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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 487162" data-attributes="member: 4937">I don't think it necessarily would have looked all that different if the invention of gunpowder had been delayed 100 years or so. Military arms would have looked somewhat different.  Steel hand held weapons might have evolved to the same level that they did in Japan, and for similar reasons.  Crossbows would have improved in efficiency.   Longbows probably would have become more widespread.   Trebuchets would have replaced artillery.  None of this is nearly as big of a change as it sounds.   Castles already would fall to any determined professional seige.  Even after gunpowder was introduced, there was a great deal of contriversy over whether it was a superior form of artillery and weaponry than the older methods.  The longbow maintained its presence on the battlefield until the Napleonic wars.  There was a contingent of longbowmen at Waterloo.   The sword remained an effective weapon until the around the American Civil war.  In rate of fire, reliability, cost, effective range, and so forth, early gonnes were less effective than bows, trebuchets, and the like.   There principal advantage was in the realitive ease of mastering thier use, not necessarily in potancy.  And in this regard, they are not superior to a well made crossbow.  Throughout the reinassance, the land battles were dominated by units of pikeman.  Musketry, by reason of its slow rate of fire, low muzzle velocity, and resulting inaccuracy, was only secondary and supporting, and high quality crossbows or longbows could have suitably replaced it (and frequently did).  The pike charge might have held off the day of the bayonette charge for a just that much longer.  The armies were already becoming far more professional prior to the introduction of cannon.  Laying seige, the assembling and operation Trebuchets, and constructing castles required professional and highly skilled engineers and logistic professionals.  The later medieval armies were already increasingly mercenary and professional.In short, I don't think that gunpowder precipitated any significant philosophical or cultural change on its own.IMO, the really big questions with the delay in the introduction of gunpowder have to do with Europe's comparitive military strength with other cultures.  Would Venice have won at Lepanto without the gonne?  How would the conquisitors fared without the ability to summon thunder (for the gonne has an effect on morale if nothing else)?</blockquote>

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