Medieval weapons remain in lartgescale use into gunpowder age

[Riain]

The Spanish tercio had lots of pikes, and until the socket bayonet was invented, surpirsingly late, pole weapons were still common. Other weapons such as swords were also useful as melee weapons for things like boarding ships until very recently. It was the fast firing weapons like revolvers and magazine rifles that really killed the edged weapon because in a melee you could engage several targets, rather than one and then stop to reload.

 

[abas]

The Huns and other Central Asian nomads used composite bows, not compound. Composite refers to a bow made by gluing together various materials, such as wood, bone, and/or horn, to create a stronger bow. Compound bows are a modern invention and use pulleys, etc to make the pull strength of the bow relatively low but the arrow still flies as if you were pulling much harder (sort of like how you can use pulleys to lift huge weights that you would be incapable of otherwise).

Thanks. I thougt "compound" refer to bow with limbs and handle from different pieces.