"Most revolutionary pre-gunpowder weapon" Topic

That is, a weapon whose introduction dramatically changed tactical practice & made obsolete the then accepted way of war.

Nominations are…

1. Welsh longbow

2. crossbow

3. sarissa

4. gladius

5. composite bow

Feel free to challenge any/all of these &/or add your own nominations.

I would say the pike. Pre-gunpowder the pike allowed relatively lower class people some opportunity to fight successfully against the upper class. While it didn't invite the sort of social change that gun powder would it certainly heralded it and brought about the decline of the mounted knight on the battle field.

Certainly knights were involved in battles where they beat pikemen but it was a threat to them and there were plenty of times they lost, even to relatively undisciplined rabble.

The long bow had the same function except the amount of training required to properly employ it limited its utility as a weapon of social change.

Gladius! A sword with two sharp edges?? Who would have thought? They took over the world with it! The Gladius has been called "The atomic bomb" of the ancient world.

Definitely the Welsh Warbow, it made armour change fundamentally and mounted charges became a bad idea!

One should also not forget the Catapult (Katapeltes)

I forget which Dynasty---maybe Qin---repeating crossbow

None of the above, and no other weapons either; it was the tactical systems that were developed to exploit them that were revolutionary, not the weapons themselves.

-Will

+1.

Agreed, wminsing.

+3

I see that you are tacitly saying that the "bow" was the biggest game changer.

Actually, the first handheld weapon (a la "2001 A Space Odyssey") was the biggest tactical change. It was an arms race forever after that.

But my favorite weapon is the longsword. Having the metallurgy to create such a sword implicitly says that arms and armor are now of a level that the arms race will favor the best metallurgy, be it weapons or armor. A fine steel warhammer will beat in any iron plate. But even a highly tempered spike with a cutting inner edge will have trouble getting through tempered steel "Milanese" plate.

That entire arms race ended abruptly with the gunne. So we don't go there.

Steel, as Conan's father taught, is the biggest game changer. All weapons and armor made of fine steel render all earlier weapons and armor obsolete….

Actually, the first handheld weapon (a la "2001 A Space Odyssey") was the biggest tactical change. It was an arms race forever after that.

Beat me to it – the jawbone of an ass, the broken tree limb, the rock … everything since is just refinement.

Doug

Gladius! A sword with two sharp edges

You're missing the point. Literally. The gladius is primarily a stabbing weapon, not a cutting weapon.

And the most revolutionary "weapon" was discipline.

You're missing the point. Literally. The gladius is primarily a stabbing weapon, not a cutting weapon.

And the most revolutionary "weapon" was discipline.

Indeed. Plus the gladius was a Hispanic style of sword, but it's the Romans that made it famous. That shows that for most of history it was not the weapon but the character of the men wielding it that made the difference.

-Will

Surely the Swiss pikemen were just re-inventing an Ancient Greek tactic?

The Greeks may not have been facing Knights in plate armour, but a bunch of guys with long pointy sticks standing close together is still a bunch of guys with long pointy sticks standing close together….

The stirrup.

Greek Fire?

the horse

On foot melee weapons

On foot missile weapons (thrown, then launched)

Mounted weapons (wagons, chariots, then horses)

and so on.

Dan

Sarcasm.

Iron. It changed every weapon…

No pre-gunpowder individual weapon had more than a local influence due to communications. The pike and gladius had no effect on Chinese or Japanese warfare, for example. The Swiss pike was post gunpowder so doesn't count anyway!

I had a professor in grad school who claimed the single most significant invention in military history prior to 1600 was the stirrup. Not an actual weapon though it made knights possible so she claimed.

Erik

Equus. Ferus. Caballus.

Money.

The stick. In terms of changing the face of things, going from open handed gatherers to walking upright and carrying a big stick … well, that is change!

Atlatl. My high school history teacher insisted it was the atomic bomb of its day.

Why specifically the Welsh longbow – why not British?

A dude in command or in charge… aka the General or Fearless Leader. Without him it is just a big rabble of guys, with multiple factions, butting heads or worse who ended up in the same general area of the Earth. The guy who started the messy situation most likely.

The sling. The first weapon that required intensive training.

The longbow or the pike may have given some spectacular results and changed history, but the opponents did find ways of defeating it. The Longbow was devastating in the 14th century, but by the 15th century it was no longer as effective against troops in suitable full plate and the appearance of firearms.

Weapons are only relevant to a certain degree, the firepower available to the armies in 1914-18 could have ended almost any war before 1850, but all the guns on the western front only lead to a kind of stalemate until 1939.

As said above tactics, morale, impetus, logistics were the real game changers.

I would nominate the horse as the biggest game changer or all. It added a level of mobility that never existed before and endured for millennia, some of the largest empires in history broke their teeth on cavalry armies and it has been suggested that cavalry armies were only really decisively defeated by the introduction of automatic weapons, modern artillery, flight and the internal combustion engine.

Another factor was probebly those guys who decided that sticking close to the muscular seven foot tall guy and fighting as a team worked a helluva lot better than the traditional headlong charge at the other tribe, followed by a chaotic melee. Once you have a buddy on either side and a few behind your back, the job of killing a guy from the other tribe becomes much simpler and more focused.

I have to disagree with the stirrup, plenty of examples of decisive cavalry actions before it was introduced, it actually not a requirement for 'shock' cavalry or any such thing. The horse itself has a better claim on being revolutionary, as Patrick R points out, but it was also introduced so early that it's hard to gauge whether it transformed warfare or not.

I think money also has a decent claim; there's definitely a transformative effect on armies that move from serving on a tribal/feudal/levy basis and those that are embodied and receive regular payment.

-Will

@ Patrick

Thought-provoking post.

Question: are tactics, at least sometimes, driven by weapons?

Thank the lord that we have got the maxim gun and they have not.

Presumably this should be a weapon that actually changed how wars were fought.

The pike seems like a good candidate.

Question: are tactics, at least sometimes, driven by weapons?

Yes, but rarely entirely. That's why it's tricky to say the gladius or the sarissa (for example) were revolutionary, since the tactical systems that made them famous were also the products of social, political and economic pressures, not just the use of the weapon alone. Out of the original list, the Longbow might have the best claim to creating it's own tactical paradigm, as the medieval English actually molded parts of their social structure around it, rather than the other way around.

-Will

I think money also has a decent claim; there's definitely a transformative effect on armies that move from serving on a tribal/feudal/levy basis and those that are embodied and receive regular payment.

It's also a much more concrete inducement than promising theoretical loot, slaves and land to your hopefully victorious host. Makes the acquisition of mercenaries, auxiliaries and subsidy troops a lot easier too.

One also has to consider it's effect on the support of warfare. Contracting for arms, equipment and rations is more efficient when one can establish cash prices. Money also means that wealth can be lent and borrowed in a more effective manner, easing the financing of wars, not to mention the paying of tributes, bribes, etc. Cash reserves allow the continuation of operations, even in the face of bad harvests and loss of productive territory to the enemy.