The Most Influential Weapons of History

Meridian said:
The M1911 had no effect - sidearms are irrelevant.
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Do you not think that it revolutionised automatic pistol design ?

I fired both the M92F Beretta and the M1911 .45 when in the US 5 years ago and the Colt .45 had half the recoil and ( I was told ), twice the stopping power although that is clearly attributed to the round and not the pistol.

Still not bad for a 100 year old pistol.
 
The most influential surely has to the Gatling Gun

it was the first to offer controlled, sequential fire with automatic loading,

History of the Machine Gun



The amazing thing about Dr Richard Jordan Gatlings invention is that his basic design is still in use years later except scaled up several times in the form the GAU 8 on the A10 tank buster


The bullets are supersonic, by the time you've heard them. Its too late.

Heres the rest of the Weapons of War Episode on the history of the machine gun:

 
Forde said:
Meridian, thanks for your input but I don't remember saying any weapon was a favourite of mine so I'm not confusing anything on that count.

The 'influential' part of the title is proving difficult and I want to be accurate which is why I'm asking for advice

[.....]

Still, thanks for posting your opinions - what would be your top ten?
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Sorry, but I got the distinct impression that you were doing what most are doing here: picking weapons that they like, rather than thinking about their influence. If you had genuinely thought about it then I apologise. As for my top ten: I don't think there are ten. As I've said a couple of times, wars are won by men and tactics, not particular weapons. A good army with a great leader but poor weapons will probably beat a poor army with poor leadership but great weapons, as long as we are not talking a massive leap between them. The chariot was a war-winning weapon because no-one else had anything like it at first. Ditto the machine-gun. But no personal weapon has ever won a war. A battle or two yes, but not a war - and it's who wins the war that matters. As I sort of said earlier, England won three major battles against the French with the longbow: does that make the weapon an influential one? No, because England lost the war concerned. It was won by other factors: the weapon simply didn't matter compared to logistics. The Franco-Prussian War was won by the railway engine for instance. The nearest I can think of is the T34, which probably won the Eastern Front for the Russians. That and their vast manpower. Without their numbers the T34 could not have helped. Wars are won or lost on a huge combination of factors, not by individual weapons.


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Von Smallhausen said:
Do you not think that it revolutionised automatic pistol design ?
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Yes, a bit - but it doesn't matter. The fact is that pistols have had no effect on history, with one exception: the one used to kill Arch-Duke Ferdinand. Even if the M1911 had directed progress in pistols since (it didn't, although it had an effect) it still doesn't make it an influential weapon.


M
 
It depends where you're going with this. You could happily add:

Flintlock (precursor to pretty much any modern hand-held balistic weapon)
Rifle (first weapon to spin the round for accuracy, i.e would likely hit somewhere within half a metre of the target from 100 metres unlike muskets)
Basic chinese cannon (first gunpowder based weapon thus reducing the amount of work involved breaching a wall)
Combustion engine (allowed developement of most modern mechanised fighting vehicles)

etc.
 
Meridian said:
Sorry, but I got the distinct impression that you were doing what most are doing here: picking weapons that they like, rather than thinking about their influence. If you had genuinely thought about it then I apologise. As for my top ten: I don't think there are ten. As I've said a couple of times, wars are won by men and tactics, not particular weapons. A good army with a great leader but poor weapons will probably beat a poor army with poor leadership but great weapons, as long as we are not talking a massive leap between them. The chariot was a war-winning weapon because no-one else had anything like it at first. Ditto the machine-gun. But no personal weapon has ever won a war. A battle or two yes, but not a war - and it's who wins the war that matters. As I sort of said earlier, England won three major battles against the French with the longbow: does that make the weapon an influential one? No, because England lost the war concerned. It was won by other factors: the weapon simply didn't matter compared to logistics. The Franco-Prussian War was won by the railway engine for instance. The nearest I can think of is the T34, which probably won the Eastern Front for the Russians. That and their vast manpower. Without their numbers the T34 could not have helped. Wars are won or lost on a huge combination of factors, not by individual weapons.


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I think you are missing the point a little here. It isn't whether a particular weapon won a war, or whether tactics and logistics are more important. All these things are inextricably connected.

A particular weapon, for example the Hoplite Spear can and will alter the tactics available to any given commander and can influence the outcome of a battle and thus the overall outcome of a war quite significantly.

Thinkg like the changes in Cavalry and Armour, going from Bronze to Steel, the discovery of Carbon Steel, Star Fortification, the advent of the Machine Gun, Battleships, RADAR, Wireless Communication, Aircraft Carriers and many other materiel factors can influence warfare.

This is what the point is, what weapons influenced the most, whether it be directly or indirectly.
 
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Castiel said:
I think you are missing the point a little here. It isn't whether a particular weapon won a war, or whether tactics and logistics are more important. All these things are inextricably connected.

A particular weapon, for example the Hoplite Spear can and will alter the tactics available to any given commander and can influence the outcome of a battle and thus the overall outcome of a war quite significantly.

This is what the point is, what weapons influenced the most, whether it be directly or indirectly.
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Exactly true, sir!

Odd as it may sound the influence that a weapon has had does not necessarily have anything to do with any particular battle or war or whether they were won or lost. Maxim's machine gun was massively influential in that it completely altered the face of war for a while and led indirectly to armoured vehicles including the now ubiquitous tank.

The Colt M1911 pistol hasn't had such an obvious impact as the Maxim but its excellent design would echo through generations of modern firearms design, so in that way it has been very influential.
 
Apologies if I've missed it, but what about the WW1 machine guns? They completely changed the face of conflict as it was known up until then.
 
GAU-8 is an excellent example of simplicity, all manner of high cost missiles and rockets have been made and numerous armours to defend against them requiring even more complicated multi-stage missiles to get past it and this just works by firing enough cheap solid heavy lumps of metal as fast as possible :p

Like how the best tank shell against another tank is a very heavy thin lump of solid metal with a sabot.


it's quite nice how things peak and drop in complexity as technology develops to let older simpler concepts ramp up their power.
 
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