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<blockquote data-quote="Stalker0" data-source="post: 3649133" data-attributes="member: 5889">The main reason for the transition was not the power of firearms, it was the ease.In terms of economics, a group of full trained longbowmen is actually quite expensive. While they are no mounted knight division, it could take many years to get a full group ready to go. However, a group of longbowman was superior to your early musketeers.However, you can have a group of fully trained musketeers ready in a month. With such an ease of training, armies were able to have fields of these guys. And if you lost a bunch of them you could replace them quickly.So lets say you have a division of knights vs 5 divisions of muskets (no where near accurate, but just as an example). That division of knights might ultimately win the day because they were the elite powerhouse of the times. However, a king could replace those 5 divisions of muskets faster than all the dead knights. Eventually the economy of war favored the musket.However, the knight really did not leave the field until the prescence of repeating weapons. Once a gun could fire multiple times without reloading, it truely became the ultimate weapon, completely replacing the longbow.Mounted Combat would make a reappearance with the prescence of mounted riflemen, who had the same advantage. And then....the appearance of the machinegun.With a machinegun on the field, the speed of calvary is negated. The main defense against a machinegun is good cover, and infantry can gain cover far better than a man on a horse.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Stalker0, post: 3649133, member: 5889"] The main reason for the transition was not the power of firearms, it was the ease. In terms of economics, a group of full trained longbowmen is actually quite expensive. While they are no mounted knight division, it could take many years to get a full group ready to go. However, a group of longbowman was superior to your early musketeers. However, you can have a group of fully trained musketeers ready in a month. With such an ease of training, armies were able to have fields of these guys. And if you lost a bunch of them you could replace them quickly. So lets say you have a division of knights vs 5 divisions of muskets (no where near accurate, but just as an example). That division of knights might ultimately win the day because they were the elite powerhouse of the times. However, a king could replace those 5 divisions of muskets faster than all the dead knights. Eventually the economy of war favored the musket. However, the knight really did not leave the field until the prescence of repeating weapons. Once a gun could fire multiple times without reloading, it truely became the ultimate weapon, completely replacing the longbow. Mounted Combat would make a reappearance with the prescence of mounted riflemen, who had the same advantage. And then....the appearance of the machinegun. With a machinegun on the field, the speed of calvary is negated. The main defense against a machinegun is good cover, and infantry can gain cover far better than a man on a horse. [/QUOTE]

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