Missed Potential

[BEHIND_THE_MASK]

Recently I have began to wonder on the subject of weapons and tactics whose potential was missed that could have proven important in battles...

SKI TROOPS - Though the most popular account of these troops is from the Winter War in which they brutally tore apart Soviet Ranks. Could these Ski Troopers have been more efficently used earlier? Deployed in Winter time as a sort of Light Cavalry or Skirmishers, in retrospect could they have been used efficently in Guerilla Warfare in the days of Muskets or Archery? Could they have been revolutionary in Logistics or even seige deployment? Though it may be refined to the Winter Seasons, is the potential of the Ski one that was passed up?

EARLY ROCKETRY (Exp. HWACHA ::: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwacha :: - Perhaps the Hwacha's potential was missed because it was refined to Korea but what stopped such a weapon similar to develop in Europe. Examples of Hwacha use show it as a deadly, potential weapon, even in one battle being largely responsible for repulsing a vicious Japanese assualt on a massivly outnumbered Korean position. Was the potential of rocket weapons such as these missed in favor of Cannon?

If anyone else has any examples or points of discussions, feel free to add.

 

[Dachs]

EARLY ROCKETRY (Exp. HWACHA ::: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwacha :: - Perhaps the Hwacha's potential was missed because it was refined to Korea but what stopped such a weapon similar to develop in Europe. Examples of Hwacha use show it as a deadly, potential weapon, even in one battle being largely responsible for repulsing a vicious Japanese assualt on a massivly outnumbered Korean position. Was the potential of rocket weapons such as these missed in favor of Cannon?

Read about Congreve rockets?

 

[WICKLC1]

Crossbow repeater. A chinese crossbow that could fire about 5 bolts without reloading.

 

[JohnRM]

How about repeating arms and the Gatling Gun being used at the beginning of the American Civil War? The South would have been slaughtered early and the war would not have killed nearly as many people or destroy as much property.

 

[Tee Kay]

Read about Congreve rockets?

Congreve Rockets were designed based on Tipu Sultan's Mysorean rockets which were developed independently from the Hwacha, I think.

 

[Dachs]

Congreve Rockets were designed based on Tipu Sultan's Mysorean rockets which were developed independently from the Hwacha, I think.

They were that, but they were at the same time definitely developed in advance of 'modern' rocketry, and used to great effect and with some frequency. So perhaps an intermediate step?

 

[Verbose]

SKI TROOPS - Though the most popular account of these troops is from the Winter War in which they brutally tore apart Soviet Ranks. Could these Ski Troopers have been more efficently used earlier? Deployed in Winter time as a sort of Light Cavalry or Skirmishers, in retrospect could they have been used efficently in Guerilla Warfare in the days of Muskets or Archery? Could they have been revolutionary in Logistics or even seige deployment? Though it may be refined to the Winter Seasons, is the potential of the Ski one that was passed up?

I think it's logistics that does it. You can put skis on the troops, but not quite so good on the logistic support they need. Sleds work to a point, but they still mean oxen and horses have to slog through the snow.

Besides, snow isn't to only kind of winter you get in Europe, and skis are in fact useless without snow, just anothe piece of equipment to lug around, in case...

The logistical problems of fighting winter campaigns were prohibitive for most early modern European armies, and adding skis wouldn't cut it by themselves. That said, the colder parts of Europe saw armies already in the 17th c. fighting winter campaigns as it could give them an edge over enemies not prepared to do so at all. Still, it was a hassle, and hard on the troops, so for the most part they stuck to campaigning in spring/summer, like they always had.

I.e. I think bigger issues of logistics and administration need to be worked out before an early modern European army would seriously think about winter campaigns and ski-troops.

That said, by the time of the Napoleonic wars at least the Scandinavians had started fiddling with ski-troops. The guys below are Norwegian reenactors, upholding the glorious memory of the daring Norwegian actions against Sweden in the war of 1808-09. It was a huge Norwegian success with 385 prisoners taken and 25 Swedes killed, for the loss of 15 Norwegian dead and two prisoners.

http://www.napoleon-series.org/military/battles/c_viciouswar1808.html

 

[dannyshenanigan]

Greek fire comes to mind. If the formula hadn't been lost after the Ottoman conquest of the Byzantine Empire, it could have had an tremendous influence on naval warfare for centuries.

 

[Sharwood]

Flamethrowers. I've seen (debateable) evidence that Ancient Greeks were more than capable of creating flamethrowers with the materials they had at hand, and obviously the Byzantines were more than capable of doing so, but they never converted Greek Fire or other flammable chemicals for use on land.

 

[dannyshenanigan]

The Chinese did in fact create primative flamethrowers. If these flamethrowers were combined with Greek fire you would of had a very dangerous weapon; especially to the soldiers operating the flamethrower.

 

[privatehudson]

How about repeating arms and the Gatling Gun being used at the beginning of the American Civil War? The South would have been slaughtered early and the war would not have killed nearly as many people or destroy as much property.

Gatling guns weren't patented and the company wasn't founded until 1862, even assuming the government threw their entire weight behind production they would probably be unable to field sufficient numbers of them with trained crews until 1863 or 4 anyway. Like with the repeating rifle the problem wasn't necessarily when they came into use or when they were invented. The problem was that both sides so urgently needed weapons that to throw government contracts and money exclusively or primarily at a new type of weapon would probably reduce the production of the existing types and ammunition for them at a time when there was such shortages that guns had to be bought in Europe.

 

[Sharwood]

The Chinese did in fact create primative flamethrowers. If these flamethrowers were combined with Greek fire you would of had a very dangerous weapon; especially to the soldiers operating the flamethrower.

I wasn't aware the Chinese had them. And yeah, it would have been dangerous to the guy operating the flamethrower, but no more so than a modern flamethrower, if used correctly.

 

[Loki130]

revolver rifle-worked on similar mechanics as the revolver pistols and worked relatively well, but never really popular

 

[frekk]

revolver rifle-worked on similar mechanics as the revolver pistols and worked relatively well, but never really popular

Do you mean the Puckle Gun? That's a very apt description, though it's usually overblown and described as a "machinegun". I like your description much better (if you were referring to it).