This, maybe Europeans would be noguns for a century or two longer than historically or invent some shitty metallic flash powder that would work as a worse alternative, but by the time European science really took off the discovery of proper gunpowder was inevitable.
Also worth noting that air guns good enough for hunting and military use were being made as early as the 1600s.
The progression of early firearms and cannons was almost entirely limited by metallurgy and metalworking techniques for the creation of a large, barrel, as well as the availability and cost of the metal.
That said, if gunpowder was invented significantly later, the armoured knight problem may have been solved by an early form of flamethrower as pressurized vessels and petroleum products became possible around the same time that cannons and man portable gun barrels would have been.
Another possibility is that high explosives too powerful for containing in a re-usable barrel, such as early fulminate compounds or dynamite, may have resulted in a move to grenadiers. assisted by horse drawn/chariot mounted siege catapults or man portable slings being used en masse in field battles.
Either way, I think its unlikely that the classical heavily armoured knight + ranged bow/crossbowman would continue as the peak form of combat for much longer past the 1300s
It's almost universally accepted that the fire lance was a gunpowder weapon and these have been phisically dated well before 1300, and given that these weapons are clearly depicted and written about even earlier its likely the Chinese used gunpowder in a limited capacity for a very long time indeed
This shit can be carbon dated by anyone, stop being a moron.
also the only physical evidence is some shitty MONGOL balls not chinese
whether they were actually bombs is debatable too
LITERALLY zero evidence of chinese gunpowder or weapons until the europeans got it
Fire lances date back much earlier, and given both the design and depictions of them nobody seriously questions the date of gunpowder.
What else is a fire lance? The worlds worst mace? Was it full of somthing else like flammable oil? Acid?
1800-COME-ON-NOW
The Chinese weren't the only ones to discover gunpowder but they were the first we've got a record of.
The phisical weapons are made of metal, survived intact just like an ancient Greek sword, and were carbon dated the exact same way.
It helped that the fire lance is a huge chunk of metal. Often I think a cupro-nickle or banded iron.
also the only physical evidence is some shitty MONGOL balls not chinese
whether they were actually bombs is debatable too
LITERALLY zero evidence of chinese gunpowder or weapons until the europeans got it
Since the Chinese did nothing important with gunpowder and the neibours of the Chinese lacked the associated technology to utilise it nothing changes. I assume its discovered by someone else between 0AD and 1500AD and the British get it just the same.
What made gunpowder useful was
A. Advanced casting, to make cannons other than mortars/petards
B. Welding, to make man portable firearms.
C . The understanding of elemential chemistry needed to make pure base chemicals.
D. The understanding of the handling of gunpowder, things like static electricity. Remember nobody knew about electricity at the time gunpowder was created.
That's why for a centurary gunpowder was used for nothing but petards, petards on poles, fire cracker and crude rockets.
Also as its often pointed out, gunpowder only gained dominance in the peculiar intersection between massed levvies and artilery.
It's effectively a pike with twenty meters range, used by peasant's to defend some kind of seige weapon.
Before the seige weapon, the limited mobility of infantry would have seen them outmanoeuvred, unable to protect their baggage wagons when dispersed, and venurable as a whole to light infantry.
A formation of muskets unironically loses to a formation of skirmishers armed with javlin/war darts and short swords. The muskets get zulu'd.
And when standing armies are maintained cavalry and bowmen are more effective one to one then muskets. Archers can fire volleys over cover/slopes, archers have a logistical advantage, archers have a suppressive advantage.
Cavalry will cause disproportionate damage and scatter formations.
Basically musket only became meta when levvied collial forces were deployed as police, because the English farmer caste could kill the foreign warrior caste.
And when stationary weapons became devastating enough that levvying farmers to protect them was worthwhile.
The professional army was made up of artillery, peasant's with pike were conscripted to defend the artillery, the musket was effectively the upgrade of the pike- not as is commonly thought the crossbow
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Great_Inventions#Analysis >The origin of the Three Great Inventions—these being the printing press, firearms, and the nautical compass—was originally ascribed to Europe, and specifically to Germany in the case of the printing press and firearms. These inventions were a badge of honor to modern Europeans, who proclaimed that there was nothing to equal them among the ancient Greeks and Romans.
basically proves that europe were the ones to actually invent gunpowder
Gunpowder only became relevent with the invention of the firearm, but gunpowder itself existed for at least a thousand years before that without any real consequence.
The fire lance upset pikeman, it was the dane axe of its day. Nobody else cared.
>gunpowder itself existed for at least a thousand years before that
do you have proof? >inb4 muh fire lance
already addressed above, also your skepticism of the existence of flammable oil (
This shit can be carbon dated by anyone, stop being a moron.
[...]
Fire lances date back much earlier, and given both the design and depictions of them nobody seriously questions the date of gunpowder.
What else is a fire lance? The worlds worst mace? Was it full of somthing else like flammable oil? Acid?
1800-COME-ON-NOW
The Chinese weren't the only ones to discover gunpowder but they were the first we've got a record of.
) is risible given the existence of oil lamps - with carbon dated oil residue - dating back to thousands of years BC.
>How is combat changed by this?
not at all, since they never really used it in warfare, and the europeans - who did - discovered gunpowder independently of the chinese.
Probably eventually discovered later
This, maybe Europeans would be noguns for a century or two longer than historically or invent some shitty metallic flash powder that would work as a worse alternative, but by the time European science really took off the discovery of proper gunpowder was inevitable.
Also worth noting that air guns good enough for hunting and military use were being made as early as the 1600s.
We get epic steam or compressed air powered slingshot machines
>How is combat changed by this?
It isn't. That's kinda the whole point innit
The progression of early firearms and cannons was almost entirely limited by metallurgy and metalworking techniques for the creation of a large, barrel, as well as the availability and cost of the metal.
That said, if gunpowder was invented significantly later, the armoured knight problem may have been solved by an early form of flamethrower as pressurized vessels and petroleum products became possible around the same time that cannons and man portable gun barrels would have been.
Another possibility is that high explosives too powerful for containing in a re-usable barrel, such as early fulminate compounds or dynamite, may have resulted in a move to grenadiers. assisted by horse drawn/chariot mounted siege catapults or man portable slings being used en masse in field battles.
Either way, I think its unlikely that the classical heavily armoured knight + ranged bow/crossbowman would continue as the peak form of combat for much longer past the 1300s
>1300's
Bro, the fucking Battle of Agincourt wouldn't happen for another 100 years.
There are hundreds of recorded Chinese gunpowder-esque recipes for pyrotechnic powders, mostly of poor quality, over the course of a millennium.
It would have, and probably was, independently discovered at various times and places by alchemists. Nothing really changes.
because the chinese didn't invent gunpowder
literally zero hard evidence of gunpowder until 1300ish which is the same time as the europeans got it
It's almost universally accepted that the fire lance was a gunpowder weapon and these have been phisically dated well before 1300, and given that these weapons are clearly depicted and written about even earlier its likely the Chinese used gunpowder in a limited capacity for a very long time indeed
>clearly depicted and written about
yeah you actually trust chinese historians? lol lmao
This shit can be carbon dated by anyone, stop being a moron.
Fire lances date back much earlier, and given both the design and depictions of them nobody seriously questions the date of gunpowder.
What else is a fire lance? The worlds worst mace? Was it full of somthing else like flammable oil? Acid?
1800-COME-ON-NOW
The Chinese weren't the only ones to discover gunpowder but they were the first we've got a record of.
>This shit can be carbon dated by anyone, stop being a moron.
you carbon date the paper and ink
not when it was actually written
The phisical weapons are made of metal, survived intact just like an ancient Greek sword, and were carbon dated the exact same way.
It helped that the fire lance is a huge chunk of metal. Often I think a cupro-nickle or banded iron.
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/thousands-of-fake-artifacts-force-closure-of-chinese-museum-26150
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-china-is-rewriting-the-book-on-human-origins/
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2001/11/01/abundance-of-sophisticated-fakes-in-china-causes-widespread-worries
literally nothing in chinese history is true tbh
also the only physical evidence is some shitty MONGOL balls not chinese
whether they were actually bombs is debatable too
LITERALLY zero evidence of chinese gunpowder or weapons until the europeans got it
Since the Chinese did nothing important with gunpowder and the neibours of the Chinese lacked the associated technology to utilise it nothing changes. I assume its discovered by someone else between 0AD and 1500AD and the British get it just the same.
What made gunpowder useful was
A. Advanced casting, to make cannons other than mortars/petards
B. Welding, to make man portable firearms.
C . The understanding of elemential chemistry needed to make pure base chemicals.
D. The understanding of the handling of gunpowder, things like static electricity. Remember nobody knew about electricity at the time gunpowder was created.
That's why for a centurary gunpowder was used for nothing but petards, petards on poles, fire cracker and crude rockets.
Also as its often pointed out, gunpowder only gained dominance in the peculiar intersection between massed levvies and artilery.
It's effectively a pike with twenty meters range, used by peasant's to defend some kind of seige weapon.
Before the seige weapon, the limited mobility of infantry would have seen them outmanoeuvred, unable to protect their baggage wagons when dispersed, and venurable as a whole to light infantry.
A formation of muskets unironically loses to a formation of skirmishers armed with javlin/war darts and short swords. The muskets get zulu'd.
And when standing armies are maintained cavalry and bowmen are more effective one to one then muskets. Archers can fire volleys over cover/slopes, archers have a logistical advantage, archers have a suppressive advantage.
Cavalry will cause disproportionate damage and scatter formations.
Basically musket only became meta when levvied collial forces were deployed as police, because the English farmer caste could kill the foreign warrior caste.
And when stationary weapons became devastating enough that levvying farmers to protect them was worthwhile.
The professional army was made up of artillery, peasant's with pike were conscripted to defend the artillery, the musket was effectively the upgrade of the pike- not as is commonly thought the crossbow
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Great_Inventions#Analysis
>The origin of the Three Great Inventions—these being the printing press, firearms, and the nautical compass—was originally ascribed to Europe, and specifically to Germany in the case of the printing press and firearms. These inventions were a badge of honor to modern Europeans, who proclaimed that there was nothing to equal them among the ancient Greeks and Romans.
basically proves that europe were the ones to actually invent gunpowder
Gunpowder only became relevent with the invention of the firearm, but gunpowder itself existed for at least a thousand years before that without any real consequence.
The fire lance upset pikeman, it was the dane axe of its day. Nobody else cared.
>gunpowder itself existed for at least a thousand years before that
do you have proof?
>inb4 muh fire lance
already addressed above, also your skepticism of the existence of flammable oil (
) is risible given the existence of oil lamps - with carbon dated oil residue - dating back to thousands of years BC.
>How is combat changed by this?
not at all, since they never really used it in warfare, and the europeans - who did - discovered gunpowder independently of the chinese.