Re: medieval thread

Jack Linthicum <jacklinthicum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Apr 19, 11:42 am, Paul J Gans <g...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
William Black <william.bl...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
<a...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1176987367.403789.194370@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Speaking about China, recently I saw a program about Chinese military
technology on a History Channel. If it is to be believed, Chinese had
numerous military inventions that should give them a huge edge over
their opponents. What I remember out of this list, included crossbows,
'automatic' crossbows (crossbow with a magazine of the bolts and
demonstrated firing rate a bolt per few seconds), gunpowder-based
landmines, rocket-propelled arrows, etc. Taking into an account that
even disunited Chinese states would have to have a huge numeric
advantage over any external invader and adding to this size and
strenght of their communications (the Great Wall aside, fortifications
of the big cities were quite impressive), it is anything but clear to
me how did they manage to get conquered by small cavalry army of the
primitive nomads.

Either most of these inventions (including thousands of cannons
available at the time of Mongolian invasion) are post-factum bogus or
we are facing probably the most fundamental military ineptitude in all
human history. Of course, it should be said that by this time the
Northern half of China had been conquered by the Jurchens (call it
"the 1st Manchurian conquest") which _may_ mean that the locals did
not care too much about which barbarian exactly is going to rule them
and that the Mongols faced rather small armies. But in this case an
issue of ineptitude is even more obvious because the Jurchens probably
had much less impressive military organization than the Mongols and
still managed to conquer almost half of Chinese territory.
Ah the good old repeating crossbow.
Bob Brown of the Antiquarian Archer Society had one of those and I've seen
it shot.
It isn't a military weapon at all, it's more of a riot control device
because if you're wearing a leather or padded jacket, or even cold weather
clothing, it isn't going to do you any harm...
Land mines that need setting fire to and gunpowder propelled arrows that go
anywhere but where you want them to go are other aspects of Chinese military
technology that look promising until you discover that the Chinese are
really good at inventing stuff and really bad at developing workable weapon
systems...

These are all examples of failed inventions. They really
don't count in the history of technology.

The west had plenty of those too, from computing mechanisms
to steam turbines to a mechanical harvester. And there are
plenty more.

--
--- Paul J. Gans

Would you count Eilmer of Malmesbury as a "failed invention"? He did
glide about 650 feet (spatio stadii et plus) in the time between 1000
and 1010 AD. This is about the same time as al-Jauhari met his death
trying to fly off a mosque in Khorasan.

No. Eilmer's invention failed because nothing came of it. To
be socially useful rather than a literary or historical curiosity,
an invention must be used and impact society.

Better than the feathered Abu'l-Qasim 'Abbas bin Firnas who also
failed to provide a tail for his effort, as did Eilmer. Eilmer's
aviation was remembered in many writings which makes his effort
memorable, unlike Berthold. Even Roger Bacon went further and said he
knew a wise man who had designed an aircraft with "artificial wings".

No matter. All failed inventions. They are more symbolic of
man's urge to fly like a bird (or sting like a bee) than they
are of any lasting improvement in technology.

So we have Eilmer remembered but basically unsuccessful and Berthold,
not remembered well enough to secure a place but still given credit
for starting the ball rolling.

I don't think that Berthold gets the credit. His story is told
because it is a curiosity. The truth of it is unknown.

--
--- Paul J. Gans
.

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