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Need help from Italian speaker Anonymous 10/31/15 (Sat) 15:47:53 a28523 No.31799

The earliest comparisons between the crossbow and handgun were written by Paolo Santini and Lampo Brago in 1452 and 1454 respectively. Brago's book is called Strategicon adversum Turcos.

If any Italian-speaker here could find and translate the relevant passages I would appreciate it, and many other anons would probably also be interested in reading it.

Here's what is said on the two manuscripts in A Bibliography of English Military Books Up to 1642:

"Paolo Santini may be said to be the first writer on artillery; his MS., which dates from the year 1450, containing drawings of ordnance, powder mines, and receipts [sic] for fire-balls and hollow balls filled with powder; while Lampo Brago is the second. The MS. of the latter, which was written in 1454, is the earliest known treatise exclusively on artillery, and contains and interesting comparison between the crossbow and the hand-gun.* Like Santini's, it has never been printed [as of 1900].

*Promis. Santini, in 1452, uses the same arguments in favour of the bow as Smythe uses in 1590."

Anonymous 12/29/15 (Tue) 12:41:30 f77503 No.34018

Italianon (though what you actually need is a Latinfag - mad luck I'm both :^)) reporting in!

In case you're still around here, could you tell us what's the exact title of Santini's treatise? It could be "De Machinis", but I'm not so sure.

Also Lampo's last name was "Birago" not "Brago".

I haven't been able to find scans of those manuscripts, but if you have some quoted passages I'd gladly help you translate them.

Anonymous 12/30/15 (Wed) 14:24:36 992d10 No.34030

That would be interesting. The handgun obviously has its uses, but it always struck me as strange that the crossbow was so quickly supplanted. For one, it doesn't require carrying around explosive powder AND a burning match within inches of each other.

Anonymous 12/30/15 (Wed) 17:05:29 3b1ba2 No.34033

>>34030

Armor penetration and range, I guess.

Anonymous 12/30/15 (Wed) 17:40:48 ab9bd8 No.34034

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>>34018

The only information I have on them is that small passage from A Bibliography of English Military Books. Unfortunately, if you can't find them online then they probably aren't available online. There's been an effort in the last few years to scan old published works, but they haven't put much work into digitizing manuscripts yet.

>>34030

That's exactly why the "gunners only needed a few hours of training" meme is so silly. Gunners who weren't well-trained often blew themselves up, or the guys standing next to them.

It still took a while for guns to replace bows and crossbows completely. The Hussites between 1419 and 1436 had one handgun for every three crossbow, with the ratio increasing as the war progressed. The Archduke of Austria in 1421 ordered that for every 20 men, three should have handguns and eight should have crossbows. Unfortunately, we don't know if the crossbow was still considered a superior weapon, or if the handguns and powder were just too rare/expensive to equip more men with them. By 1480 the crossbow had been replaced completely in Russia, at least according to Sean McLachlan. However, in western Europe crossbows didn't die out until around the 1540's, and England even kept using small numbers of bows until the 1590's.

Anonymous 12/31/15 (Thu) 01:07:47 50a550 No.34041

>>34030

>>34033

>>34034

For the sake of interest, isn't there a chance that the early cannons simply were included because they looked and sounded orky…err, I mean flashy?

I think the thunder of gunfire would have scared the life out of enemy troops, especially those that were unused to it. Doesn't help that you can't really see the projectile.

Anonymous 12/31/15 (Thu) 01:33:22 7b4d51 No.34042

>what is google translate

Anonymous 12/31/15 (Thu) 06:31:45 ab9bd8 No.34045

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>>34041

It's hard to believe that that's anything but a marginal benefit.

Machiavelli asserts that the only use of firearms is to scare off peasants, but Machiavelli was notorious for writing on military matters when he had no military experience.

The stories of soldiers encountering firearms for the first time that I've read are from the 1500's, not the 1400's, but they usually seem to be impressed by the killing power and range of the weapons more than the flash and noise.

Maybe it was different in the days of socketted guns and meal powder, but the early guns still have the obvious advantage of penetrating armor that would deflect arrows, and maiming when arrows would only slightly wound, which again would seem to weigh heavier on the judgement of the users than the noise they produced.