Were guns originally intended to be weapons?

[row]

Guns were invented to make boys feel their penises were longer. Boys think their penises are God. One squirt and they are addicted for life. You always know what's been in their cold dead hands and their pride in the strength of their grip.

lol...freud through the lens of abbott and costello

 

[TerryMathews]

Guns were invented to make boys feel their penises were longer. Boys think their penises are God. One squirt and they are addicted for life. You always know what's been in their cold dead hands and their pride in the strength of their grip.

Seek professional help.

 

[Moonbeam]

lol...freud through the lens of abbott and costello

Of course that's how your defective brain sees it.

 

[Moonbeam]

In much of human history including many contemporary times your lofty view of what people should be doesn't gel with what they had to be. It was kill or be killed.

Having trouble adjusting?

 

[Moonbeam]

Seek professional help.

I see the twit couldn't resist opening his yap again.

 

[Moonbeam]

I must have touched somebody in their favorite spot to get such love.

 

[Doppel]

I must have touched somebody in their favorite spot to get such love.

"My trolling is succeeding as planned!", said the troll.

 

[TerryMathews]

I see the twit couldn't resist opening his yap again.

Trying your hand at self-deprecating humor?

 

[Fenixgoon]

Depends on how early in the history of the musket you're talking.

There was definitely a point is history where a marksman archer would be far more lethal than a solider with a musket or blunderbuss.

If it's truly a musket, then the musketeer is a dead man in a one-on-one fight, at least for cultures relying on kinetic energy rather than weak bows with poison. Even the historical breast-anchored short bow had an accurate range far beyond that of contemporary muskets.

i imagine archery training is far more difficult than teaching someone how to shoot a musket.

and at least for the english longbow, you had to be pretty damn strong to use one if i'm not mistaken.

if guns hadn't been superior to bows, why would armies have switched to them? clearly there was an advantage somewhere, even in the earliest years of the gun.

 

[Moonbeam]

Trying your hand at self-deprecating humor?

And opening it again.

 

[Murloc]

what kind of question is that?

There was the crossbow. Propelling the missiles with something that explodes in a tube is the logical next step.

 

[WHAMPOM]

Until the rifled flint lock rifle was developed, hunting for game was pretty much limited to loading a smooth bore rifle with shot and shooting foul from ambush. After all what were the first guns good for other then firing at men in formation. Firing a one pound ball, without sights or a stock, mounted on a stake that needed to be driven into the ground, just a miniature cannon with all the drawbacks but portability.

 

[waggy]

i imagine archery training is far more difficult than teaching someone how to shoot a musket.

and at least for the english longbow, you had to be pretty damn strong to use one if i'm not mistaken.

if guns hadn't been superior to bows, why would armies have switched to them? clearly there was an advantage somewhere, even in the earliest years of the gun.

Also i remember reading the cost of training 12 English longbowmen was cheaper then outfitting and training 50 of the early guns.

 

[Doppel]

i imagine archery training is far more difficult than teaching someone how to shoot a musket.

and at least for the english longbow, you had to be pretty damn strong to use one if i'm not mistaken.

if guns hadn't been superior to bows, why would armies have switched to them? clearly there was an advantage somewhere, even in the earliest years of the gun.

I have sometimes wondered this. I assume it's because an idiot can be given a musket and made passably lethal without training. But it's seemed to me that 50 arches vs 50 muskets would have been interesting because the usable range of the bows was so much better, although if they were rushed they'd need something to fend against a musket with a knife on the end.

 

[WHAMPOM]

who do you think will win - the guy with a bow and arrow or the guy with the musket?

The village freemen required by Royal decree to spend so many hours a month practicing his archery. Four times the range, ten times the firing power and much better accuracy with a bow beats a musket.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

Black powder guns are susceptible to inclement weather whereas bows are not.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

who do you think will win - the guy with a bow and arrow or the guy with the musket?

First off using a musket in that era a person would be lucky if they hit the broad side of a barn. The barrel had no rifling and the round was a ball. If person with the gun was lucky enough to get the shot off before being stuck with an arrow he may be actually take down the archer. If not chances are the person with the gun would be screwed as a good archer could get off 6 arrows before the gun could be reloaded. Based on this, my money would be on the archer.

 

[Zaap]

People are applying modern tactics and military practices to early guns vs. bows etc. But armies used to just line up on either side of a field, wait to take aim, and go at it at point blank range.

There's no contest about which is more expendable when you're just lining people up to be mowed down literally as fodder: archers that take forever to train, or lines of lesser/barely-trained conscripts.

As late as the US Revolution, Brits (in their highly cammo'd bright red uniforms) were outraged that they were being shot at by Kentucky riflemen from trees, rather than standing in a line in an open field right in front of them.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Of course guns were not designed as weapons! They were designed to shoot flowers and spread love!

Nomination for the Dumbest Thread of the year award.