₦airaland Forum

Hes gotten real old and boring, this whole Somalia topic is soooo dead. I wish warya, elyas and the rest would just go away and let it die.

PhysicsQED: To qualify the above post, what I really mean is that very strong armor has been around for a long time whether steel plate or not steel, but guns only became more popular as their actual power and quality improved. They weren't that great to start with, weren't really decisive in battle after improving somewhat a while after that, but were later improved by gun smiths to become the unstoppable force we know them as today. This is my perspective, but I am interested in reading alternate or contrary views.

Why did they catch on in Europe so quickly, but not so in China? Why did Europe feel the need to improve and invest in handheld gunpowder technology when other regions weren't?

The only logical answer to this is because of the different battlefield conditions. Europe needed guns to counteract the power of plate armored knights, while in other areas bows and crossbows were perfectly effective against their unarmored opponents.

PhysicsQED: I really doubt that this is correct.

There's a book called Chinese clay figures: Prolegomena on the history of defensive armor, Part 1 by Berthold Laufer

I think you should read some of it. I think it gives a more realistic perspective on armor in Asia.

Here are links to the book:

http://books.google.com/books?id=TH0LAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA180

http://books.google.com/books?id=TH0LAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA189

On Japan vs. China, China was dominated by the Mongols around the general time that you're talking about. The same Mongols were trouncing the Japanese at [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bun%27ei]the battle of Bun'ei[/url] but when they returned to their ships to regroup, they got hit by a typhoon and the Japanese got lucky. The Japanese were not the only warriors around or anything and I'm not sure that their best soldiers at that time would have necessarily defeated China's best soldiers or the best Mongol soldiers..

Are you kidding me, Boiled rhinosaurus skin? The lamellar and scale armor i mentioned earlier are even better than what is mentioned in those links. like i said earlier, you don't need a gun to peirce leather armor.

The effective range of an arquebus is only around 100 meters, while the range of a 13 century crossbow is 200 meters. Bows and crossbows could also be fired 5 ranks deep, meaning you could have 5 times as many people shooting at a given moment. In addition to this they were more accurate and didn't require much training (crossbows). So why did Europeans use guns if crossbows were so much better? Because the guns could pierce plate armor when nothing else could!

On Japan vs. China, China was dominated by the Mongols around the general time that you're talking about. The same Mongols were trouncing the Japanese at the battle of Bun'ei but when they returned to their ships to regroup, they got hit by a typhoon and the Japanese got lucky. The Japanese were not the only warriors around or anything and I'm not sure that their best soldiers at that time would have necessarily defeated China's best soldiers or the best Mongol soldiers..

I didn't say japan was militarily better than anyone. I simply mentioned them because their reasons for adopting firearms was similar to europes reasons. Their military was dominated by heavily armored knights (samurai) the only way to counter their power was to adopt firearms.

^ Oduduwa is a myth. Tpia is the real mother of the yorubas.

sexkillz: Lmao@ the number of males viewing this thread. . .

Whys that funny?

do u not consider yourself a male?

No, i have a very fine car

Its a hyundai... but atleast its more reliable than his ride.

Iwdowuogbo i'm very glad you showed me that topic. Thanks.

Inspired M is only here because of the lamborghini

Naija women.. sheesh.

[quote author=tpia@]I dont stay on nl 24/7, sorry.[/quote]Yes you do.

When you made this topic i don't think you expected Suen to respond. Well he is here now, tell him what exactly our crimes are.
If she has nothing truthful to say, it sounds worthy of a ban to me. Isnt this slander

^ Yes, Songhai would make more sense.

Can you back this up?

From the little I've read on Chinese armor, I don't think they were lacking in strong/comparable defense at all.

Comparable to Steel plate armor? certainly. Chinese armor was not particularly unique or advanced for the time, where as western armor was. The Chinese used the same lamellar and scale armor used trough out Eurasia. This could be easily pierced by a crossbow. On top of this, china wasn't dominated by a warrior class, like Europe or Japan.

The biggest reason heavy armor was such a factor in Europe was plate armored knights. Wealthy semi-nobility, who could afford to fight in the heaviest protection available. My theory that elite armored soldiers = adaptation of guns is supported by the story of Japans adoption of firearms to counter the samurai.

Its funny how for the vast magority of human history China has been on the top, using things like paper and printing 100's of years before they were 'invented' This western dominance for the last 500 yrs has just been a blip, and soon China will be on top again.
Cant say witch i prefer tho, atleast china's isolationism kept them from skrewing with other peoples.

@ Odumchi, Yea i'm back after a long absence. Gotta keep ur mind stimulated in the summer ya know. So ur a mod now? nice.

Everything your saying is true. However, the Chinese tried very hard to make handheld firearms militarily useful they just couldn't. Think of the hand cannon invented in the 12th century. Its a decent enough weapon, but what was its usefullness? It couldn't compete against a bow & arrow, or a repeating crossbow. You mentioned the philosophical distrust the Chinese had toward black powder, I don't think this can be considered and issue. In Europe, people thought gunpowder came straight from hell, yet they still developed it into viable weapons. Because in Europe armies had to deal with fully armored knights that could only be stopped by guns, not so in China.

The advent of gunpowder in Europe seemed to be a godsend. Since it took years for one to master archery and enter knighthood, the development of portable cannon seemed like the cheapest alternative. This meant that any peasant farmer could become a soldier in a matter of hours rather than years and it also dramatically increased the average European army size.

The crossbow could also be learned in hours, plus it was cheaper, faster, and more deadly against unarmored foes. Thats why i say the full plate armor used at the time was the biggest factor in Europes adoption of gunpowder.

From the Turks modern metallurgy spread to western Europe and to Russia.

It boggles the mind how such info was unable to spread to subsaharen Africa. As far as i know the first time cannons were used south of the Sahara was in the 15 hundreds when forces from Morocco destroyed the Mali empire. Accounts of this battle are rare, but from what i read (don't recall the source) the two armies met on flat terrain, the berbers dispite being hugely outnumbered, had many cannons which they began firing at the Malien forces. The entire army, which was mainly cavalry, panicked and routed.

Idowuogbo if bothers you so much just don't vote, no need to throw a tantrum over it.

I find it hilarious that dudes were actually vote rigging in this competition, thats beyond bitchmade.
It was a good idea tho, who won?

Weird country.

that one chick with the turqoise background is kinda hot... Although a little too shiney.

Actually i have a question for you. U've been banned off sections of Nairaland right, how long do the bans last? (I just got banned from the romance section for insulting some heifer)

Thanks bro. Any questions?

Lets start of with a question my sister asked me earlier today; Even though the Chinese invented gunpowder and had gunpowder machines hundreds of years before the Europeans, why were Europeans able to take advantage of this technology when China couldn't?

This is is a event in history that many people do not understand, why was Europe able make such devastating use of gunpowder while other societies couldn't? The answer is mainly though lucky circumstances brought about by the scarcity of Salt-peter in Europe, and the extensive use of plate armour at the end of the Middle ages.

At the beginning of gunpowders introduction to the west in the 1300's it was used in small bronze cannons. The powder was so expensive that it could only be used on rare occasions, mainly for knocking down walls. The price of black powder was so high because Europe lacked natural deposites of salt-peter, the most critical element in the powder. Thus, they had to import it all the way from China, making it incredibly costly. Because of this expense, people began experimenting with ways to actually make salt peter. They tried all sorts of things, (i think dog poop eventually worked). What they got was an extreamly fragile, unreliable powder that if exposed to the slightest amount of moisture would not light.

To combat this problem powder makers began lumping powder into lumps to protect if from the moisture in the air through a process called 'corning'. This is the part that bugs me, somehow by corning gunpowder to preserve it, Europeans accidnetly increased its strengh by magnitudes (why god ) The powder became so powerful that it would litteraly blow up the old brass cannons used in the past. And so Europeans began focusing on smaller deadlier weapons like the arquebus, musket and pistol.

Shockingly, even then guns were not this unstoppable force that would soon take over the world. The longbow was still a balistically superior weapon, being able to kill at a longer range and reload in the fraction of the time. There are recorded arguments of English generals fighting against the use of gunpowder weapons in their armies. Perhaps, Europeans would have abondoned their new fangled weapons for more usefull ones, but unfortunatly for the rest of the world, this was the age of knights covered in almost impenatrable plate armor. No weapon at the time could effectivly kill them, and so guns stayed.

When an bullet strikes an armored individual at very close range it pierces the first layer of metal, but looses most of its velocity while passing through the body. When it reaches the other side of the armor it can no longer penetrate and bouces back to the front. It can continue to go back and forth, up and down, acting like a blender to the flesh inside. Once the European saw the killing power of guns they stuck with them, and began developing more devastating weapins like rifles, and artillery. At that point the rest of the world stood no chance.

I'm not the smartest man in the word, but if there is one thing i know it is history. I want to start a topic where i can share my info and hopefully spark some interesting debates were i can learn some stuff from you guys.

So if you have any questions about history preferably pre-WWII, ask away, nothing is too trivial or too difficult. If i don't know the answer i will research.

lol ayanye u must know something about bans. How long do they last on this website? (i got banned from the romance section)