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Message: <blockquote data-quote="squibbles" data-source="post: 7519728" data-attributes="member: 6937590">Is it?Joy! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />Yes, at the inflection point where combatants with missile weapons can reliably kill or disable combatants with shock weapons before the latter close in, the utility of shock weapons declines dramatically.This is correct, though I could quibble about gunpowder weapons and armor penetration a bit; early firearms had higher muzzle velocity at close ranges than modern firearms do but, like crossbows and longbows, they couldn't reliably penetrate armor. I would also point out that melee weapons never went out of use. Napoleonic soldiers had their bayonets, as did WW2 soldiers, as do US marines--that doesn't meaningfully change the gist of the argument, though. Economic efficiency, not technological sophistication, was why European armies started using gunpowder weapons.These points about armor and firearms are a common pop-historical argument that describes past events but misunderstands their causality. Armor did change to cope with gunpowder weapons, just as it had changed to cope with other weapon systems. Early guns, though, were horribly inaccurate, ineffective beyond close range, and, since common methods of maintenance changed the size of a gun's bore over its lifetime, varied greatly in stopping power. They were not adopted for the purpose of penetrating armor, and plate armor remained in use long after arquebuses had become common. The linked Wikipedia article claims that leg protection in plate armor started disappearing in the 18th century... well yes, but that would leave about a 250 year period of guns and plate armor coexisting. 250 years is longer than the United States has been a country.Also correct. I'm inclined to quibble further about common renaissance armor and the prevalence of peasant levies, but this post is tangential enough as it is.----------------On topic:Yes, ranged has more overall utility than melee.This is why:This is a good solution:</blockquote>

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