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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 2304638" data-attributes="member: 4937">The main thing to remember about the introduction of gunpowder weapons in the West was that they ushered in evolutionairy advances rather than revolutionary ones.  This is true whether we examine thier military or social impact.There was absolutely nothing that gunpowder did that wasn't a continuation of advances already being brought about by other technological innovation.1) Handguns: As others have said, the main advantage of the handgun is that they were relatively simple to aim and relatively cheap to produce.  This resulted in the West fielding larger and larger professional armies, which forced the West to begin adopting more and more scientific approaches to logistics.  The entire feudal structure can be seen as an institution devoted to manufacturing and manuevering mounted knights to ensure rapid regional point defence against various mauraders (say the Norse).  But by the time that the handgun was introduced, this shift in the makeup of armies away from aristocratic cavalry was already underway - heralded by the success of such weapons as the longbow (under the English) and the pike and crossbow (under the Swiss).   In both cases, these weapons led to a relative increase in the status and respect given to commoners in thier respective regions.  Handguns only continued this process.2) Cannon: The cannon more or less obseleted the castle.  This resulted in greater centralization of authority, since it became increasingly expensive for a local ruler to produce defenses which were sufficient to thwart attack by any possible force.  Since nobles with a good strong castle were no longer able to thumb thier nose at the king, Kings grew in authority - aided by the fact that they were fielding professional armies that were at least in part independent of any reliance on the nobility.  But this also was an evolutionary advance.  In the centuries before the introduction of the cannon, advances in seige craft, logistics, and in non-gunpowder artillery (such as the Trebuchet) had already tilted the seige in favor of the attacker and castles were increasingly insufficient means of protecting yourself from the attack of a professional army even before the cannon was introduced.3) Sea Warfare: The victory of the Venetians over the Turks at Lepanto, while it did not permenently ensure the surivival of the West, certainly gave the West its first truly firm political security it had enjoyed since the fall of the Roman empire, and set the stage for its eventual global dominance.  Without superior cannon, its doubtful that the Venetians would have won the battle, much less won it in such utterly convincing fashion.  The cannon became the preeminent weapon of the West, with which it first gained control of the oceans, and from there would go on to dominate pretty much everywhere that was in cannon shot.  But again, this was only an evolutionary advance.  That the West was able to produce such a fleet at all was the result of a long and sustained technological and economic revival in Europe dating back to the time of Charlemange.  Lepanto may be the most important sea battle in human history (only Salamis compares IMO), but it's significance pales in comparison to for example Charles Martel's victory at Tours as far as determining the fate of Europe.</blockquote>

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