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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ace" data-source="post: 2303546" data-attributes="member: 944">Actually cannon changed Medieval society a lot more than guns. They rendered the castle a much less effective defensive structure and took away a lot of the knights command and control  advantage"Handguns" OTOH had two crucial advantages -- they operated with the same hitting power tired or not and they rendered soldiers more based on skill rather than "fitness"   Skill with a gun mattered a lot less on strength and that opened up a larger pool of men for military service. Since training times were reduced as well when  firearms increased in capability bows were rendered less  strategically usefull -- In terms of hitting power a decent matchlock was roughly equal to a longbow -- both had an effective range against armored target of 20 yards. The longbow had a greater maxium range (200 yards vs 100 yards for  musket) but neither weapon was worth anything much past 100 feat  by roughly the 17th century longbow and crossbow were obsolecent. There were  longbows in use as late as the early 1600's (they had them atthe early American colonies)  Heck a few romantics wanted to return to them as late as the American Revolution (c.f Ben Franklin) Still by the 18th century bows obsolete</blockquote>