Lord_Vespasian
Banned
I was wondering, how far can you delay the widespread usage of firearms in European armies? Not saying there will be no guns in the armies at all, but in the best cases it would be small professional units
Is there a specific time you can give me? Would any other major events be changed?If we can take a PoD as far back as the Mongols, it may be possible to push it forward by several centuries. China is either too divided (1200s) or too isolationist (Ming... pretty likely to be analogued) to give gunpowder to Europe on its own, and I don't think Europe will be too fussed about trying to invent it.
- BNC
Is there a specific time you can give me? Would any other major events be changed?
The easiest way would be to have Temujin die as a baby or simply never be conceived by his mother, so 1161 or 1162. Major events certainly get changed, probably too many to mention, but I'll list a few:
Or in short, just expect a repeat of the 12th century in the 13th.
- No black death of that specific disease, but overpopulation still happens in the 14th century. Any number of possibilities exist here.
- The Muslim empires (particularly the Abbasid remnant in Iraq) won't be dealt such a death blow (there might be another crusade, but it won't just kill everything). It is possible that an analogue of the Ottomans rises earlier (maybe 1350 instead of 1450).
- However America's discovery (ignoring Vikings) is likely pushed back. The Mongols opened up a lot of trade with the east, but that got shut off by the Ottomans. In TTL, Europe hasn't had that trade and probably won't go out seeking it until later.
- Russia stays a heap of feuding city-states. Cumania and the other nations like them in the area will probably continue light raiding.
- BNC
As soon as someone invents an easy-to-use gun that can beat all the armour and stuff of the day that doesn't cost too much.Okay. What's the fastest they can become widespread in Europe. Mind you not the earliest, the fastest. By that I mean what series of events would lead to the shortest period in which guns are introduce. For example, Japan had been using guns in it's armies for centuries before the 1800s but they were always too slow. What's the quickest we can get rifles fast enough to replace swords for the most part into the hands of the majority of European armies?
Guns or Rifles?Okay. What's the fastest they can become widespread in Europe. Mind you not the earliest, the fastest. By that I mean what series of events would lead to the shortest period in which guns are introduce. For example, Japan had been using guns in it's armies for centuries before the 1800s but they were always too slow. What's the quickest we can get rifles fast enough to replace swords for the most part into the hands of the majority of European armies?
Guns or Rifles?
Guns, once the metallurgy gets good enough to make an effective one, a couple decades from discovery of an effective one, it takes time for ideas to spread over an area as big as Europe, and for people to replace existing equipment
Rifles? You need decent precision industry to issue them en masse, so a century or so after the start of your industrial revolution. Until that point rifles are too expensive to make for more than just relatively small units of specialists
So "light" flintlock musketsAmerican revolution style weapons. Fast enough to make swords obsolete most of the time but you still need cavalry and bayonets
Okay. What's the fastest they can become widespread in Europe. Mind you not the earliest, the fastest. By that I mean what series of events would lead to the shortest period in which guns are introduce. For example, Japan had been using guns in it's armies for centuries before the 1800s but they were always too slow. What's the quickest we can get rifles fast enough to replace swords for the most part into the hands of the majority of European armies?
So "light" flintlock muskets
Probably 75 years or more. You see light rapid fire muskets only came about after armor started disappearing. Before then you had much heavier slower firing models braced on a stand that had a much longer effective range and were much better at piercing armor. Figure 30 years of armor just getting heavier as guns improve. Then another 30 years of armor being reduced to make the remainder heavier, then a 15+ year transition from the heavy musket to the light once armor is reduced to a helmet and back & breast or less
OTL this took about ~350 years
Probably not, Meiji restoration was even faster than this, about a decade, opposed to 75 years at minimum here, plus there is the fact that the power of knights as a class had been broken by ~1450 OTL anyways, replaced by professional armies, more or less, situation not simple (feudalism never is)Would this be sudden enough to trigger a Satsuma esque revolt among the knights of Europe?
Probably not, Meiji restoration was even faster than this, about a decade, opposed to 75 years at minimum here, plus there is the fact that the power of knights as a class had been broken by ~1450 OTL anyways, replaced by professional armies, more or less, situation not simple (feudalism never is)
Probably not, Meiji restoration was even faster than this, about a decade, opposed to 75 years at minimum here, plus there is the fact that the power of knights as a class had been broken by ~1450 OTL anyways, replaced by professional armies, more or less, situation not simple (feudalism never is)
Unlikely, Eastern Europe has a lot more unfriendly neighbors to keep their minds concentrated in this period. They also tend to not have one class with a near monopoly on military power, often relied on a mix of classes and peoples, harder to really get them all to agreeIs there any possible way to get an event like that in some Eastern European country?
They also tend to not have one class with a near monopoly on military power, often relied on a mix of classes and peoples, harder to really get them all to agree
So much so that in both PLC and Russia even the great peasant/cossack rebellions had token amounts of gentry warriors/foreigners and their nobles/cossacks/arqueboussiers and other military classes on both sides.
Satsuma specifically is hard to replicate. On the other hand, generic rebellions involving firearms were already frequent OTL.