12-06-2012, 10:05 PM
Quote:Again as said, these are facts coming from other ages but it is always good to keep them on the back of our heads when trying to analyse periods that are lesser known.
As some analysts have noted - our perception of ancient and medieval armies is very distorted by our modern experiences and by the "wipe-out" of the last 500 years in which land-based warfare was dominated by the abandonment of armour and the wide use of gunpowder and in naval warfare by the abandonment of oars and the use of sails, the abandonment of fire-based weapons and the use of canons.
Certainly sail-ships went on average faster than oar ships in ideal conditions. But of the Atlantic, the Indian and the Pacific Ocean. Not of the Mediterranean! It is outstanding that with all the development of the sea-faring techniques and ships travelling the oceans, no western European power ever fared into the Mediterranean no matter if this was ruled by the Ottomans (who new little of ships, mostly employing forced-Greek labour) or the Barbary pirates (who from being camel riders learnt overnight their trade!). Spain struggled and France too, occasionally reaching to raid Algers but not yield any effective control but that was all about it - all while Barbary pirates managed to raid themselves and get in 200 years about 2 to 3 million slaves from Spain, France and Italy (when England, Holland, Flemish, France, Spain and Portugal managed to buy some 10 to 12 million slaves from western African slave-master tribes from the whole western Africa). Nobody ever mentioned it but that had to do something with the oceanic vessels as these were developed and their inability to compete in the Mediterranean which was ruled by smaller agile vessels (in the lack of use of oared vessels, given the lack of use of fire-weaponry and the employment of the potent canons).
Similarly, muskets were a most powerful infantry weapon compared to all other, all while canons were the most powerful weapon overall. But its almost-instant adoption by all was hiding other elements such as the higher mobility (to transport armies from the one end of the world to the other) and the massive reduction of costs. It is not the same cost to gather 10,000 villagers, given them 10,000 muskets, train them in 1 week how to shoot and send them to battle with maintaining 10,000 professional soldiers training in the cross-bow or the English long-bow or dressing them in clibanarii or (worse!!!) cataphract panoplies!!!
However, taking out the cost-effectiveness factor, the sad reality is that up to the advent of steam-powered ships as well as the advent of machine-guns (i.e. we talk already post-1850s) there is practically no post-gunpowder army that would tactically (i.e. on a battlefield) fare well against ancient and medieval armies. Similarly no navy of the 15th-early/19th century would ever stand easily against the Eastern Roman one or the Arab medieval ones.
At some point, at least in specialist editions, we need to address the fact that "progress" is a very complicated process that does not move in a straight line to the front. Let us remember, that the first British-made machine gun advertised itself as the next best thing in military after the longbow. Not after the arquebuse, nor after the musket.
