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Message: <blockquote data-quote="sr123" data-source="post: 6092546" data-attributes="member: 6674166">To add to the history and effectiveness of guns:Individual guns and muskets were never more lethal or effective than melee weapons until the invention of revolvers and rifles (started being used by military starting around 1850). Surveys of battlefield casualties during the American Civil War show that up until the widespread use of rifles (1863 or so), about equal numbers of soldiers were killed by bayonettes and sabres as by guns (non-artillery).When the longbow was invented, it could penetrate plate armor at close range, while a musket usually could not. And of course the composite bows used by the Mongols and Saracens were even deadlier. The reason infantry guns displaced bows is as people said before: guns required little training and used cheaper ammo. Remember that 99% of those in medieval armies were commoners with spears (to become bayonettes), not professional knights and soldiers.All but the fanciest guns were matchlock, so a loaded gun had a lit match that would give itself away at night.Armor breastplates were sold with a dent from being shot as "proof" that they could withstand a bullet at close range, hence "bulletproof". The armorer often adorned this dent dramatically.As for fortifications vs artillery, artillery was extremely immobile, and seige strategy was to build machines on-site, where metal casting would be difficult. So while a good howitzer could dent a castle wall from beyond gun and bow range, they were not ubiquitous until much later when, among other things, transportation logistics improved.Conversely, the tall castle walls could not support artillery because the recoil stress of firing could crumble the wall. Fortifications consequently evolved from 8m-high 1m-thick walls to 3m-high 3m-thick walls.Basically, personal guns sucked until the invention of rifles, and officers would rather fight with their horse, breastplate, and sword. Oh, and one can never stress enough the importance of psychological warfare: firing blanks because they are louder and brighter, soldiers walking in step into cannonfire in a single line, arrowheads on bottle rockets, and good old-fashioned ninjas setting themselves on fire to keep from being grabbed. Okay, I stole that last one from Dr McNinja.--------------Long story short, please please please do not have your guns deal more damage than longbows or greatswords.Source: primarily "The Evolution of Weapons and Warfare" by T.N. Dupuy - a must-read for any anachronistic gen.</blockquote>

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