Talk:Early modern warfare/Archive 1

Archive 1

Cannons, firelances, grenades, mines, and rockets

A recent series on the history channel stated that the Chinese had more than 3,000 bronze cannons mounted on the Great Wall by the 12th century CE. Also to prevent a Mongol invasion, they created the early grenades and landmines. They also used rockets filled with gunpowder and launched them from the Great Wall. -intranetusa 09:55, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah. Sure.  :) And they also possessed the laser rifle to counter the Mongols and launched the first inter galactic space vessel. Sorry but seems a little bit like fantasy to me. Please don't be offended. I don't blame you but the History channel is not the most reliable source in my eyes. They are a bit too commercial and stereotype-loving(Chinese were hyper advanced, the early middle ages were dark and other historical stereotypes). Isidoros47 (talk) 23:59, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

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Some of the themes in this article are highly questionable. Firstly, while its true that the importance of cavalry declined somewhat by 1800, they remained a vital military arm throughout this period. In the 17th century, cavalry were very often the decisive arm in field battles, especially in destroying armies that had already been beaten in pursuits. Most of the casualties in a battle of this time tended to be inflicted in pursuits.

Secondly, the article emphasises the emergence of standing armies and eventually national ones. However, this was a gradual development of the late 17th and eighteenth centuries. The previous two hundred years were the age of the mercenary as no other time in history, especially in the Thirty Years War, this should be reflected in the article. In a related point, the power of the European aristocracy declined in relation to the state, that is they were no longer in a position to challenge it with their own private armies by the end of this period. But except in very rare cases, they maintained their position at the head of society, providing armeis with officers, generals and political leaders.

Thirdly and most importantly, the article says that wars of this era were not particularly deadly. On the contrary, they were exceptionally lethal, especially to the civilian populations. For instance, the Thirty Years War was the most bloody war in german history before WWI, as were the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in Britain and Ireland. One reason for this was the increased lethality of weaponry, but more important was the absence of organised logistics which meant that armies supplied themselves by looting land which they occupied. Another important factor was the lack of rules of war (not helped by the prevalence of religious wars), which evolved only in the 17th and 18th centuries. The agreement of standards for combatants actually warfare milder towards the end of this period, but before the French revolutionary wars. Before this, it was common practice to devastate the land of enemy civilians and to kill wounded and prisoners. All of this caused famine and disease where there were major wars. Also, the fact that wars were indecisive and dragged on for years made them more bloody, not less, for all the reasons stated above. Jdorney

Naming

We have a small naming problem with the 'warfare' sequence of articles. The article Modern warfare (apart from being very bad) is the only one after this, so it is expected to cover the eras of Napoleon, the American Civil War, both world wars and the last fifty years. That's a big span of time for one article. However if we fix this and split it up, that gives us a naming problem with this article, as there would then be several articles between 'Early modern warfare' and 'Modern warfare'. Can I suggest that we rename this article to something like "Warfare in the era of gunpowder". To me 'Early modern warfare' means either the early part of the twentieth century, or the late nineteenth. DJ Clayworth 17:32, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Early modern has a fairly set definition, and is a somewhat standard period when discussing the history of warfare. A better solution would be to do away with the much vaguer modern warfare and have "early modern" followed by a series of two or three articles, all of which cover the modern period. - SimonP 01:38, July 30, 2005 (UTC)

While everyone figures out how to do this, I created a stopgap period called Industrial Warfare (A working title, which we can easily change) to cover the Nineteenth Century and Twentieth Century (Prior to 1980s). Palm_Dogg 09:23, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Apologies, but it seemed silly to have "Early modern warfare" after "Industrial warfare" was created. I moved it, but have not gone through the article and changed it, until everyone's had a chance to say their say. Apologies if this upsets anyone, but from looking at the relevant Talk Pages, it seemed like there was some consensus. Palm_Dogg 01:51, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

fuller

  doubtless a misprint; it's J F C, not G F C.
         -KDF

Naval warfare section

The second paragraph is from a simplistic Marxist perspective. I don't think many modern historians still regard the English Civil War as a "bourgeois revolution"; it many causes and origins divergent from purely class interests. It seems POV.Johnbull 23:22, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

History

This is a very well written article, but at "Outside of Europe" it makes the statement "The gunpowder era of warfare is largely confined to Europe." However, there's some great details on Chinese warfare in the 11th-13th centuries at Black powder#History. Any thoughts on how to integrate this without confusing the point? KWH 06:35, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Signalling, logistics, and organization

I've been working on the Fife (musical instrument) article. I came here to find out more about military signalling, communication, and logistics, as well as a basic guide to how armies were organized, in the early modern period. But there is very little on these aspects here. Is anyone willing to add info? Fishal 05:48, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Transfare of Technology

Cannon was not spread to the West by the Arabs unlike gunpowder. In fact the first undoubtable Chinese sources mention metal cannon after the first European sources and no real evidence has been found to the contrary and there is some, albeit just as unprovable, evidence that metal handgonnes were in use in Europe in 1280. I think the situation has more to do with individual development. No original research allowed. 64.236.121.129 (talk) 15:41, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

That's false. The Cannon did spread to the West by the Arabs as did the gun and cannon. The Chinese were very secretive about their technology, and if it wasn't for the Islamic World the Muslims woulnd't have spread valuable information. (such as how to make paper - which the Chinese were VERY secretive about.) Lord of Moria _Talk ^Contribs 16:47, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

If Muslims have spread the paper it does not mean they also spread the cannon technology. Do you have any evidence or at least reliable source that Muslims introduced the cannon technology to Europe?

Isidoros47 (talk) 23:43, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Isn't the section about the Ottoman empire a bit POV?

Statements like "the first European nation ... to effectively use firearms" and the allegedly best musket in the mid17th century look a little bit pro-Muslim and imbalanced to me. Why is there no mention about the European Hungarian engineer called Urban who taught the Ottomans how to build cannons? Should add it to make it more balanced.

Isidoros47 (talk) 23:36, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Removal of Unreliable Source

I have removed information from this article drawn from or sourced from the paper "The First Attempts of Flight, Automatic Machines, Submarines and Rocket Technology in Turkish History" by Arslan Terzioglu. This source is unreliable, as discussed on Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Rocket_Technology_in_Turkish_history. Dialectric (talk) 15:30, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

The list of jews who are responsible for starting all wars seems an outrageous and false claim, and should be removed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.141.185.122 (talk) 12:33, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Nature of War

Under the Nature of War section, the word indecisive is misused, but I can't tell what meaning the author is after. Could someone take a look and fix the word choice? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.2.193.1 (talk) 20:19, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Capitalisation

Is "Early Modern" commonly accepted as a proper noun by itself? Usage in the early modern period article suggests not, so the capitalisation of either this or that article's title needs to change. --Paul_012 ^(talk) 07:16, 24 February 2010 (UTC)