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What if gunpowder would have never been invented? (Read 7218 times)
TN.Frank
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What if gunpowder would have never been invented?
May 4th, 2010 at 10:36pm
 
Just kickin' around the idea today. What if there was never any gunpowder? No matchlocks, flintlocks, percussion locks. No ctg. guns or anything like it. What if Archery and bows was THE projectile technology.  Wonder how far we'd have come with the compound bow. I know they're trying for 400fps and there's some bows on the market that'll do 340fps but do you think that the Technology would have already pushed us past 400fps and into something even faster if that's all we had to rely on? 
I personally don't see society today being that much different. Wars would have still been fought but with compound and crossbows instead of rifles and machine guns. Crime would still happen and people would still get killed but with different weapons then firearms.
I just wonder what our world would look like though. Would Politicians push for Compound Bow bans to "protect the children" and would we have "Bow Free Zones" around schools?
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Re: What if gunpowder would have never been invent
Reply #1 - May 4th, 2010 at 11:58pm
 
Don't they do that already?
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Masiakasaurus
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Re: What if gunpowder would have never been invent
Reply #2 - May 4th, 2010 at 11:59pm
 
I, on the other hand, think everything would be completely different. No rockets, no cold war, no Korea (rockets were used as a weapon against an overwhelming Mongolian invasion force and scared them witless). Cannons were pivotal in the European naval dominance starting in the 1200s pushing back the Chinese(who never truly militarized gunpowder), Indians (who had a small navy with inefficient cannons), and all of Africa and the Americas (who had no cannons). Most other tech would be the same, but I imagine semi-automatic double-action spring-operated repeating crossbows would be the norm for militaries around the world made from carbon-fiber, composites and steel cabling. Military tactics would probably be skirmishers and light infantry lines, with aircraft thrown in. Crossbows would probably be heavily regulated, while hunting bows wouldn't.
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Pikåru wrote on Nov 19th, 2013 at 6:59pm:
Massi - WTF? It's called a sling. You use it to throw rocks farther and faster than you could otherwise. That's all. 
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Re: What if gunpowder would have never been invent
Reply #3 - May 5th, 2010 at 12:04am
 
To be honest I doubt there would be any real difference. Technology is so advanced some other propellent would just be substituted; guns powered with gasoline, compressed air or any of lots of other possibilities.
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wolf197
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Re: What if gunpowder would have never been invent
Reply #4 - May 5th, 2010 at 12:12am
 
This is a very hard question for me to picture. When y ou say no gun powder I picture a world with no vehicles and stuff like that, but that would probaly not be the case. I think we would have over all more fighting, cause we could not scare each other so easily. I think that yes the bows would get stronger cause military is always trying to best the other side, be it offensive or defensive, we want to have better weopons and better armor, and so with out people trying to better the gun our attention would be diverted to other means of war, like the bow the sling and probaly a cross bow that has a clip that can be fired rapidaly. But then again I have very little knowledge on the subject and can't quit picture a world with no gun powder and still keep electricty and such.
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Re: What if gunpowder would have never been invent
Reply #5 - May 5th, 2010 at 12:13am
 
Thats a valid point Aussie. There is always something else.
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Re: What if gunpowder would have never been invent
Reply #6 - May 5th, 2010 at 12:22am
 
Aussie wrote on May 5th, 2010 at 12:04am:
To be honest I doubt there would be any real difference. Technology is so advanced some other propellent would just be substituted; guns powered with gasoline, compressed air or any of lots of other possibilities.

I kind of assumed that guns in general couldn't happen. Explosives are tricky things, they must burn hot and quickly, but capable of ignition by compression, and a host of other things to be effective as a propellant. Cordite (an obsolete synthetic gunpowder) was corrosive and consequently was phased out quickly because is ruined the inside of the guns. Every kind of gunpowder cannot be ignited by compression so a primer is used. Chancing upon gunpowder was an accident of geology and advancing it only happened because we knew what we wanted. I don't know if we could substitute it easily without knowing what to look for. Compressed air could be viable, but the mechanical workings of those guns are very complex and was also based on preexisting tech. I think its more likely that we would develop something completely different which we have no need of now because we do have guns.
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Pikåru wrote on Nov 19th, 2013 at 6:59pm:
Massi - WTF? It's called a sling. You use it to throw rocks farther and faster than you could otherwise. That's all. 
~Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily avialable, they will create their own problems.~
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Re: What if gunpowder would have never been invent
Reply #7 - May 5th, 2010 at 1:58am
 
True, but I suppose I can't conceive of a technological advance that does not include commensurate advances in weapons. Whether it's powder or some other technology the development of our killing technology will not lag behind that of our peaceful one.
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Re: What if gunpowder would have never been invent
Reply #8 - May 5th, 2010 at 6:44am
 
well given that nitro cellulose has been around for a few hundred years - I'm guessing we'd have just skipped straight to the smokeless powder.

also bear in mind that incendiaries have been around for thousands of years, someone would always have been looking for a better faster burn.

and then there's alfred noble who invented nitro glycerin and dynamite.

the loss of gunpowder would pretty much only effect the fireworks industry and that really would have been a tragedy !
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Re: What if gunpowder would have never been invent
Reply #9 - May 5th, 2010 at 7:47am
 
Some of the compressed air guns now are just as powerful as regular guns.
Steam cannons.
Maybe fuel injector weapons, like cars are?
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TN.Frank
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Re: What if gunpowder would have never been invent
Reply #10 - May 5th, 2010 at 7:50am
 
I think basically what I'm getting at is that there's no firearms of anykind. I know a lot of the Anti-Gun bunch wish that they could just have all the firearms disappear from the face of the Earth but what I'm trying to get at is would that really change anything all that much.
  Man has a knack for figuring out ways to kill one another so I'm sure that someone would have come up with a full auto crossbow by now.  Besides, look at all the wars that were fought before gunpowder. Seems like we did ok at killing one another then. 
  We'd probably still be using swords as sidearms instead of pistols and revolvers and archery technology would probably be way a head of where it is now since it'd be about the only practical means of launching a projectile.
Not sure about rockets or N.A.S.A., if we'd even had a space program. Not sure about explosives either although gas can sure explode just fine but would we even have internal combustion engines.
I just wonder if, in a parallel universe somewhere firearms were never invented and what that Earth would look like.
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Re: What if gunpowder would have never been invent
Reply #11 - May 5th, 2010 at 8:42am
 
One possible scenario:

The Ottoman Turks (who were the first empire to use gunpowder on a really large scale for warfare and sieges) are not successful in conquering Constantinople in 1453. Their empire crumbles apart after a few decades.

The Byzantines rise again (as they did many times before). Spices, silk and other goods keep on flowing from Asia into Europe via the Silk Road.

No need for Portuguese, Spaniards, Dutch, Britons and French to look for maritime ways to acquire the riches of the orient.

No Columbus, no discovery of the Americas.

The middle ages never end. Most people still live as farmers and use slings to scare away predators and thieves from their lands.

No internet, no slinging.org, but a lot of excellent slingers.

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TN.Frank
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Re: What if gunpowder would have never been invent
Reply #12 - May 5th, 2010 at 9:04am
 
America being founded would be an issue since the Europeans would be on equal footing with the Natives. That's one reason why the Norse couldn't get permanent settlements here even though they were in N.America 500 years before Columbus. The weapons were too equal and there were more Natives then settlers so the settlers got pushed out.
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Re: What if gunpowder would have never been invent
Reply #13 - May 5th, 2010 at 3:36pm
 
it would be interesting, we would still have Constantinople, we would develop other energy sources and weapons.
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Re: What if gunpowder would have never been invent
Reply #14 - May 5th, 2010 at 3:43pm
 
Aussie wrote on May 5th, 2010 at 12:04am:
To be honest I doubt there would be any real difference. Technology is so advanced some other propellent would just be substituted; guns powered with gasoline, compressed air or any of lots of other possibilities.


I agree. Nowdays, they probably would've developed rail gun technology or some other magnetic form of propulsion. Besides, lack of gunpowder was never an impediment to kill each other before the chinese even thought about it.
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