If you jumped through a portal back to the year 1300AD

Question is hw many of you would actually be able to build/create what you are suggesting? Not many I think. :p

Personally I could probably make a simple steam engine and maybe basic electricity generation, refining it up until I may be able to make some kind of steam car. Maybe watermills and windmills too

I'd also probably be able to make basic gunpowder and a basic musket if I could find some reasonably refined materials. I'd probably be able to help the military create a few new things as well.

Noting major by todays standards and probably not too efficient but far more advanced than the 14th centuary.

If we're going outlandish I've always wondered what it would be like to send a modern day/WW2 battleship into a major sea Battle of the past (say Trafaguar), or a Challenger 2 tank into an historic battle (Agincore or even Waterloo). :p

Just watch the enemy crumble under the might of all the fire power. What would the enemy do in their wooden boats or on horseback with bow and arrow against massive metal machines that can destroy buildings (or even whole villages) in one salvo!*

*Obviously I'd make sure I took enough fuel and ammo with me so I didn't run out. ;)

EDIT: Also simple things like the idea of Propellors and bearings. It's amazing when you think about it just how even a "common" person fron the 21st century knows that could be so beneficial to the past.
 
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remember though it's not just you, you have all the great minds of the time, you just have to give them the ideas, the possibilities and have them expand.
 
Depends, are we able to come back to present day and enjoy the fruits of other peoples labour that we stole?

I wouldn't fancy living in a time where religion holds a high seat, no sanitation, no tinterwebz!!, no Natalie Portman...

If we could come back, I'd first off discover the Americas earlier, destroy France with my stolen knowledge, sort out that anushat Edward I, teach them about sanitation and I'll copy+paste+print everything I can find on Wikipedia.

Walla.

Oh and introduce marmite so I shall gorge off Marmite and toast until it is time to head back to 2010.
 
Break your tracks and burn you alive inside I'd imagine.

How would they break the tracks? Even then it would be difficult to burn me alive, i'd still have weapons and they would need to have a hell of a lot of wood to heat the tank up (whilst sealed for NBC warfare) enough to kill me. :p
 
How would they break the tracks? Even then it would be difficult to burn me alive, i'd still have weapons and they would need to have a hell of a lot of wood to heat the tank up (whilst sealed for NBC warfare) enough to kill me. :p

cannon would take the tracks off :p


Or a load of gunpowder kegs.


Then they can dowse you in oil and gun power and set it off.

iirc nbc mode isn't sealed it's just filtered a few minutes in a large fire and you'd have no air left.



Fun fact, if you had a good executioner when you where burnt at the stake you would normally die of suffocation before you even suffered minor burns.
 
Meh, I'd be moving. ;)

Did they even have cannon in the 14th century?

Oil and Gunpowder, not sure that would work either considering the challenger 2 can take care of missiles so well, either way they wouldn't get near enough, I'd just spin the turret round and spray. :p

in all reality though I'm sure i'd have some backup, especially with the rest of the opposition army destroyed by HE shells and machine gun fire. :D

As for the Battleship, how many ships of the line do you reckon you could take out with one Salvo? Not including the smaller weapons either, or the fact my prefered option may just be to ram straight through them and blow the further ones to smitherenes! :D Wonder if there are any games I can recreate this... :p
 
Meh, I'd be moving. ;)

Did they even have cannon in the 14th century?

They did in Waterloo :p


Oil and Gunpowder, not sure that would work either considering the challenger 2 can take care of missiles so well, either way they wouldn't get near enough, I'd just spin the turret round and spray. :p


missiles are not a large continuous fire robbing everything inside of oxygen, including your engine which powers your turret.

As for the Battleship, how many ships of the line do you reckon you could take out with one Salvo? Not including the smaller weapons either, or the fact my prefered option may just be to ram straight through them and blow the further ones to smitherenes! :D Wonder if there are any games I can recreate this... :p



Battleship, tbh considering how well the hms warrior did when she as first deployed i don't think any number of sail and cannon ships would ever even do more than dent the hull a bit.



Wonder if there are any games I can recreate this...

Empire earth 1&2, you can even pitch a cold war American army against cave men or 13th century French forces if you like :p


and none of that Civ style mace men taking otu an apache no, in EE1&2 a ww2 battle ship chews through old sailing ships :p
 
Forgot I mentioned Waterloo! :o

And shuush, you're spoiling my fantasy! :p

HMS Warrior was an epic ship, just a shame (well sort of) she was never used in proper combat. I remember the story of the two Ironclads in the American civil was as well, think they both had to retreat as neither could damage the other with their weaponry. :D

Oooh! Thought that was a space game whenever I heard of it before, may have to look it up! And yeah Civ really annoys me when a bunch of crossbow men can take out a tank Battalion...:(
 
empire earth 2 is calls, you have borders etc, and you can use chemical weapons on civilians etc (poisoning warehouses makes any villager who uses it die slowly ;p)
 
remember people, they already had gunpowder and cannons by 1300 in advanced parts of western Europe. and it would be very hard to improve on those unless you had superior knowledge of metal work and access to superior steels i.e from India and better forging techniques. We might be able to explain a few things, or describe a few things but actually pulling them off requires real technical detail and access to materials - which would take a lot of time and money.
 
I know the basics of how to create pattern-welded steel. Not enough to do it, but enough to collaborate with a smith and do it. That would enable a very large increase in the quality of blades for weapons. In England in 1300AD, I could probably trade that knowledge for a knighthood and a decent manor.

A recreation of an old technology would be of some use - wax writing tablets like Romans used would be useful to the church in England in 1300AD. That would be of some use in protecting me against the inevitable charges of thinking too much that would result from this plan. I'm not joking about that - look up Roger Bacon for an example.

Sanitation would come in handy on my manor. England in 1300 was not noted for cleanliness and hygeine. A few physicians knew a little about it, but not many and not much. Boiling drinking water would be a good start. I'm fairly sure I could knock up a crude still for distilling beer. The resulting liquor would work well as an antiseptic cleanser. I could probably save a fair few people that way (from wounds and childbirth) by training healers and midwives.

Talking of sanitation...piped water. I can't build a clay pipe, but I'm sure I could explain what I wanted to a potter who could make clay pipe sections. If I piped water a couple of miles from a spring on a high hill, the people of my manor would have access to good drinking water even in bad years.

In 1300 in England, there would be coal at or very near the surface in many places. Back to the smith again - here's some rock that burns very hot, can you use that? I could probably figure out a rudimentary steam engine, which I could collaborate on with the smith. Unlike Hero of Alexandria, I'd know about practical uses of steam power. Although that one would almost certainly get me hanged for heresy in those days.

So I couldn't do a great deal myself, but I could do a great deal in collaboration with artisans. I'd have the ideas, they would have the skills and knowledge to implement those ideas in that time.

Hmm...would a recurved longbow be useful? I could experiment. I, now a knight of some fame, could probably get an audience with the king... "Remember me? I'm behind those superior swords your knights and men-at-arms are using to have an unfair advantage over everyone else. Now I've got a bow that shoots further than bows anyone else has. I'll trade it for a fair chunk of France after your armies conquer it. Deal?"
 
I'd do the basics you know, discover electricity, calculus, the atom, disprove ether, get my name on a **** load of mathematical theorems, thermodynamics.
Refine weaponry, cannons, hand cannons, hardened steel.
Cure smallpox, introduce boiling water, invent the steam engine, refine crude oil, make plastics, make a rudimentary petrol engine.
Flight, using said engine, radio, the type writer, refine optics.

Conquer France, ask about finding an alternative route to India...

Then when I'm realised as a mega genius and in a position of huge power and wealth, say that the earth revolves around the sun...
 
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