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Originally Posted by katana
Your points are well taken...I do have a minor interest in early firearms....the Moghul damascus muskets are beautifully constructed.
But, lets face it, the introduction of 'black powder' saw the gradual decline of the edged weapon and the traditional role of ethnic 'warriors'. An evolutionary change which also changed the 'ethics' of conflict and to a degee.... the mutual honour observed by the combattants.
One of the advantages of firearms ...besides their range....was the fact that ANYONE could quickly learn to use them......a warrior may take years to acquire his fighting skills, the Samurai and many others found this out to their cost.
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Were you aware that at one point in time the Catholic Church attempted to ban crossbows as its era's 'weapon of mass destruction'? And most of the Italian city states at one point had bans on the private ownership of wheellock pistols as being the weapons of footpads and assasins? For that matter, it wasn't the crossbow or black powder that spelled the end of the sword in Europe, it was the longbow that started the trend at the Battle of Crecy (
http://members.tripod.com/~midgley/crecy.html). For the first time massed missile fire decimated the opposing force before they could close to fight one-on-one. It took five hundred more years for the process to complete itself, but Crecy was the beginning of the end for the sword.
If you haven't seen it, there is a movie starring Sean Connery as the Raisuli, Sharif of the Berbers, etc. In it he triggers a confrontation between the Western superpowers who are all jockeying for possession of Morocco for strategic reason.
At one point Connery delivers a speech about the proper, honorable combat between warriors. First is with swords; sometimes that is not possible and rifles are used. He then laments the introduction of cannon and the machine guns that 'shoot many bullets promiscuously', and mentione the lack of honor in such weapons.
The movie may not be very realisitic on a number of levels, but it does speak to the passing of the Age of the Warrior in the face of the Industrial Revolution. Europe went through it a few centuries earlier, but the process was more gradual. The rest of the world got treated to it in a much more brutal fashion as the Age of Western Imperialism set out to "civilize" everyone else.
Fenris