Alternative To Guns?
- Thread starter NKVD
- Start date
Chu-ko-nu? As in automatic crossbows, though they're less range-efficient.
Without hand guns you get a crossbow arms race, and possibly more reliance on the javelin.
Without hand guns you get a crossbow arms race, and possibly more reliance on the javelin.
That may lead to dart bullets such as fletches and the like. Perhaps with compressed airguns rather than gunpowder?
Now getting that compressed air is the engineering innovation TTL.
Would the butterflies eliminate guns specifically, or all gunpowder weapons? With gunpowder available, guns are going to exist in one form or another. Perhaps preventing gunpowder from reaching Europe in great quantities before ~19th century could give enough time for an innovation that makes guns obsolete?
the main reason why hand held guns were invented was to pierce knight's armor. so, if you eliminate the knights armor, you eliminate the need for guns.
the pod would need to be pretty far back to reverse the chain of events that lead to that though.
do you think flamethrowers or napalm like weapons could be invented?
The knight armor arms race was partly caused by the ascendancy of cavalry in Europe. Say if Adrianople goes differently, gunpowder may take slow adaption by infantry.
Cook
Banned
Once someone’s stumbled on the combination of sulphur, charcoal and potassium nitrate that explodes its use as some form of weapon seems to be inevitable.
But the original discovery was entirely accidental; remove it, or have the knowledge of it restricted to a curiosity known only to Taoist monks experimenting with medical alchemy and you have your butterfly.
But the original discovery was entirely accidental; remove it, or have the knowledge of it restricted to a curiosity known only to Taoist monks experimenting with medical alchemy and you have your butterfly.
You kind of already have that with ballistae firing flaming rocks at places. You could probably scale these down
You may also get hand-held firework weapons,...
Best Regards
Grey Wolf
A big reason for the adoption of cannons was that previous siege technology was lost in the Dark Ages and subsequently there needed to be a replacement. Cannons and gunpowder turned out to be that replacement, and without a large-scale use of these it'll take quite a while before guns. Early guns, after all, were terrible.
An easy PoD is to simply have Rome razed before it can grow.
An easy PoD is to simply have Rome razed before it can grow.
Technology trees don't work that way...
anyhow, as others have pointed out, where you have guns you will have handguns. They are actually easier to make than the big kind. That doesn't necessarily mean they will come to be widespread, but ultimately, it is likely that they will because they work very well, and not just against knights. So in the end, if you want to remove handguns, you will have to remove guns.
As to what can replace them. I don't think there is any known technology that matches their performance, otherwise we'd be using that.
- Bows are powerful, strong versions can exceed the hitting power of modern handguns. They are also accurate, a properly made bow made to medieval specifications can, again, beat modern shortarms in that respect (not all, but some standard issue ones). They certainly outclassed most muzzleloading guns in history in terms of both accuracy and rate of fire. But they are big and difficult to use. Most people don't have the time to become competent archers.
- crossbows are powerful, they can easily beat firearms in that respect, and they are easy to use. Thewy can also be extremely accurate. Problem is, they're bulky, and unlike with firearms, you have a direct tradeoff between power and rate of fire with which there is no sweet spot. Powerful crossbows will be very slow to use, and fast ones will be both weak and inaccurate, more so than bows. There were pistol-sized crossbows powerful enough to kill with a single shot, but they were demanding pieces of craftsmanship far more delicate than a gun, and still slow.
- rockets give you significantly less accuracy and hitting power for the equivalent weight of ammunition, and are risky because of backwash. They also don't accelerate as quickly and you need a fairly large one to match the power of even a medium-sized gun or crossbow.
- pressurised-air weaponry is powerful, fast, and accurate, but it is a very demanding technology. In order to reach even the average performance of a gun made with similar materials and tools, you have to push the tech envelope to the point of foolhardiness. Repressurising also takes time, care and attention to detail, not to mention complex and finicky tools. Steam-powered weaponry is similar.
- torsion, coiled-spring or rubber-band powered weapons can't safely pack the required punch unless they are too large to comfortably carry.
A world where guns were either unknown or uncommon would use a combination of these in the roles the modern West used guns for, but you would either neede a good social explanation or the moment they are invented, guns will take over. Have a world in which civilian identity contains a strong pacifist streak and military men are highly trained professionals and you might get there. Assassins, bodyguards and criminals can get their hands on high-end miniaturised crossbows or the rare custom-made gun while soldiers will prefer bows. but that's nothing like medieval Europe, so there's a bit of a problem there.
anyhow, as others have pointed out, where you have guns you will have handguns. They are actually easier to make than the big kind. That doesn't necessarily mean they will come to be widespread, but ultimately, it is likely that they will because they work very well, and not just against knights. So in the end, if you want to remove handguns, you will have to remove guns.
As to what can replace them. I don't think there is any known technology that matches their performance, otherwise we'd be using that.
- Bows are powerful, strong versions can exceed the hitting power of modern handguns. They are also accurate, a properly made bow made to medieval specifications can, again, beat modern shortarms in that respect (not all, but some standard issue ones). They certainly outclassed most muzzleloading guns in history in terms of both accuracy and rate of fire. But they are big and difficult to use. Most people don't have the time to become competent archers.
- crossbows are powerful, they can easily beat firearms in that respect, and they are easy to use. Thewy can also be extremely accurate. Problem is, they're bulky, and unlike with firearms, you have a direct tradeoff between power and rate of fire with which there is no sweet spot. Powerful crossbows will be very slow to use, and fast ones will be both weak and inaccurate, more so than bows. There were pistol-sized crossbows powerful enough to kill with a single shot, but they were demanding pieces of craftsmanship far more delicate than a gun, and still slow.
- rockets give you significantly less accuracy and hitting power for the equivalent weight of ammunition, and are risky because of backwash. They also don't accelerate as quickly and you need a fairly large one to match the power of even a medium-sized gun or crossbow.
- pressurised-air weaponry is powerful, fast, and accurate, but it is a very demanding technology. In order to reach even the average performance of a gun made with similar materials and tools, you have to push the tech envelope to the point of foolhardiness. Repressurising also takes time, care and attention to detail, not to mention complex and finicky tools. Steam-powered weaponry is similar.
- torsion, coiled-spring or rubber-band powered weapons can't safely pack the required punch unless they are too large to comfortably carry.
A world where guns were either unknown or uncommon would use a combination of these in the roles the modern West used guns for, but you would either neede a good social explanation or the moment they are invented, guns will take over. Have a world in which civilian identity contains a strong pacifist streak and military men are highly trained professionals and you might get there. Assassins, bodyguards and criminals can get their hands on high-end miniaturised crossbows or the rare custom-made gun while soldiers will prefer bows. but that's nothing like medieval Europe, so there's a bit of a problem there.
If long guns exist, then handguns are inevitable. There's a picture of an early Chinese handgun circa 1300s at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_gunpowder
It's basically a scaled-down version of cannon. The concept migrated to Europe along with cannon and long guns in the late Middle Ages. Their use in Europe is almost contemporaneous with long guns as cavalry wanted a firearm to shoot back at those pesky infantry with their matchlocks and muskets. Armor makers used to "proof" their wares by shooting the breastplates, then circling the dent to show their strength.
To eliminate firearms altogether, you'd have to go back to 10th Century China and butterfly away every alchemist and researcher who ever wondered what would happen if three simple ingredients were combined.
It's basically a scaled-down version of cannon. The concept migrated to Europe along with cannon and long guns in the late Middle Ages. Their use in Europe is almost contemporaneous with long guns as cavalry wanted a firearm to shoot back at those pesky infantry with their matchlocks and muskets. Armor makers used to "proof" their wares by shooting the breastplates, then circling the dent to show their strength.
To eliminate firearms altogether, you'd have to go back to 10th Century China and butterfly away every alchemist and researcher who ever wondered what would happen if three simple ingredients were combined.
Hence why I said compound bows. It uses cams and pulleys to make drawing and aiming a lot easier. Also tempered steel is used instead of wood and sinew, which makes it easier to mass produce. The main drawbacks of the bow are resolved with the steel compound bow.
Slight aside, but a modern, carbon fibre, motor drawn, chu ko nu has potential to look damn cool, and be deadly too.
Flocculencio
Donor
Still complex, bulky and difficult to use effectively.
The great thing about guns, is that you can throw them at a bunch of ill-trained conscripts, tell them which end goes where and literally tell them to point and shoot. Most of them will miss but every one that does has just made a kill far more cheaply than with any other weapon (except crossbows which, as mentioned earlier, are still bulkier and have that power/speed tradeoff).
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I don't accept that a compound bow is that much more difficult to use than a musket. Anyone who can do twenty pushups, including women can be taught to use a powerful compound bow within hours. The only problem is it can't penetrate the best plate armor like a musket. Without guns or cannons, the technological battlefield would plateau at bows and pike squares.
Compound bows cannot be as dominant as guns became, but IMO they would've been widely adopted. The bow has always been the most powerful battlefield weapon. When you make it easy to use it's going to be a winner.
Compound bows with cams and rotors make it easier to hold a strong bow at full draw than a similarly strong long, recurve, or compound bow. More time to aim shots at full draw and less strength training required, and you can always revert to longbow barrage when needed.
Spring steel sniper crossbows with sophisticated sights might also come into play.
Spring steel sniper crossbows with sophisticated sights might also come into play.