tanks on a battlefield?

The same thing it is good for when there are enemy tanks present, morale booster for the infantry and recruitment ad back home

Tell that to the British troops that were slaughtered in the first wave of the 2003 Iraqi Invasion. The A-10 has killed more friendlies than Hostiles in it's lifespan, because it lacked the ability to tell a friendly tank from an hostile. Only in the last 5 years did they upgrade it with BFT/FOF targeting computers. But there were still Blue on blue casualties. The A-10 is just a silly gimmick trotted out by the Ameraboos because they like it go BRRRRT. It's a completely stupid designed system. For all CAS, I'd rather Apaches or F16s. The A-10 can't even SEED because it's too damn slow.

Speaking of silly older systems that we keep pushing updates onto. The BUFF. That thing's immortal. We just gave it new Rolls Royce Engines, AWACs grade radar, and Hypersonic Missiles. For a platform that was literally designed to end the world.

Sounds to me like a lot of fudd lore is being thrown around over here

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
Warfare was very different by the Napoleonic wars or US civil wars though. Sure, a unit of highly trained, veteran longbowmen from 1415 might have been able to defeat a similarly-sized typical unit of conscripted musketeers from 1805, but there would be a hell of a lot more musketeers, and you could replace conscript musketeers much easier. Plus, artillery was far more advanced and any infantryman dies just as easily to the roundshot fired from the hill a mile away.

The socioeconomics of infantry that took a lifetime to train wasn't there when they still die to cannon fire or get swamped by 30 conscripts, or there would be a greater proportion of elite musketeers than there were by that point. As Catbarf's article points out, it isn't that longbows are better than muskets (they generally are not), it is that elite infantry is better than poorly trained rabble.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
.

What good is the A-10 when no one drives tanks on a battlefield?

The same thing it is good for when there are enemy tanks present, morale booster for the infantry and recruitment ad back home

Tell that to the British troops that were slaughtered in the first wave of the 2003 Iraqi Invasion. The A-10 has killed more friendlies than Hostiles in it's lifespan, because it lacked the ability to tell a friendly tank from an hostile. Only in the last 5 years did they upgrade it with BFT/FOF targeting computers. But there were still Blue on blue casualties. The A-10 is just a silly gimmick trotted out by the Ameraboos because they like it go BRRRRT. It's a completely stupid designed system. For all CAS, I'd rather Apaches or F16s. The A-10 can't even SEED because it's too damn slow.

Speaking of silly older systems that we keep pushing updates onto. The BUFF. That thing's immortal. We just gave it new Rolls Royce Engines, AWACs grade radar, and Hypersonic Missiles. For a platform that was literally designed to end the world.

Not sure how you got the impression that I am a supporter of the A-10? I'm saying it is only really good as a morale booster (cool plane visibly goes brrrrt at the insurgents) and as a recruitment ad back home. The recruiters are one of the groups that lobbied to keep it in service when they tried to retire it.

Otherwise, other platforms do the role better.

 catbarf wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Remember, the reason that Repeating Rifles weren't common had nothing to do with their preformance in the field, but rather concerns about logistics.

There's also difficulty of mass production, and maintenance in the field (this is long before the era of interchangeable parts), but yeah, money and ammunition were massive concerns for both sides. Plus when you start looking at systems like the Henry, metallic-cased ammunition was a cutting-edge technology that was difficult to provide in large quantities. A soldier given loose powder, paper, and lead could (with his own bullet mold) assemble cartridges in the field for whatever caliber weapon he was issued. Percussion caps were more sophisticated, but also easy to transport. In contrast the rimfire .44 cartridge used on the Henry (let alone the sealed 'rocket ball' of its Volcanic predecessor) was complicated to manufacture, heavy to move, and could not be produced anywhere near the front lines.

It wasn't just a matter of the guns, too; lack of live-fire training meant most infantry fought well below its theoretical capability despite the advances in small arms technology. Paddy Griffith's Battle Tactics of the Civil War disagrees with the typical framing of the American Civil War as the first 'modern' war and instead presents it as the last Napoleonic war, and contains several firsthand accounts of infantry battalions opening fire at 50-150yds from the enemy and expending all their ammunition without resolution. It also makes the case that the average soldier must have sustained a very low rate of fire- much slower than the 15-20 second reloads usually described for percussion cap muzzle-loaders- as these units could remain in contact for hours without resupply or resolution despite standard ammunition loads only being 40-80 rounds. A repeating rifle could be a decisive firepower advantage, but only for as long as ammunition held out.

 Just Tony wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
As a fan of Clint Eastwood movies, particularly Pale Rider, my little brother was champing at the bit to get this and he finally got it.

Follow up to this one: My brother picked up the alternate cylinder for this pistol, which allows it to fire forty five long colt instead of the precussion cap cylinder that it came with. He already took the new cylinder on a test drive in the gun and was surprised that how accurate it is.

Very nice- can those 1858 repros handle full-power .45LC? I know with the Colts that lack a top strap, you're supposed to stick to cowboy loads.

My brother did his research on this and it is the brass frame weapons that cannot handle .45 Long Colt. His is a steel frame and he has no issues with it.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Sounds to me like a lot of fudd lore is being thrown around over here

Yeah I'd like to know where Fezzik is getting his knowledge from because most of his non sequiturs have been nonsense. Like, 'the A-10 has killed more friendlies than hostiles' is spectacularly bs- if someone at NWC is saying that, I want their name.

In any case, short engagement ranges with musketry were not due to technical incapability or doctrinal lag, I already gave a link that explains why this was the case, and there are tons of historical examples of trained bowmen going up against early firearms and losing badly, from the Englishmen who Blaise de Montluc fought to the Koreans who fought the Japanese during the Imjin War to the Russian militias who opposed Napoleon's army. We don't need to speculate.

 Just Tony wrote:
My brother did his research on this and it is the brass frame weapons that cannot handle .45 Long Colt. His is a steel frame and he has no issues with it.

Ah okay, that makes sense. In theory then those steel-frame 1851 Navy conversions ought to be usable with .45LC; might be worth looking into.

Also worth noting that historically, a lot of those older cartridge revolvers were converted to centerfire and used with full-power .45LC whether they could 'handle' it or not. It might not be strictly advisable in the long term, but the greatest risk is the guns loosening up to the point of mechanical malfunction rather than catastrophic failure, so I imagine you can catch that early if you're paying attention.

I've found that military schools and shotting ranges are two abundant sources of fudd lore, that is passes from instructor to pupil or from shooter to shooter to look smart, but few people ever actually bother checking or taking a deeper look at the subject.

That's also technically true, as in, when it comes to handling weapons or hobby gunsmithing. It's not really an absolutely widespread hobby I believe, tools and stuff are not easy to come across or really expensive often times, so you end up relyong either on the internet or that half crazed tinker next door that lanahes it with not totally adequate tools nonetheless but hope not to blow yourself in the process ! (Edit: talking about it not being that widespread in France, obviously!)

That's maybe a theme to react on.

My "Lore" comes from being an intelligence analyst for 10+ years, and working in planning groups trying to predict the next military need.

No one, not even Pierre Spray thought the A-10 was a needed asset. I'm not a traditionalist, but I do think the point of the anecdote concerning longbows and muskets is indicative of a trend by world power militaries. (UK/US/CHINA/GERMANY, etc)

"Modern" weapon systems are designed to meet needs that have never been found. The Musket was designed to defeat the metal armors, breast plate, etc. It needed to be stronger than an arrow. Now look at the civil war. Except for the early cases of tank warfare, no one was even wearing helmets. The standard garb was loose hand made cloth or denim clothing, with a like made hat. The purpose of the Musket was completely lost in the Civil War.

Hmm, I don't necessarily agree with Muskets being designed to defeat breastplates. Namely because at anything other than very close range they actually couldn't. They were more so adopted because they are relatively cheap and easy to train loads of unskilled conscripts with. And a man in armor on a horse might be immune to a single musket ball, but you're not just shooting him once and his horse definitely isn't immune.

Breastplates, and armor in general, went away not because they were useless vs guns at the time but because they were expensive to make. So armor slowly faded to disuse while guns became more powerful, mostly as a side effect of attempts to increase range and accuracy.

A flintlock musket, compared to a crossbow is cheaper. The gearing and springs are comparable, but the crossbow also requires very specific wood to make the arm and you need to manufacture the bolts. Bows require specially grown wood as well as craftsmen to make, meaning long lead times to make bows. A musket of course also requires an artisan to make, but its much more conducive to cranking out a lot of them. Ammo is also cheaper and easier to make for a musket than bolts or arrows. Bows also require years of training to make a soldier proficient.

So really the reason muskets rose to dominance was for logistical reasons more than specific mechanical advantages over the alternatives. Them being better than the alternatives arose after they had already replaced them.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
My "Lore" comes from being an intelligence analyst for 10+ years, and working in planning groups trying to predict the next military need.

That's nice and all, but that doesn't make you an historian, though.

 Grey Templar wrote:
So really the reason muskets rose to dominance was for logistical reasons more than specific mechanical advantages over the alternatives. Them being better than the alternatives arose after they had already replaced them.

For more history stuff;

If you go digging around, you'll find people as late as the 1700s arguing for the usefulness of bows in warfare. John Smith (for the Disney historical epic Pocahontas! /sarcasm) even wrote a book about it.

The rise of the gun really does have a lot to do with logistics and economics. While arguments would opine that trained archers could fire more accurately and more rapidly than gunners, gunners were so much quicker and easier to train to proficiency, and their weapons were much much cheaper to produce. There's a stacking effect here in the age before the true emergence of proper standing and professional armies as well. Guns being faster/cheaper to manufacture and easier to hand to your troops to ready them for battle is a big plus for guns as Europe transitioned from feudal era levies to early modern era where extremely long wars with on again/off again fighting seasons stressed logistics and economics, driving the European war makers toward the economic and logistical advantages of guns.

There is some counter evidence to this (Japan being a notable example where many battles swung on the backs of a relatively small number of gunners*) but it's the advent of rifling that probably put guns overly up and over the bow in terms of battlefield dominance on a technical level. Before the advent of rifling, a big thing that saw the rise of the gun (especially in Europe) was the economics of firearms and the kinds of armies European states/kingdoms were devising at the time. Plus the European concern with the threat of the Ottoman Empire who fully embraced using firearms early and kind of set into motion a rapid response in Christendom that also saw the rapid adoption of the gun.

*this is an interesting case that maybe hinges on our limited understanding of how Sengoku era Japanese armies really fought. Whole battles seemed to swing on as few as 500 men armed with guns, where the proper deployment of these soldiers could turn the battle in their side's favor. Archeological excavation and records of the famous battle of Nagashino reveals that both sides had about the same number of firearms, but it's Nobunaga's use of them that is legendary. The only qualitative physical evidence on the field though is interesting; Nobunaga seems to have had a lot more ammunition than his opponent and his gunners fired a disproportionately huge number of rounds. Combined with terrain advantage and tricking his enemy into thinking his force was smaller than it was, Nobunaga used 1500 gunners to deliver a fatal blow to his enemy, an outcome disproportionate to their numbers in his army.

Don't know if this is actually what happened, but I wonder if the reason Nobunaga's opponents took so much less ammo was because they were expecting that melee combat would be more of a factor. No sense lugging extra ammo to a battle if you're only going to get 2-3 volleys off. I could easily see someone thinking that "we're going to get stuck in after a short time, so no sense taking excessive ammo"

 Grey Templar wrote:
Don't know if this is actually what happened, but I wonder if the reason Nobunaga's opponents took so much less ammo was because they were expecting that melee combat would be more of a factor. No sense lugging extra ammo to a battle if you're only going to get 2-3 volleys off. I could easily see someone thinking that "we're going to get stuck in after a short time, so no sense taking excessive ammo"

I think I read somewhere that the Takeda had less faith in gun, so while they had about as many firearms as Nobunaga's force, they were not as prepared to build an entire battle plan around these weapons.

We can actually analyze their musketballs from the field. The Takeda force mostly had ammo manufactured in China that they presumably bought via Korea (at this time, China was refusing direct trade with Japan because things) so the Takeda were probably buying less ammo at higher cost. Nobunaga's force had ammo from China, Japan itself as Nobunaga had built up a domestic industry in his domain, and he was buying ammo from the Portuguese that has been traced to Portugal, Spain, and Italy. It seems probably that he straight up just had a lot more bullets than his enemy and was ready and willing to shoot to win.

It also rained before Nagashino, and it's possible the Takeda were not as careful about keeping their powder dry, while Nobunaga is noted to have taken special care to ensure his powder wasn't wet.