Titanium is an inferior metal when it comes to arms and armor. It doesn't hold an edge and it doesn't take impact as well. The only thing that it does do is that it is much much lighter. Furthermore it's much harder to forge in fact it may even blind the person that's forging it so I doubt if titanium would be used.
@@michaelsauls1142 but the only thing that changes is the removal of gunpowder, so eventually the industrial revolution would provide a way to forge titanium via assembly lines. It's much more likely that titanium would be used in an alloy that helps nullify its weaknesses rather than pure titanium though
Without gunpowder and after electricity, I could see a “powered crossbow” that’s basically a rail gun being developed shortly after the invention of batteries.
@@Klaaism Eventually though they’d discover the superiority of oil and (after some time) nuclear power. Although, with the lack of gunpowder and therefore lack of explosives, I’m not sure if nukes would be invented
Ask the Arabs when they besieged Constantinople under Umayyad Caliph Mu'awiya. The Roman Empire was developing flamethrowers, which they called firethrowers, to combat their nemesis the persian Sassanid Empire, but before they could finish this secret weapon the Muslim Arabs finished their civil war and launched invasions into Erahnshar and Rhomania to conquer the Earth as they were taught to do so when they felt they had enough power to do so. Persia fell completely and Rome lost Egypt, Levant, Libya, and Karthage. By the time the Umayyad Caliphate had replaced the Rashidun Caliphate and besieged Constantinople (Roman Empire's capital at this time), they were already developing their firethrowers and eventually whipped them out and burned away the jihadist hordes.
QorinHalfhand. Chain swords are ineffective since it takes a long time to make a cut that a normal sword would do in an instant and swords aren’t effective against armor
@@thatonekid640 Well actually no, (if it has strong enough teeth and motor) a chainsword is actually more effective than a normal sword against armor. A sword is a large single hit easily deflected by armor but a chainsword as it hits causes hundred of small nics/dents that add up fast, with Every tiny hit pulling the chainsword further and further into the armor. Arch Warhammer did a video explaining it better, I recommend that. (Sorry if I appear "oh u wrong", that's not what I mean at all.)
@@leobracken2316 The significant problems are as you said; strong enough teeth and motor, but also the user's own ability to control the weapon. Even against relatively soft materials like wood, chainsaw teeth still blunt and break and both the chainsaw and what it's cutting through need to be held very firmly and carefully. Against hardened steel armour even the strongest chainsaw teeth we could make today would quickly break off and fly everywhere, becoming as much a hazard for the user as the target. And that's if the chain doesn't break or the chainsaw itself doesn't catch on something and tear itself out of the users hands (which is probably the most likely outcome). A regular sword by comparison is a single big blade and therefore has much greater structural integrity. Swords were never used to cut through armour (the only thing that could penetrate hardened steel armour would be a full swing with a heavy penetrating weapon like a halberd. Even then it isn't going to penetrate very far and will likely get stuck in the plate, so at most the weapon's lost and the opponent's been winded.) Fighting against a fully-armoured opponent usually involves bashing and wrestling them to the ground and then either restraining them or stabbing them through a gap like the visor. This is why maces and other percussive weapons are far more effective against fully armoured targets as they can transmit enough raw force to break bones even through armour plating. same as you. I'm just adding to the discussion :)
@@PerfectAlibi1 It's like a rock paper scissors, you may think you had a good idea to not wear armor to be immune to the tesla lances, but then your regiment come straight in the line of fire of a regiment of crossbowmen. You're fucked. In the end, it would be up to generals, and others officiers to move their troops and assets accordingly. Because a knight would be better fitted to resist a projectile weapon, but will be destroyed in the eventuality of Tesla-powered weapon. On the other hand, someone without armour would be destroyed by any conventional weapon. Light armour (leather) would be a good alternative, but not protect much from projectiles or others weapons.
@@fatalshore5068 Too expensive and heavy, they would be slower. They would also still be at risk of getting caught by cavalery or another close combat unit that would slash them. Polyvalent soldiers who can carry and use all weapons + armours are expensive, take a lot of time to train, and are not desirable for large battle, but precise objectives.
Or, they simply would have switchrd to flamethrowers. Oil still exists in that timeline and the Byzantines used something called "Greek Fire", which is basically the real life equivalent of Game of Throne's wildfire.
@John Saf For artillery, the launchers themselves likely wouldn't change all that much, but the ammunition surely would. Gunpowder isn't the only thing that explodes, and as technology improves you could replace the tip of a ballista bolt or catapult projectile with flammable materials, explosives or lethal chemicals. Eventually, rockets and missiles would dominate warfare just like they do today.
If we had combustion engines then we wouldn't need gunpowder that much anyway. We would probably have lots of hydrocarbon based weapons, some guns and lots of flamethrowers.
YES. How can someone so intelligent mess up such a basic word? Has he never heard it pronounced anywhere else before? Doesn't give me much faith in him as a historian tbh
in israel terorists use knifes since they rarely can even get guns and bombs. driving into crowds at high speed is also a tactic they employ. (i am talking about terorists in israeli teritory, not hamas)
Interesting but you completely neglected the evolution of seige weapons or how new technologies like steam and electricity could have been weaponized in the absence of gunpowder.
Eurasian Lynx The invention of gunpowder was inevitable, it’s made of 3 ingredients that every powerful nation of the 9th century would have Ámbar access to in abundance. China just lucked into it first
I can imagine that an alternative to gunpowder would have been developed such as a way to launch small metal balls fast enough to penetrate armour whilst still costing far less than a arrow. It could be done with steam or maybe even magnets especially with the extensive evolution in mettle’s. Idk who know maybe we’re just permanently stuck in a knights vs knight world, fun to imagine though!
@@richie_0740 Not only could they be lethal, but they were. There were entire armies that tried to use air guns instead of rifles because they could be fired so much faster, but the cost and complexity was too high compared to cheaper firearms.
Air guns would almost certainly be invented but much more difficult to use on a massive scale. You would still need a compressed air source and those would be bulky and difficult to carry for individuals, because the power source would have to be contained within the gun and not the small amount of gunpowder contained in a firearm round. Even the most advanced air compressors of today need a power source to operate and cartridges like CO2 are large, limited and lose power rather quickly. The most powerful, portable air rifles use hand pumps and although useful for many shots, they would weaken in effectiveness and take longer to recharge than it would to reload an old flintlock musket. They would most likely implement the same tactics that were used by armies using early firearms. Constant fire through multiple, alternating ranks. But those ranks would be under fire by modern calvary and snipers, that would shoot and then retreat to recharge their weapons. It would basically be no different than the American revolution or Civil war tactics. There would still be air cannons to contend with and assuming that aircraft are involved, there would be all manner of nasty things dropped from above. I could go on and on but I'll be here all night! LOL
It’s much more difficult for high speed projectiles to be developed without gun powder. It takes a lot more innovation to go from no gun to pneumatics vs gun powder. Pneumatics have more caveats, for example air is compressible, so you have to be more careful with how your expanding the air to get a energy as it is possible for the energy of the expanding air to be less than the energy it takes to drive the expansion
I think you missed the most important effect, the relationship between the rulers and the population. Gunpowder, the flintlock and the ring bayonet not only make battles more lethal (leading to more siege warfare); they also change what is required for victory in war. By the 14th century the nobility itself no longer decided battles, mercenaries did, so in that period the ability to finance and hire mercenaries was the deciding factor in war. With the flintlock and ring bayonet that changed. You could simply shanghai a group of peasants, give them relatively cheap weapons and drill them for 6 weeks and you had an army. That makes control over access to recruits the most important factor in creating an army (in addition to equipping them). That means if the peasants refuse to be conscripted you lose your war, that means the peasants need to be heard when going to war. This is the fundamental cause of modern democracy. Rulers traded political power for military power. Without gunpowder we would still be relying on mercenaries of the late medieval period because skill is decisive in melee combat while in ranged combat drill is decisive. You can drill peasants but only experience creates skill.
Great point! That's why the 2nd Amendment is so important to many Americans like myself. With my guns I'm not reliant upon a nobleman's knights in order to protect my family.
@@godemperorofmankind3.091, an auto crossbow or some sort of pneumatic system that fired projectiles. This video should've explored the technological alternatives to gunpowder more, that was the reason I clicked on it.
It's mostly a money play. Gunpowder units are expensive, canons for example used to be extremely expensive. It allowed richer countries to conquer and rule poor ones. Without Gunpowder the Spanish and English would've not been able to conquer half South America .
If Gunpowder didn't exist, war would have been the same. Just nastier, with flame throwers and napalm (like the good old Greek Fire). Air guns, crossbow-gatlings, mustard gas and MadMax style car rampage. Also, Steel wouldn't change much. Because the best material for swords and weapons of war is springsteel, invented in the medieval times.
@@Galactipod modern gunpowder isn't even original gunpowder anymore and hasn't been for over a hundred years. Without blackpowder (the original gunpowder) cannons and guns would just come a bit later using smokeless powder and different explosive compounds
I don't know why, but Ive always thought that it'd be cool for every village, town, and city to be surrounded by a wall. I imagine it'd add a real distinct feeling of security to each of those places, ya know? Also, I feel like it'd add a sense of adventure to every trip outside of the city walls.
@@droiddevx03 ... have you never seen or heard sarcasm or jokes do you honestly think im serious when i say Damn attack on Titan and the AMAZING FROG WHAT IN THAT SEEMS SERIOUS TO YOU
I apologize to you guys for having three weeks without a video. The reason I didn't was simple. This scenario was complex, and the history behind it involved a lot of research. If I wanted to do it right, I needed to research and rewrite. I like to think I make quality content, but also I have to juggle that with content every week. I'll aim for smaller videos for the time being so I can release videos on a more regular schedule. I want to make more videos, but I also want to make great videos :). Thank you all for 800,000 subscribers.
What if Operation: Market Garden (The Allied plan to invade and liberate Holland and cross the Rhine into Nazi Germany and end the war by Christmas 1944) succeeded and hadn't failed?
@@flare9757 Because we will maybe need a extra millenium to make them in this timeline and because of that it would be meaningless to consider by today standarts
@@flare9757 No i dont mean to say think i want to say is if we dont have gunpowder we would not have colonization of world by europe then because of that there is no industrial age then there is not technological advances that make us today okey maybe we would find some alternatives over time but if there was no gunpowder we need maybe 1 or 2 millenium to even come the place we are in now
It would be more gradual but eventually we would adapt. Small caliber compressed air weapons. Air dropped cluster / shrapnel munitions. Naval rail guns. Even nuclear weapons. If you want to be more literal you can even still have explosives without gun powder. Plastic explosives could still exist.
Or someone could invent an automatic crossbow. With time it would get more compact and eventually fire solid projectiles instead of arrows. And there goes your gun...
air rifles existed since the napoleonic wars. They fired almost completely noiselessly, used no gunpowder, and didnt make big smoke clouds, yet were more accurate than muskets. There were only two reasons why they didn't become more prominent: Cost, and complexity. However, these wouldn't have mattered when they could absolutely destroy fully ironclad knights.
But you need the building block for such an invention. Like natives liked using guns. They just didn’t know how to produce such weapon on a massive scale
air rifles are designed off of the idea of something expanding with enough energy to push something small through a tube at high velocities. Without gun powder it would take lot longer for this concept to be realized
Jarid Gaming Well, in the end gunpowder weapons are just gas pressure weapons too. The question is just, how can you supply enough pressure to an infantry weapon, without a pressure source as strong as gunpowder?
ZippyZach , people would protest for anti-sword movements, and others would advocate for the right to owning a sword. Daggers would seem as dangerous as pistols, and we'd us spoons to cut butter.
Unless that sword was for show or to hang on a wall, swords were never made of stainless steel. Stainless steel is WAY too brittle to be used for a sword. Shortswords, MAYBE... Daggers, yeah, you can have stainless steel daggers. The problem with stainless steel SWORDS is that the blade is so strong that it will shatter when impacted hard enough. It's just too hard. The harder the steel, the more brittle it is. The softer the steel, the more durable it is. A stainless steel sword may cut deeper than a high carbon steel sword but the stainless steel sword will break in two pieces once someone tried to parry another sword. The high carbon steel sword will have a shallower cut, but when parried with another sword, it will bend and flex and return to straight because it's not as hard as stainless steel. The edge on a stainless steel blade will last longer, but if parried edge-to-edge, the edge will chip off. The hardened edge also allows for the stainless steel blade to be sharper, because it can be angled at a shorter angle, since it's so hard. The edge of a high carbon steel blade will be wider, because it's not as hard, and if a high carbon steel blade's edge was as shallow as a stainless steel blade's edge, then it will dull very fast. The edge will roll to the side or be impacted in because it's softer than stainless steel. This is why I say stainless steel blades are usually sharper than high carbon steel, but a broken sword is worse than a dull sword, so high carbon steel blades were always used in combat. Stainless steel sword blades were either ceremonial, or decorative. They required less maintenance as well, since stainless steel is much more corrosion resistant than high carbon.
Yes I would. The Japanese literally aren't allowed to own a samurai sword without a permit. That's why there has been no incident of mass murders by a lunitic with a sword ever!
I would love to see some sort of fictional setting where walled cities and chivalrous combat with hand to hand weapons was still a thing in a 21st century. It could make an interesting setting for stories and games.
This is unlikely to be seen, but without gunpowder, cavalry would have remained very relevant. The need for tactical mobility in any operation is always a necessity, and the lack of it led to the destruction and loss of life during the first World War. Horses can be armored just as men can, and in a sense, the tactical usage of the cavalryman and the modern tank are functionally the same: heavier units can break through frontlines, and lighter ones can attack flanks and routed enemies. Without gunpowder, men on horses with lances and sabres are still an extremely important part of any army.
World War 1 still had firearms. After the adoption of proper cavalry tactics, you cannot find a war pre-firearms where cavalry did not significantly change the way the war was fought. Even though Agincourt was a devastating loss for the French forces, the presence of heavily armored cavalry significantly changed the way the English fought and thought about their situation. Without guns, armor is still relevant and thus so is the heavy cavalryman. Even after gunpowder, all throughout the age of the musket, cavalry is still a useful and present battlefield tool, although much less invincible. In WW1, the cavalryman is replaced by the tank crew by war's end.
Horses aren't useful only on the battlefield. That's actually where the myth about Polish cavalry charging on tanks was born. Poland at the beggining of WW1 used cavalry, but not in the battlefield, but as means to reposition. It was basically hit squat of well trained foot soldiers with out of combat mobility of cavalry
The conquest of Mexico probably would've happened pretty similarly as Cortez's army barely made use of their canon, and it was mainly plague that did the work for the Conquistadores. But the conquest of North America would have been very, very different, and I could easily see Colonial/USA existing in small pockets.
You totally missed the effect of other siege weapons against fortifications, ships, and even open fields. The arms race would have centered around the catapult, trebuchet, mangonel, and ballista; and the types of ammunition that they used. The weapons would have impelled massive development of strong and lightweight metal alloys, and ammunition would have spurred a chemist's race for flammables, poisons, and corrosives. Basically the world would have been alchemist-punk and clockwork-punk until the advent of steam-punk. The industrial revolution probably hits much earlier in Europe to support the new "high-tech" environment. Africa and the New World still get mowed down by European colonization regardless. And major intervention into Asia didn't really occur until the invention of ironclad ships, so in the new timeline this still occurs except these steam powered ships are armed with steam cannon and catapults with chlorine canisters and napalm instead of gunpowder shells. Also, even without gunpowder, you still have other solid explosives that would have been invented like TNT and plastics explosives like C4. I think the only main difference is that the "common soldier" gets phased out in favor of engineers and technicians who escort and care for mobile siege weapons, and grenadiers who act as mini weapons platforms. War would be slower, cities would still have walls (until military flight and rockets). And the US war of independence, if it does occur, most likely fails horribly due to the lack of viable weapons for the rebel colonists. In this scenario, Britain and France either carve up the world or stay at each others throat until some new upstart topples them.
The first industrial revolution, that prepared the social organizatin for the second one, was based on textile industry stolen from India. Industrial revolution would probably happen there, unless imitated by China or taken by them or by other power.
Yep, steam cannons. Obviously much slower rate of fire but beggars can't be choosers. And with the industrial revolution and the extensive understanding of pulley systems, i think compound bows would be invented much earlier and become the front line infantry weapons, and actually more effective than allot of muskets! By the time you get to the invention of the internal combustion engine, modern weaponry based on combustible materials is inevitable regardless of not having gun powder..... for this scenario to work, you would basically have to eliminate all highly combustible materials, not just gun powder. And the world would be stuck in the steam age, compound bows, steam cannons, catapults, and steam technology would be pushed, how far it can get who knows? Probably eventually steam driven tanks!
+Chief Keith the fact that the british empire would not have neccesarily become to powerful and took so much land, which in the future could mean that australia/usa might not exist and in theory that could mean the idea for a computer or internet was never thought of
Dr Muffin Mhm I think we would still have them but not at the same time as we do in this timeline. It would just take longer to create but I think it would eventually happen. But we don't really have a clear cut answer as to if it would or would not.
@@CteCrassus the reason dynamite was invented was because of the fact that explosives at the time were dangerous to anyone who used them. without gunpowder, the need for a safe explosive would be nonexistent, therefore, no dynamite
@@jockeyfield1954 Dynamite was invented because *nitroglycerine* was far too dangerous, not gunpowder. Gunpowder doesn't need to exist for the mining industry to need a safe way to blow stuff up.
It definitely would. For a while compressed air rifles for a while were more effective than gunpowder rifles (much faster reloading and quieter, though not as powerful) but were not used as much due to their cost and complexity.
@@whoiam5838 and for what I saw in a comment somewhere in the comment section (Ik its not very trustable but I if its wrong or right I learn either way) it has less range (can't tell if its compared to modern or old/muskets guns) and it gets reduced after each shot
@@ValphaVolf I believe that it had less range than even the old guns/muskets, and it did get a little less powerful after each shot, but the Girardoni Air Rifle we think Lewis and Clark took on their expedition had a magazine that held 22 bullets, and was reloaded by tipping the gun up and pressing a button on the side. That is is an incredible rate of fire during that time. I also believe I heard that you could get off about to magazine's worth of shots before it lost enough air that it stopped being effective, at which point you would have had to take off the butt stock air canister and either pump it back up, or replace it with a fresh one.
Might be possible, that things like Gauss rifles would have been invented already. The idea of launching projectiles at enemies already existed, electricity would still have been discovered, why not?
I think that this video misses a huge point, we use explosives for another important thing than killing people, basically blowing up rocks. And blowing up rocks is necessary in extracting calcareous materials for cement, and rocks that make aggregates for the concrete, and making tunnels to dig up basically every kind of mineral we use like iron. If we can't extract materials using explosives, we'd dig them up by hand, which would make houses and every single kind of iron machinery more expansive, meaning no fast mechanization of agriculture of fast urbanization, basically we can't feed and house all the humans now without explosives.
Marouane H True. It wouldn't be possible to dig through mountains and create tunnels, either. But that would be fine. There are plenty of other ways to solve problems.
a gas based explosive is possible and likely would of replaced gun powder in alot of ways. We wouldn't be as advanced cus it would of taken longer to develop I'm sure but it likely would eventually be a thing.
Well it would've been kinder on the planet. Rather than the fracking and levelling of mountains done today. We hardly needed to go looking for oil though, it was bubbling out the ground in some places.
What if the Sahara was not a desert? How different would the world be if trade between the Mediterranean -Mideast area and south central and west Africa was easier?
No Ottoman Empire, no end to feudalism, no Spanish, French and English empires, and just about four centuries of Western AND eastern history wouldn't have happened before the Advent of the USA. Really anachronistic reasoning you have there.
Technically the original goal was to go to india but they found amercia they saw the natives(because they thought they were indians) they enslaved the natives and yadayada freedom & purging the original land owners The origin of america is dark
Small, fast tanks used for running over formations of infantry perhaps? Landships? Aircraft used for scouting and travel only. Man, this would be cool to see.
Stallion386 Even though it would be awesome, tanks would never exist. Neither would ironclads, neither would bayonets, neither would trenches, neither would periscopes. The first tanks were basically moving shields with rifles and machine guns in them to stop the bullets that came their way. The only problem, is that they broke down nearly all the time. Planes would probably still be a thing. Or maybe not, since the Wright Brothers were American and America would be very different without gunpowder of any kind if there even would be an America.
Just because we wouldnt have gunpownder it does not mean we wouldnt have combustion engines or eletricity, the idea of a steam cannon or machines is older then gunpownder, going back to anciente greece
One of the biggest effects could have been japan. The person who single handedly reunified Japan, only survived early on through the use of muskets and there role in major battles were the deciding factor. Who knows what Japan would have looked like.
We still would have had catapults, trebuchets etc. They wouldn't have had as much room for improvement since they use mechanical rather than chemical power but still a lot of room for improvement. They could be scaled up, made more mobile, use stronger materials or could be loaded via a steam engine rather than man power etc. I could see compressed air or petrol being used to power rifles too.
Caesar provoke his own death by goading the ' mob/ civilian population ' into proclaiming him King. Caesar was an old man at them time of his death, late 50's. He had epalipse/ the shakes, and was whereing Depends. The family records at the time show that he was slowly dying. If Caesar killed his polical riviles the city civilians would turn on him and his family for trying to take control of the Empire. If his P.R. killed him/ the Great Hero of the Empire. The city would revenge kill his rivils and his family would gain all of the power.
I wonder if, due to the more widespread use of crossbows in this timeline, we would have invented the railcannon sooner, as the principals of their function arent too distinct, its just "push a projectile thing with another thing until it flies off"
Remembered me of the glados line "Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out" Btw would the term gun be invented? I just imagine we calling long range weapons crossbows Railbow Portal Crossbow Intercontinental [whatever replaces ballistic] missile
Garmr well his parents died because i think they were assassinated, so someone was payed or ordered to kill them, if thats the case then technically he would still be batman because the point was that his parents were killed in general and not because they were shot, get what i mean?
Exactly. As metallurgy evolved there would likely be a form of 'steam gun' similar to a external combustion steam boat engine. Eventually, magnetic railgun technology would evolve with much the same effect as gunpowder. However, due to the advanced metal requirements it would likely have been a couple hundred years later down the road. How much would the development of metal technology have been delayed if nations were not looking for better and better metal to make gunpowder weapons?
Agreed. Eventually, somebody would've come up with something that allows for guns based on different principles. EVentually, this would lead to guns not dissimilar to what we know today. But the face of the world would be different. The age of exploration would probably still have happened, but not turned into a time of conquest. Africa, America and especially technologically already very advannced Asia wouldn't have been taken by Europe easily. There would probably still have been colonies, but they would have depended on cooperation with the respective natives. By the time some alternative for guns got invented, the less advanced people around the world would have been brought up to speed by cultural exchange and spheres of influence would have been firmly established. The invention would have spread among technologically comparable enemies quickly and there wouldn't have been as many of the one-sided conquests we know from actual history. That means that it's very likely we'd have strong, predominantly native countries in the Americas, probably with significant amounts of European and Asien blood mixed in, but culturally unique and not very European. Europe wouldn't have prospered from the influx of cheap resources from the colonies and wouldn't be as dominant in a global sense. It could also still be much more divided, as unification came along with the power of guns and the prospect of new continents to plunder. What an interesting world that would be. Completely alien to modern day eyes. China would probably be the number one global player, perhaps followed by India and maybe even some culturally more Mongol Russia long before any European nation. No USA as we know it. Probably nothing united in N.A. at all. Perhaps some descendants of the Inca or the Aztecs as another global player? Or maybe Europe would have had to really band together and become a superstate to not be overrun? Or maybe there wouldn't be ANY real superpowers? I'd say we'd likely have some kind of gladitorial sports as the main entertainment event, as personal combat skills stayed relevant for so much longer. The world could be much more warlike or even much more peaceful as WMDs were likely to be developed much later when technology already made for some globalization and a different balance of power would have been in place already. Hasn't anybody written a good book about this? The setting allows for infinite possibilities. Heck, an author couold go nuts, as nobody could predict what would really have happened with certainty...
Every time I look back at this, I keep envisioning a world of pneumatic weaponry once the industrial revolution hits. We tend to think of them as toys or sporting goods, like BB Rifles, and airsoft guns. But there were actual air powered rifles that were made for killing. The Austrian military used an Italian design from 1780 to 1815. Theoretically, you could create pneumatic cannons firing metal spikes at high velocities, enough to puncture armor. Picture something like the press guns from Break Blade, only not powered by magic crystals.
Technically speaking, Harambe may have never even been born. Who knows if the parents of Harambe would even procreate with the amount of things gunpowder has helped do which could influence that very action. Britain may not have been as powerful which eventually leads to the USA which would also eventually lead to the Cincinnati Zoo never being made, including the animals inside.
I once saw a rapid-fire crossbow that fired about 12 arrows in less than a minute. I bet having them as hand-held and/or stationary weapon would impact modern warfare in the alternate timeline.
Depends on what you are penetrating with Jelly? If you have tech to build rapid fire iron bolts, you will penetrate a shitload more than most modern bullets, even some AP rounds. Also, modern crossbows can go right through a great deal of classes of body armor, so actually, if you want to go against someone in body body armor, it might be helpful to have a POWERFUL crossbow (not one of the not as powerful delivering models). In alternative history land here; we would be faaar more advanced at this now, and yeah, for fortified long distance defenses, these could be quite deadly.
If there was no gunpowder, and the industrial revolution came much later (early-mid 1900's) There might of been an era of steam-powered ships/airships and pneumatic weapons. Air cannons, spear launchers, mortars, and possibly jetpacks
Pneumatic guns. Steam powered weapons firing what are essentially normal bullets. The range is inferior, but the concept is the same. Put enough force into a projectile, it doesn't matter how, and you'll go though armor like butter.
I think, with warfare and no gun powder people would have looked for the next best solutions, yours makes allot of sense really, some of your idea's would probably happen, but I also think, armor, as cody mentioned, would be extremely important. Can I put wheels on something and ram it into soldiers like a horse? How can we prevent this from happening and guard massive amounts of soldiers? Is there a way to fight and also be guarded with this happening? Using armored crafts as cover and a way to break enemy lines, defeat the enemy, attack without being attacked, which would then turn into a rush for figuring out more ways of having automotive vehicles, heavily armored, and how to attack VIA those crafts, almost similar to Boats with big ass rams on them and spears on the side. Getting to a scenario where you're practically playing crash-derby on a battlefield, and ways to counter-act that. Steampower could easily play a huge hand into this type of warfare, and I think it would play a huge roll.
10:47 Honestly, the strongest advantage that the conquistadores had against Aztecs and other Empires was their native allies from the Atlantic coast, as well as diseases and agricultural damage caused by feral pigs and the like, but I agree that many societies would be able to hold their own even then, without gunpowder.
Lagfirst games We don’t know how to make laser guns yet... we have laser based defensive systems, but not anything handheld yet. However, we do have fully automatic Railgun rifles. The prototypes have been made in some guys garage, and has a lot of potential.
when you mentioned technological stagnation it reminded me about how in warhammer 40k the imperium has used the same tech for millennia. Since it was both considered sacred and served it's purpose, there was less of a need to upgrade, while the tau needed to constantly upgrade to compensate for their small numbers. could something like that happen in this age without gunpowder?
You didn't directly state it, but what is interesting about the invention of guns is that it made armor obsolete and so over time soldiers lost more and more armor until eventually now they only wear clothing. Armor is only really making a comeback recently.
+Jeremy Nuiscence what the hell are you talking about? armor isnt limited to body armor, also body armor could protect the wearer from rifle round. Ever heard of level IV body armor?
Even removing all forms of solid fuel explosive from combat, I think it's still safe to assume other forms of projectile weapons become more abundant. Granted, they will probably be used more like small artillery pieces. I can see the creation of mechanical ballistas that shoot bolts like a pitching machine throws baseballs. I can see armored cars with primarily flamethrowers as weapons. I can see that petroleum bombs and liquid fueled rockets might see wide use to burn a battlefield to utter devastation. Naval warfare would be completely focused on setting fires on enemy ships until ironclads come around. I can also imagine some absolutely sick mechanical melee weapons, like arm mounted pile drivers used to pierce an enemy's thick armor.
Guns operated by electromagnets would be common. A bullet is placed in with the back being negative, and when you pull the trigger it completes a circuit, turning on the magnet's negative side, repelling the bullet at a high speed out of the barrel
I don't want to be a bore here but as soon as modern chemistry comes around, someone is going to think "what if we include oxygen with a fuel so it can burn quickly in an enclosed environment" and intentionally invent a new form of gunpowder. It would be cool to see Victorian soldiers using Steampunk rail guns against enemies with retractable shields though.
Technically Crossbow would have been more effective than the first Guns. Imagine whole armys just wielding Crossbows and doing the whole Line Infantry stuff.
@@autokrator_ in the early days of guns that was true for them too. I mean sometimes a pistol couldnt penetrate a breastplate if it was pressed against it.
I can imagine the beauty of medieval style D-day. Nazi footmen on the beach waiting for the Allied men at arms to arrive while thousands of crossbows and ballistas are being fired at the landing crafts while nazi knights are riding motorcycles with lances.
The theory that I've read is that it was gunpowder weapons (cannons and muskets, manned by conscripts with a little bit of training) that caused the end of feudalism. A cannon could knock down a castle's walls, and conscript with a musket could kill a highly trained armored knight. So, perhaps, if gunpowder had never existed, then feudalism would have remained the normal political structure, perhaps until the present day. It's like the theory of Punctuated Equilibrium in biology. Without the disruptive effect of gunpowder weapons, perhaps society would have remained in stasis for hundreds of years.
No gunpowder, no guns, no european world domination, no world wars, no nuclear energy and bombs, no cold war, no internet, no youtube, no AlternateHistoryHub.
***** If there was no gunpowder, guns will never exist. If there were no guns, there will be no world wars. If no world wars, no nuclear energy and bombs. It's sequence of events.
What if the US annexed all of Mexico in the Mexican/American war? (The US actually took over Mexico City during the war, but didn't incorporate Modern Mexico into the US)
+Worminator Incorrect. Trump would be talking about illegal immigrants from Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Belize, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Panama instead of illegal Mexicans.
Some Americans did believe that the war "was fated to unite the two nations under republicanism" (republicanism in the sense of joining the American Republic). So its not a all too unlikely scenario. But there were a few things preventing that outcome, 1. US was rather hostile to other cultures and incorporating that many people would be tough on both the Americans and the Mexicans. 2. Expanding and building on so much land would be extremely costly. 3. Adding more territory would further escalate the issue of slavery in the US as all of parts of Mexico except Texas would be a free state(Mexico was antislavery) unless they were designated as slave states by Congress. 4. The people disliked the idea of empire building and conquering foreign lands because of "liberty", "freedom", etc. Perhaps the Confederates never declare independence because they would be completely outmatched. Perhaps they do and Mexico tries to declare independence and is put back down after the Civil War ends. Perhaps Mexico and the Confederates fight the Union (unlikely because issues of Texas and since Mexico was antislavery). Perhaps Mexico fights for the Union in return for higher autonomy and lands in Texas and California.
America would send their special forces to devastate the drug cartels. They wouldn't stand a chance against the FBI and ATF. A nicer America and world because less people dependant on drugs, and less crime caused from drugs and the firearms Mexican drug cartels can gather due to Mexico's weak government.
And with those being comparatively limited in power, I think we'd see a much greater emphasis on developing magnetic weapons as well. Perhaps accelerated development of focused laser technology, or weaponized radiation. Perhaps a greater emphasis on biological and chemical warfare? So many wonderful ways to kill people en masse!
I think electric-powered reapeating crossbows would be the standart 21st century weapon. or 22nd depending on how fast technology advances. hidraulics would play a larger role, we would see 'cannons' powered by water vapour preassure. flamethrowers become a more important part of warfare and napalm is never banned by the genebra conventions as it becomes too widespread.steam cannons would become the common siege weapon/artilliery and eventually walls would be phased out as well. oil is a great source of energy and would become more precious earlier on in human hystory as it would be a commodity used in the more frequent wars to power the machinery. metal prices would go up with the increased demand cause by the industrial revolution and armor would become rarer just like in our time.due to no gunpowder humanity is left without mining explosives and large-scale quarries, wich would slow down technological progress. tanks and airplanes are invented but aviation play a bit diferently: there are no dogfights and the only weapon that can be mounted on a plane is napalm or chemical weapons (and no gunpowder means no bombs untill someone invents nuclear explosives)when and if someone makes the first atomic bomb it will be a device so mindboglingly powerfull nothing before could ever compare, the honorary war ideal is suddently broken if it wasn't already by mustard gas and napalm and the risk of a nuclear apocalipse is much higher
Gendo ruwo lasers require too much power to do anything significant. the only military aplication we currently have for lasers is disableing misiles. without gunpowder I doubt rocketry would go anywhere. lazers would still find industrial and cientific aplication though.
w8w0t sayitagain not all nukes. as I said there are ways to create preassure or accelerate a mass without the use of gunpowder. gunpowder just so happens to be the best way to do it, but others are theoretically possible too. nice profile pic+comment combo though.
He was just making reference to Minecraft, where you get an advantage with Gold swords instead of Iron swords. But the idea still remains the same with for example titanium or steel or diamonds.
How about gold coating steel swords then? :) To make them more stylish and fancy(although, admitedly, would not be practical, economical or serve any useful function to make it worthwhile for the common soldier, and would just be too time consuming if you wanted gold coated steel swords for say 10.000 men or more. It takes long enough time for swords as it is). That could work fairly well, just that any battle damage would make the underlying steel show through eventually.
Everyone's all saying "steam" or "pneumatic", but what about Greek Fire? If the Byzantines could hold out against the Seljuks, maybe it would spread further (despite being a secret). Replace guns with flamethrowers as the main infantry weapon. What would tactics look like?
Also, don't forget electricity. Railguns/Coilguns may still be inferior to conventional artillery, but if you don't have that, they may be a viable option. Not so much for small arms, though. Batteries and generators are still waaay too heavy. Most important change would probably be that airplanes are pretty much unarmed. Crossbows won't do you much good in a dogfight, after all... But that means bombers (and zeppelins) could drop firebombs with impunity, so the massive destruction of the two world wars still remains a possibility.
"Into the Badlands" came close, but that was a post-apocalypse, post-gun world. JoergSprave developed a repeating crossbow & improved on a repeating longbow on his YT page, also there's the rapid fire catapult from the 2nd Chronicles of Narnia movie; I think we'd see all 3 in a gunless world. Not to mention ballise on prop planes & helicopters.
It's a reference to the setting of Warhammer 40k, but normally it reads "in the grim darkness of the 41st millennium, there is only war". Hope this helps :)
Why bother when powerful steam guns would be widespread by the time the laws of electromagnetism are even discovered. Though yes, they would probably use railguns eventually, just like us.
@@thenewcaliph766 I'm not confusing anything with anybody, just because the Turkoman cavalry was proficient in horse archery it doesn't mean they were the only ones who did archery.
@@theonlygoodlookinghabsburg2081 Im sorry if I didnt understand you. I was only saying that by the Ottoman period, horse archery and even archery as a whole was pretty obsolete. Armies were always composed of a large, beefy section of infantry both Janissary and Regular, cavalry and lots of siege equipment e.g. cannons, catapults etc.
@@thenewcaliph766 I have to disagree, in the early days of the Ottomans (before firearms were introduced) they had huge sections of cavalry when compared to the infantry. Additionally, look at the Timurids, the Ak Koyunlu, the Safavids and the Mameluks, these armies used huge numbers of cavalry, some of them specificaly archer cavalry.
Without gunpowder, we probably would have never had dynamite. Mining would have been very different, and railroads would have probably gone around mountains rather than through...
I think that it getting out of China was always inevitable, if they created it. Word would get around that China has some new, strange but very effective weapon that is improving, and suddenly the world would turn their attention to it.
Roose the Goose making gunpowder is not that simple, it may be possible that Chinese would have researched more into it and use it to invade the whole world even before timurs and Mongols.
The funny part about this is that army's would probably use things like electric lances, gas weapons, flame throwers, hand held rail guns, and quite possibly crossbows
How ironic, some people were trying to make something for ever lasting life, in a result that made a weapon. Which eventually evolved into a super weapon that could destroy all of humanity and possibly life.
You forgot an important factor that gunpowder (directly and indirectly) affected. Ambroise Paré was an influential war surgeon in the Renaissance era. His first major discovery was through bullet wounds (which could only be inflicted due to the existence of gunpowder) in which they used to pour boiling hot oil into the wound to remove infections. Ambroise Paré ran out of oil whilst treating his patients, so as a last ditch effort, created an ointment using an old Roman 'recipe' in which he mixed egg yolk, rose oil and turpentine. He never expected it to work, but miraculously it cured them, and not only did it cure them, but it did it better than the oil. The patients cured by the ointment were in no pain, whereas the ones treated with the oil were. This was a massive discovery on his part. He also made many other discoveries, many of which were ignored, such as his alternative solution to cauterising limbs, as germs in the air caused infection in the leg/arm leading to the patient's death. Another surgeon (whose name slips my mind) improved on that, which surely wouldn't have been the case if Ambroise Paré had not become a somewhat influential figure due to his ointment discovery. If gunpowder never existed, Ambroise Paré wouldn't have became an influential figure of medicine, he would never have written his book, which was used by almost every other surgeon/doctor and it's arguable that he wouldn't have retired as a war surgeon to continue his studies (due to the nature of war before gun powder, and the massive need for doctors) and as such, wouldn't have design prosthetic limbs. If gunpowder didn't exist, we wouldn't be as medically advanced as we are now.
Books Lift My Screen The treatment for bullet wounds was boiling hot oil. The only reason he went back to the old Roman treatment was because he ran out of oil. He wouldn't have ran out of oil if gunpowder didn't exist as he simply wouldn't be curing people of the infection caused from bullet wounds.
I wonder if an alternative would’ve been made, like a water-sodium type thing. I’m not a science guy but I know the elements related to sodium tend to react violently with water
There are many different explosive compounds, original blackpowder has been obsolete for a very long time so realistically barely anything would change in the long run
I'm just imagining a soldier in titanium armor on a motorcycle charging the enemy lines with a lance.
Not a lance, something similar to one though
so we managed to refine oil into petrol, create a combustion engine but we couldn't make guns?
@@benjammin9350 Yes. Gunpowder is the only thing removed from this timeline.
Titanium is an inferior metal when it comes to arms and armor. It doesn't hold an edge and it doesn't take impact as well. The only thing that it does do is that it is much much lighter. Furthermore it's much harder to forge in fact it may even blind the person that's forging it so I doubt if titanium would be used.
@@michaelsauls1142 but the only thing that changes is the removal of gunpowder, so eventually the industrial revolution would provide a way to forge titanium via assembly lines.
It's much more likely that titanium would be used in an alloy that helps nullify its weaknesses rather than pure titanium though
Without gunpowder and after electricity, I could see a “powered crossbow” that’s basically a rail gun being developed shortly after the invention of batteries.
Pneumatic guns is a better choice
@@G0RSHK0V Agreed, even today we dont have railguns that are effective, but we had pneumatic guns since the civil war
@@G0RSHK0V fair enough
Steam power is another possibility. aka steampunk
@@Klaaism Eventually though they’d discover the superiority of oil and (after some time) nuclear power. Although, with the lack of gunpowder and therefore lack of explosives, I’m not sure if nukes would be invented
imagine being the first victim of the first flamethrower, that mustve been the scariest thing
Philly Cheese well i doubt the first "shot" would've been spot on accurate so like one min of full fear
Ask the Arabs when they besieged Constantinople under Umayyad Caliph Mu'awiya. The Roman Empire was developing flamethrowers, which they called firethrowers, to combat their nemesis the persian Sassanid Empire, but before they could finish this secret weapon the Muslim Arabs finished their civil war and launched invasions into Erahnshar and Rhomania to conquer the Earth as they were taught to do so when they felt they had enough power to do so. Persia fell completely and Rome lost Egypt, Levant, Libya, and Karthage. By the time the Umayyad Caliphate had replaced the Rashidun Caliphate and besieged Constantinople (Roman Empire's capital at this time), they were already developing their firethrowers and eventually whipped them out and burned away the jihadist hordes.
Mongol: My khal... the chinese, they have... they have...
Khal: What do they have?
Mongol: They have SICK FLAMETHROWERS!!
Guillem Holmes Who Dragons on their shoulders!
+RC15O5 Not the same
1:02 ''In the grim darkness of the 9th Century, there is only war''
Ah, A man of Culture.
Can you explain the reference please? I don't know what it's from.
@@Memeboi-bd8so Original quote: "“IN THE GRIM DARKNESS OF THE FAR FUTURE THERE IS ONLY WAR.”"
@Rolling Stone Thanks man
@@lordicarus8807 when I originally watched this I didn't know it was a warhammer reference lol
mate this whole video is full of 40k refferences
We would basically have warhammer 40k style melee combat with dudes in power armor and chainswords.
QorinHalfhand.
Chain swords are ineffective since it takes a long time to make a cut that a normal sword would do in an instant and swords aren’t effective against armor
*power armor and supersledges
exactly
@@thatonekid640 Well actually no, (if it has strong enough teeth and motor) a chainsword is actually more effective than a normal sword against armor. A sword is a large single hit easily deflected by armor but a chainsword as it hits causes hundred of small nics/dents that add up fast, with Every tiny hit pulling the chainsword further and further into the armor. Arch Warhammer did a video explaining it better, I recommend that.
(Sorry if I appear "oh u wrong", that's not what I mean at all.)
@@leobracken2316 The significant problems are as you said; strong enough teeth and motor, but also the user's own ability to control the weapon. Even against relatively soft materials like wood, chainsaw teeth still blunt and break and both the chainsaw and what it's cutting through need to be held very firmly and carefully. Against hardened steel armour even the strongest chainsaw teeth we could make today would quickly break off and fly everywhere, becoming as much a hazard for the user as the target. And that's if the chain doesn't break or the chainsaw itself doesn't catch on something and tear itself out of the users hands (which is probably the most likely outcome).
A regular sword by comparison is a single big blade and therefore has much greater structural integrity. Swords were never used to cut through armour (the only thing that could penetrate hardened steel armour would be a full swing with a heavy penetrating weapon like a halberd. Even then it isn't going to penetrate very far and will likely get stuck in the plate, so at most the weapon's lost and the opponent's been winded.) Fighting against a fully-armoured opponent usually involves bashing and wrestling them to the ground and then either restraining them or stabbing them through a gap like the visor. This is why maces and other percussive weapons are far more effective against fully armoured targets as they can transmit enough raw force to break bones even through armour plating.
same as you. I'm just adding to the discussion :)
They tried to make a potion for everlasting life, and created something that would end lives.
Irony
Even if they had succeeded, they would've used the potion to end lives.
+Fire Lord Sanders nope
Luis Almodovar They would use the potion on their own military and use it as an immoral weapon of war.
+Fire Lord Sanders IT'S THE EXTRA CRISPY COLONEL
Fire Lord Sanders nope I'm pretty sure they can still die .........they would just live forever if no one kills them ........
We would've weaponized electricity alot more!
Send in the Tesla guns! ^^
Soldiers with Tesla guns tazzing knights:
"No so smart with your heavy metal conducting armor now, are you?"
@@MaitreKorda
Yes, because when your enemy has tesla guns you totally continue wearing your metal armour... XD
@@PerfectAlibi1 It's like a rock paper scissors, you may think you had a good idea to not wear armor to be immune to the tesla lances, but then your regiment come straight in the line of fire of a regiment of crossbowmen.
You're fucked.
In the end, it would be up to generals, and others officiers to move their troops and assets accordingly.
Because a knight would be better fitted to resist a projectile weapon, but will be destroyed in the eventuality of Tesla-powered weapon.
On the other hand, someone without armour would be destroyed by any conventional weapon.
Light armour (leather) would be a good alternative, but not protect much from projectiles or others weapons.
@@MaitreKorda So you equip your soldiers with both weapons.
@@fatalshore5068 Too expensive and heavy, they would be slower.
They would also still be at risk of getting caught by cavalery or another close combat unit that would slash them.
Polyvalent soldiers who can carry and use all weapons + armours are expensive, take a lot of time to train, and are not desirable for large battle, but precise objectives.
*gunpowder never existed*
Crossbow: it is time to evolve!
"Decades later"
Crossbow: *AUTOMATIC POWER!!*
Decades later: railgun
@@DarthGTB Decades later: AUTOMATIC RAILGUN POWER!!
@@cmdrblaze6487 a railgun is if u mix metal, near light speeds, and a machine gun.
Chinese already made a semi auto version
The polybolos is already a thing? Its a fully automatic bolt launcher developed by a dude in sicily
School Shooter: “Alright, imma light up the school.”
*proceeds to load the catapult*
*school seige*
Teachers: *YOU SHALL NOT PASS*
school stabing
O h. G o d
So this means schools would have to conduct seige drills lol.
Or, they simply would have switchrd to flamethrowers. Oil still exists in that timeline and the Byzantines used something called "Greek Fire", which is basically the real life equivalent of Game of Throne's wildfire.
@John Saf Greek Fire
@@iplyrunescape305 greek will grow so massively
@John Saf For artillery, the launchers themselves likely wouldn't change all that much, but the ammunition surely would. Gunpowder isn't the only thing that explodes, and as technology improves you could replace the tip of a ballista bolt or catapult projectile with flammable materials, explosives or lethal chemicals. Eventually, rockets and missiles would dominate warfare just like they do today.
We could have explosives without gunpowder right?
@@martinpavlicek2299 Sure. Gunpowder was just the first explosive we discovered.
dude you could of had truck knights, imagine a dude with a lance in an ford f350 running over a confused aztec empire
that would be awesome. but it would probably be a truck chariot not a truck knight.
i disagree you can't aim going 75 mph
i was thinking more of a scythed truck chariot for running thought troops
If we had combustion engines then we wouldn't need gunpowder that much anyway. We would probably have lots of hydrocarbon based weapons, some guns and lots of flamethrowers.
how would the guns work?
CAVALRY not CALVARY (where Jesus was crucified)
*_YES_*
In an alternate timeline, mounted troops ride calves.
YES. How can someone so intelligent mess up such a basic word? Has he never heard it pronounced anywhere else before? Doesn't give me much faith in him as a historian tbh
🤣
@@TheeGrumpy calfs not calves.
Terrorist 1: alright boys, let's attack this place
Terrorist 2: okay boss i'll fire the weapon now
*catapult is launched into crowd*
ha ha!
you love to see it
It would be great for world atleast there would be less
in israel terorists use knifes since they rarely can even get guns and bombs.
driving into crowds at high speed is also a tactic they employ.
(i am talking about terorists in israeli teritory, not hamas)
Yes, they launch the catapult in to the crowd, not the rock
Jacolite The Pumpkin Well that’s why you need a trebuchet that can use a counterweight to launch a 90kg stone projectile over 300m.
Klaus! Panzer on the North! grab the bag of spears!
Tank crew: **loads a giant bolt at the giant crossbow mount**
Its called a ballista
@@inklun3172 if you mount a balista on a tank hull, is it still called a balista?
@@Satan-nw4lv yes, satan
ENEMY TRAIN INCOMING, AND THE BALLISTA IS AIMED RIGHT AT US!
"Load AP bolts!"
Interesting but you completely neglected the evolution of seige weapons or how new technologies like steam and electricity could have been weaponized in the absence of gunpowder.
No Gunpoweder = Steampunk? Cool!
@@Bronze_Age_Sea_Person We need to kill those chinese monks NOW! Build a time-machine god damn it!
@@eurasianlynx5584 But no more guns...
@@patch-fm Steampunk knights beat guns. They're far cooler.
Eurasian Lynx
The invention of gunpowder was inevitable, it’s made of 3 ingredients that every powerful nation of the 9th century would have Ámbar access to in abundance. China just lucked into it first
I can imagine that an alternative to gunpowder would have been developed such as a way to launch small metal balls fast enough to penetrate armour whilst still costing far less than a arrow. It could be done with steam or maybe even magnets especially with the extensive evolution in mettle’s. Idk who know maybe we’re just permanently stuck in a knights vs knight world, fun to imagine though!
airgun exists, that could be lethal given enough developtment
@@richie_0740 Not only could they be lethal, but they were. There were entire armies that tried to use air guns instead of rifles because they could be fired so much faster, but the cost and complexity was too high compared to cheaper firearms.
It’s real hard to make something better the an arrow while cheaper then it sling would probably be the closest to what your talking about
Air guns would almost certainly be invented but much more difficult to use on a massive scale. You would still need a compressed air source and those would be bulky and difficult to carry for individuals, because the power source would have to be contained within the gun and not the small amount of gunpowder contained in a firearm round. Even the most advanced air compressors of today need a power source to operate and cartridges like CO2 are large, limited and lose power rather quickly. The most powerful, portable air rifles use hand pumps and although useful for many shots, they would weaken in effectiveness and take longer to recharge than it would to reload an old flintlock musket. They would most likely implement the same tactics that were used by armies using early firearms. Constant fire through multiple, alternating ranks. But those ranks would be under fire by modern calvary and snipers, that would shoot and then retreat to recharge their weapons. It would basically be no different than the American revolution or Civil war tactics. There would still be air cannons to contend with and assuming that aircraft are involved, there would be all manner of nasty things dropped from above. I could go on and on but I'll be here all night! LOL
It’s much more difficult for high speed projectiles to be developed without gun powder. It takes a lot more innovation to go from no gun to pneumatics vs gun powder. Pneumatics have more caveats, for example air is compressible, so you have to be more careful with how your expanding the air to get a energy as it is possible for the energy of the expanding air to be less than the energy it takes to drive the expansion
I think you missed the most important effect, the relationship between the rulers and the population. Gunpowder, the flintlock and the ring bayonet not only make battles more lethal (leading to more siege warfare); they also change what is required for victory in war. By the 14th century the nobility itself no longer decided battles, mercenaries did, so in that period the ability to finance and hire mercenaries was the deciding factor in war. With the flintlock and ring bayonet that changed. You could simply shanghai a group of peasants, give them relatively cheap weapons and drill them for 6 weeks and you had an army. That makes control over access to recruits the most important factor in creating an army (in addition to equipping them). That means if the peasants refuse to be conscripted you lose your war, that means the peasants need to be heard when going to war. This is the fundamental cause of modern democracy. Rulers traded political power for military power.
Without gunpowder we would still be relying on mercenaries of the late medieval period because skill is decisive in melee combat while in ranged combat drill is decisive. You can drill peasants but only experience creates skill.
Great point! That's why the 2nd Amendment is so important to many Americans like myself. With my guns I'm not reliant upon a nobleman's knights in order to protect my family.
@@warpartyattheoutpost4987 if it wasnt a gun itd be an auto crossbow or something. technological progress is inevitable
@@godemperorofmankind3.091, an auto crossbow or some sort of pneumatic system that fired projectiles. This video should've explored the technological alternatives to gunpowder more, that was the reason I clicked on it.
@@warpartyattheoutpost4987 tesla gun
It's mostly a money play. Gunpowder units are expensive, canons for example used to be extremely expensive. It allowed richer countries to conquer and rule poor ones. Without Gunpowder the Spanish and English would've not been able to conquer half South America .
If Gunpowder didn't exist, war would have been the same.
Just nastier, with flame throwers and napalm (like the good old Greek Fire).
Air guns, crossbow-gatlings, mustard gas and MadMax style car rampage.
Also, Steel wouldn't change much. Because the best material for swords and weapons of war is springsteel, invented in the medieval times.
Eventually railguns in modern times
If gunpowder didn't exist, we would have called another similar powder "gunpowder" and used it instead.
@@Galactipod “powdergun”
@@Galactipod modern gunpowder isn't even original gunpowder anymore and hasn't been for over a hundred years. Without blackpowder (the original gunpowder) cannons and guns would just come a bit later using smokeless powder and different explosive compounds
I also wonder if Biological warfare would be used more, and earlier on time.
"Europeans put guns on boats" G U N B O A T S
bill wurtz
O P E N T H E C O U N T R Y
S T O P H A V I N G I T B E C L O S E D
By this time
Knock Knock, it's the Americans. With boats. Huge boats. With guns. G U N B O A T S.
I don't know why, but Ive always thought that it'd be cool for every village, town, and city to be surrounded by a wall. I imagine it'd add a real distinct feeling of security to each of those places, ya know? Also, I feel like it'd add a sense of adventure to every trip outside of the city walls.
i introduce to you
swimdon in the amazing frog
also attack on titan
@@droiddevx03 ... have you never seen or heard sarcasm or jokes
do you honestly think im serious when i say
Damn
attack on Titan
and
the AMAZING FROG
WHAT IN THAT SEEMS SERIOUS TO YOU
@@droiddevx03 well that was uncharacteristic
well thats a lie also :3
Those exist in rea life in the form of illegal Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank
Basically late game Civ V
I apologize to you guys for having three weeks without a video. The reason I didn't was simple. This scenario was complex, and the history behind it involved a lot of research. If I wanted to do it right, I needed to research and rewrite.
I like to think I make quality content, but also I have to juggle that with content every week. I'll aim for smaller videos for the time being so I can release videos on a more regular schedule. I want to make more videos, but I also want to make great videos :).
Thank you all for 800,000 subscribers.
please review the what if homefront is happened.
if u respond u know who i am
It's cool Cody:3
This video was great
What if Operation: Market Garden (The Allied plan to invade and liberate Holland and cross the Rhine into Nazi Germany and end the war by Christmas 1944) succeeded and hadn't failed?
We could have used lasers, Flamethrrowers, radioation or even Electricity!
Or some other flammable substance.
Split an attom so hard it laonches a black hole at them
Why does nobody factor in Railguns?
@@flare9757 Because we will maybe need a extra millenium to make them in this timeline and because of that it would be meaningless to consider by today standarts
Justin C. On the contrary. There are several fully functional railguns today.
@@flare9757 No i dont mean to say think i want to say is if we dont have gunpowder we would not have colonization of world by europe then because of that there is no industrial age then there is not technological advances that make us today okey maybe we would find some alternatives over time but if there was no gunpowder we need maybe 1 or 2 millenium to even come the place we are in now
2:23
"Armies had to improve the quality of their swords"
**swaps to golden sword*
@@nuphhrffe875 n o . . .
Thomas McNab no the diamonds are stronger
@@nuphhrffe875 iron is even better than gold swords. Gold swords suck
Gold swords are the same damage as wood just less durability
@@cringeboi498 yea they suck
"What if guns never existed?"
Americans: *AMERICAN SCREECHING*
Dont worry, Napalm and petrol would still be a thing, so instead of guns. you can just use FLAMETHROWERS
@@Aaronkbrown1125 Destruction ball
Flamethrower warfare
🤔
At least we still have oil
In this AU it will probably be that every American has the right to own swords and bows.
It would be more gradual but eventually we would adapt. Small caliber compressed air weapons. Air dropped cluster / shrapnel munitions. Naval rail guns. Even nuclear weapons. If you want to be more literal you can even still have explosives without gun powder. Plastic explosives could still exist.
Exactly.
Natural gas would have been discovered, and its explosive capabilities.
> Small caliber compressed air weapons
Large caliber, with the discovery of coal and the invention of the steam engine...
Or someone could invent an automatic crossbow. With time it would get more compact and eventually fire solid projectiles instead of arrows. And there goes your gun...
ONI? Why are you here?
air rifles existed since the napoleonic wars. They fired almost completely noiselessly, used no gunpowder, and didnt make big smoke clouds, yet were more accurate than muskets. There were only two reasons why they didn't become more prominent: Cost, and complexity. However, these wouldn't have mattered when they could absolutely destroy fully ironclad knights.
But you need the building block for such an invention. Like natives liked using guns. They just didn’t know how to produce such weapon on a massive scale
You cant make an air rifle if you don't know what a rifle is
air rifles are designed off of the idea of something expanding with enough energy to push something small through a tube at high velocities. Without gun powder it would take lot longer for this concept to be realized
But people would still invent steam engines, easily learning about pressure and expansion, wouldn't they?@@davidkong8493
Maybe they would use gases under pressure
Jarid Gaming they do for airsoft weapons which are non-lethal
yes but you can mod those to become lethal
Jarid Gaming Well, in the end gunpowder weapons are just gas pressure weapons too. The question is just, how can you supply enough pressure to an infantry weapon, without a pressure source as strong as gunpowder?
They would also use other explosives.
THERE WILL BE MORE SOPHISTICATED AIR GUNS!!
*WII starts*
Hitler: READY THE ARROWS
@Adolf Hitler Jawoll!
Probably it woudnt even happen, because the ww1, the motivation to hitler happened because of the assasination of a guy, Yes, With a *Gun*
2:22
"...Armies had to improve..."
Iron to gold.
"...Sharper and more durable..."
Thank god I wasn't the only one to notice that
Could you imagine carrying your sword handling permit? When your packing usually meant you had stainless steel
ZippyZach , people would protest for anti-sword movements, and others would advocate for the right to owning a sword. Daggers would seem as dangerous as pistols, and we'd us spoons to cut butter.
Unless that sword was for show or to hang on a wall, swords were never made of stainless steel. Stainless steel is WAY too brittle to be used for a sword. Shortswords, MAYBE... Daggers, yeah, you can have stainless steel daggers. The problem with stainless steel SWORDS is that the blade is so strong that it will shatter when impacted hard enough. It's just too hard. The harder the steel, the more brittle it is. The softer the steel, the more durable it is. A stainless steel sword may cut deeper than a high carbon steel sword but the stainless steel sword will break in two pieces once someone tried to parry another sword. The high carbon steel sword will have a shallower cut, but when parried with another sword, it will bend and flex and return to straight because it's not as hard as stainless steel. The edge on a stainless steel blade will last longer, but if parried edge-to-edge, the edge will chip off. The hardened edge also allows for the stainless steel blade to be sharper, because it can be angled at a shorter angle, since it's so hard. The edge of a high carbon steel blade will be wider, because it's not as hard, and if a high carbon steel blade's edge was as shallow as a stainless steel blade's edge, then it will dull very fast. The edge will roll to the side or be impacted in because it's softer than stainless steel. This is why I say stainless steel blades are usually sharper than high carbon steel, but a broken sword is worse than a dull sword, so high carbon steel blades were always used in combat. Stainless steel sword blades were either ceremonial, or decorative. They required less maintenance as well, since stainless steel is much more corrosion resistant than high carbon.
Thallanar Rabidtooth It's a fucking joke .-.
Yes I would. The Japanese literally aren't allowed to own a samurai sword without a permit. That's why there has been no incident of mass murders by a lunitic with a sword ever!
Thallanar Rabidtooth you know what humor is right? -_-
Massive railguns
Nick Angelos Tanks with ballistas and gatling guns.
gatling guns also use gunpowder.
a I meant like an arrow shooting gatling gun.
And Tesla's Death Ray :)
I think the railgun idea sprung up from advancement in gun science.
So nope.
I would love to see some sort of fictional setting where walled cities and chivalrous combat with hand to hand weapons was still a thing in a 21st century. It could make an interesting setting for stories and games.
@CAT CHANNEL There is still America (the continents), just not our modern american countries
@CAT CHANNEL actually we're still hanging in there. And are taking back our republic. This election is a proverbial blood bath.
Metal Gear Rising
same
@@amooingdog3297RULES OF NATURE
This is unlikely to be seen, but without gunpowder, cavalry would have remained very relevant. The need for tactical mobility in any operation is always a necessity, and the lack of it led to the destruction and loss of life during the first World War. Horses can be armored just as men can, and in a sense, the tactical usage of the cavalryman and the modern tank are functionally the same: heavier units can break through frontlines, and lighter ones can attack flanks and routed enemies. Without gunpowder, men on horses with lances and sabres are still an extremely important part of any army.
darkfireslide what if you would replace the horses with vehicles similar to motorbikes
World War 1 still had firearms. After the adoption of proper cavalry tactics, you cannot find a war pre-firearms where cavalry did not significantly change the way the war was fought. Even though Agincourt was a devastating loss for the French forces, the presence of heavily armored cavalry significantly changed the way the English fought and thought about their situation. Without guns, armor is still relevant and thus so is the heavy cavalryman.
Even after gunpowder, all throughout the age of the musket, cavalry is still a useful and present battlefield tool, although much less invincible.
In WW1, the cavalryman is replaced by the tank crew by war's end.
Horses aren't useful only on the battlefield.
That's actually where the myth about Polish cavalry charging on tanks was born.
Poland at the beggining of WW1 used cavalry, but not in the battlefield, but as means to reposition. It was basically hit squat of well trained foot soldiers with out of combat mobility of cavalry
I'm seeing motorized cavalry, like soldiers on bikes running at full speed with their swords
Also imagine breeding horses for ever increased strength (to better wear armor)
We would have invented Light Sabers
Drax the Literalist LMAO😂😂
then we would be star wars, then in another galaxy there was real earth too watching star wars movie
TheGaming Lettuce multi-verse?
Drax the Literalist xD
true
Praise the emperor for that Warhammer 40k referance.
You deseve an iron halo for the second one, battle brother.
+Kc40k and a purity seal for the third
The emperor protects!
PURGE, KILL, MAIM THE HERETIC!!!
indeed
The conquest of Mexico probably would've happened pretty similarly as Cortez's army barely made use of their canon, and it was mainly plague that did the work for the Conquistadores. But the conquest of North America would have been very, very different, and I could easily see Colonial/USA existing in small pockets.
Can we have "IF Alexander the Great didn't die so young"
Yeah I would like a vid on that
Bonne idea
Or IF the Vikings had guns and maybe bombs
sonicj Polygon
Might as well say IF trump became president
YES
You totally missed the effect of other siege weapons against fortifications, ships, and even open fields. The arms race would have centered around the catapult, trebuchet, mangonel, and ballista; and the types of ammunition that they used. The weapons would have impelled massive development of strong and lightweight metal alloys, and ammunition would have spurred a chemist's race for flammables, poisons, and corrosives. Basically the world would have been alchemist-punk and clockwork-punk until the advent of steam-punk.
The industrial revolution probably hits much earlier in Europe to support the new "high-tech" environment. Africa and the New World still get mowed down by European colonization regardless. And major intervention into Asia didn't really occur until the invention of ironclad ships, so in the new timeline this still occurs except these steam powered ships are armed with steam cannon and catapults with chlorine canisters and napalm instead of gunpowder shells. Also, even without gunpowder, you still have other solid explosives that would have been invented like TNT and plastics explosives like C4.
I think the only main difference is that the "common soldier" gets phased out in favor of engineers and technicians who escort and care for mobile siege weapons, and grenadiers who act as mini weapons platforms. War would be slower, cities would still have walls (until military flight and rockets). And the US war of independence, if it does occur, most likely fails horribly due to the lack of viable weapons for the rebel colonists. In this scenario, Britain and France either carve up the world or stay at each others throat until some new upstart topples them.
My thoughts exactly. He didn't really mention siege weapons here. And chemicals can also explode or poison.
I would love to see a movie like this
The first industrial revolution, that prepared the social organizatin for the second one, was based on textile industry stolen from India. Industrial revolution would probably happen there, unless imitated by China or taken by them or by other power.
Yep, steam cannons. Obviously much slower rate of fire but beggars can't be choosers. And with the industrial revolution and the extensive understanding of pulley systems, i think compound bows would be invented much earlier and become the front line infantry weapons, and actually more effective than allot of muskets! By the time you get to the invention of the internal combustion engine, modern weaponry based on combustible materials is inevitable regardless of not having gun powder..... for this scenario to work, you would basically have to eliminate all highly combustible materials, not just gun powder. And the world would be stuck in the steam age, compound bows, steam cannons, catapults, and steam technology would be pushed, how far it can get who knows? Probably eventually steam driven tanks!
Write a book
If gun powder was never created, then this video would never have been created :/
What does gunpowder have to do with the invention of the internet?
+Chief Keith the fact that the british empire would not have neccesarily become to powerful and took so much land, which in the future could mean that australia/usa might not exist and in theory that could mean the idea for a computer or internet was never thought of
Dr Muffin Mhm I think we would still have them but not at the same time as we do in this timeline. It would just take longer to create but I think it would eventually happen. But we don't really have a clear cut answer as to if it would or would not.
I think what +fastest skier means is that there would be no need for this video since gunpowder never existed in that timeline.
+Shadow Knight - Road to 100k subs Oh yeah.
If it was like this, anyone can literally tell everyone how lasers can become weapons
Very bad ones.
Did you see modern crossbows? Imagine balistas with those materials. Then put em on a ship. Opium wars would've been much more epic
And now put a bundle of dynamite around the bolt tip.
@@CteCrassus the reason dynamite was invented was because of the fact that explosives at the time were dangerous to anyone who used them. without gunpowder, the need for a safe explosive would be nonexistent, therefore, no dynamite
@@jockeyfield1954 Dynamite was invented because *nitroglycerine* was far too dangerous, not gunpowder. Gunpowder doesn't need to exist for the mining industry to need a safe way to blow stuff up.
@@CteCrassus people just assume the absence of gunpowder means no explosives exist at all or that firearms are never invented
@@CteCrassus Wouldn't dynamite be obsolete since Gunpowder is removed?
I can just imagine someone breaking into a house and the owner since guns dont exist grabbing a short bow from his closet
lmfao
To be honest compressed air would eventually become more prominent. Idk how but it offers an interesting solution
It definitely would. For a while compressed air rifles for a while were more effective than gunpowder rifles (much faster reloading and quieter, though not as powerful) but were not used as much due to their cost and complexity.
@@whoiam5838 and for what I saw in a comment somewhere in the comment section (Ik its not very trustable but I if its wrong or right I learn either way) it has less range (can't tell if its compared to modern or old/muskets guns) and it gets reduced after each shot
@@ValphaVolf I believe that it had less range than even the old guns/muskets, and it did get a little less powerful after each shot, but the Girardoni Air Rifle we think Lewis and Clark took on their expedition had a magazine that held 22 bullets, and was reloaded by tipping the gun up and pressing a button on the side. That is is an incredible rate of fire during that time.
I also believe I heard that you could get off about to magazine's worth of shots before it lost enough air that it stopped being effective, at which point you would have had to take off the butt stock air canister and either pump it back up, or replace it with a fresh one.
Might be possible, that things like Gauss rifles would have been invented already. The idea of launching projectiles at enemies already existed, electricity would still have been discovered, why not?
@CAT CHANNEL I think you missed the whole point of the video
Then we would have maybe exeskeletons of plate armor
wha makes you think we dont have that allready exept its not plate armor its more like reactive armor
Titantoons!!!!!
I think that this video misses a huge point, we use explosives for another important thing than killing people, basically blowing up rocks. And blowing up rocks is necessary in extracting calcareous materials for cement, and rocks that make aggregates for the concrete, and making tunnels to dig up basically every kind of mineral we use like iron. If we can't extract materials using explosives, we'd dig them up by hand, which would make houses and every single kind of iron machinery more expansive, meaning no fast mechanization of agriculture of fast urbanization, basically we can't feed and house all the humans now without explosives.
Marouane H True. It wouldn't be possible to dig through mountains and create tunnels, either. But that would be fine. There are plenty of other ways to solve problems.
a gas based explosive is possible and likely would of replaced gun powder in alot of ways. We wouldn't be as advanced cus it would of taken longer to develop I'm sure but it likely would eventually be a thing.
Well it would've been kinder on the planet. Rather than the fracking and levelling of mountains done today. We hardly needed to go looking for oil though, it was bubbling out the ground in some places.
Gold rush?
Most explosives aren't made from gun powder. There are hundreds of chemical formulations that can be used to create explosives.
What if the Sahara was not a desert? How different would the world be if trade between the Mediterranean -Mideast area and south central and west Africa was easier?
this is a good one!
interesting
I third this
Africa would probably have been much more advanced.
yasssśsssss
Imagine a modern world but with city walls and knights & armor.
Well we do have walls. On the borders. But we just shoot trespassers who're caught on drone or cctv
Riding a motorcycle and holding a spear
No guns, no USA
A world without Donald Glover's 'This is America'--ua-cam.com/video/Y9P_-eC76lk/v-deo.html
dont tease me like this
No Ottoman Empire, no end to feudalism, no Spanish, French and English empires, and just about four centuries of Western AND eastern history wouldn't have happened before the Advent of the USA.
Really anachronistic reasoning you have there.
Technically the original goal was to go to india but they found amercia they saw the natives(because they thought they were indians) they enslaved the natives and yadayada freedom & purging the original land owners
The origin of america is dark
Which means no memes.
Small, fast tanks used for running over formations of infantry perhaps? Landships? Aircraft used for scouting and travel only. Man, this would be cool to see.
Stallion386 Even though it would be awesome, tanks would never exist. Neither would ironclads, neither would bayonets, neither would trenches, neither would periscopes. The first tanks were basically moving shields with rifles and machine guns in them to stop the bullets that came their way. The only problem, is that they broke down nearly all the time. Planes would probably still be a thing. Or maybe not, since the Wright Brothers were American and America would be very different without gunpowder of any kind if there even would be an America.
Trenches existed before guns as a method of slowing and trapping cavalry charges.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trench_warfare#Field_works
Aircraft can always drop stuff. Kinetic bombardment is a thing.
maybe some kind of armoured carriage with a ballista on top?
Airplanes dropping big piles of stone on infantry lines... Wow.. :D
Just because we wouldnt have gunpownder it does not mean we wouldnt have combustion engines or eletricity, the idea of a steam cannon or machines is older then gunpownder, going back to anciente greece
Woolly Rhinos were killed off by the native American's with bows and arrows.
We don't use gunpowder anyway.
@@docpossum2460 what?
@@docpossum2460 ok
Tesla guns and sorts of steampunk thing would happen hopefully
One of the biggest effects could have been japan. The person who single handedly reunified Japan, only survived early on through the use of muskets and there role in major battles were the deciding factor. Who knows what Japan would have looked like.
We still would have had catapults, trebuchets etc. They wouldn't have had as much room for improvement since they use mechanical rather than chemical power but still a lot of room for improvement. They could be scaled up, made more mobile, use stronger materials or could be loaded via a steam engine rather than man power etc.
I could see compressed air or petrol being used to power rifles too.
what if Caesar was never backstabbed by the senate?
Things I see:
What you did there.
Caesar provoke his own death by goading the ' mob/ civilian population ' into proclaiming him King. Caesar was an old man at them time of his death, late 50's. He had epalipse/ the shakes, and was whereing Depends. The family records at the time show that he was slowly dying.
If Caesar killed his polical riviles the city civilians would turn on him and his family for trying to take control of the Empire. If his P.R. killed him/ the Great Hero of the Empire. The city would revenge kill his rivils and his family would gain all of the power.
I AM... The Senate!
Maybe the empire would expanded faster. Maybe they could have conquered Persia
+Terribly Charismatic Duck you, I like you! Hahaha
TV and video games wouldn't ever be the same.
A world without FPS games? A person can dream.
+Jack Garcia it's called chivalry: medieval warfare
All RTS was a infinite zerg rushes.
Minecraft without TNT... or Splash Potions... or even Creepers... let's not forget Fireworks... oh wow. That would be _very_ different indeed.
We'd have all our FPS (First Person Slasher, now) games be about medieval warfare. I'd be ok with that, we don't have enough of those now.
I wonder if, due to the more widespread use of crossbows in this timeline, we would have invented the railcannon sooner, as the principals of their function arent too distinct, its just "push a projectile thing with another thing until it flies off"
Remembered me of the glados line
"Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out"
Btw would the term gun be invented?
I just imagine we calling long range weapons crossbows
Railbow
Portal Crossbow
Intercontinental [whatever replaces ballistic] missile
im fighting north korea on a Apache helicopter with my crossbow!!
Crossbows would've been automated eventually.
Imagine a rocket launcher, but it shoots bolts.
Your helicopter would have 0 weapons so gotta hire the boys so you can drive and shoot
Air rifles are more efficient and reliable then bows and crossbows, but they arent good enough to match guns so they'd just be the new crossbows
Helicopters would still have "missile" launchers on them.
Missile=capable of being thrown or projected to strike a distant target.
@@mikepratt7437 but the explosion isnt there, so its just like a catapult. Throwing an heavy thing at a crowd or building
Without gunpowder, Bateman would be way more scary
Bateman. Autocorrect
Bateman ?
Batman. Autocorrect
With out gunpowder they wouldn't be able to shoot his parents batman becomes a rich kid with parents and a happy one.
Garmr well his parents died because i think they were assassinated, so someone was payed or ordered to kill them, if thats the case then technically he would still be batman because the point was that his parents were killed in general and not because they were shot, get what i mean?
Advanced projectiles would likely be created without gunpowder. Compressed gas, hydraulic pressure, electro magnets... just a few ideas
Exactly. As metallurgy evolved there would likely be a form of 'steam gun' similar to a external combustion steam boat engine. Eventually, magnetic railgun technology would evolve with much the same effect as gunpowder. However, due to the advanced metal requirements it would likely have been a couple hundred years later down the road.
How much would the development of metal technology have been delayed if nations were not looking for better and better metal to make gunpowder weapons?
Agreed. Eventually, somebody would've come up with something that allows for guns based on different principles. EVentually, this would lead to guns not dissimilar to what we know today. But the face of the world would be different.
The age of exploration would probably still have happened, but not turned into a time of conquest. Africa, America and especially technologically already very advannced Asia wouldn't have been taken by Europe easily. There would probably still have been colonies, but they would have depended on cooperation with the respective natives.
By the time some alternative for guns got invented, the less advanced people around the world would have been brought up to speed by cultural exchange and spheres of influence would have been firmly established. The invention would have spread among technologically comparable enemies quickly and there wouldn't have been as many of the one-sided conquests we know from actual history.
That means that it's very likely we'd have strong, predominantly native countries in the Americas, probably with significant amounts of European and Asien blood mixed in, but culturally unique and not very European.
Europe wouldn't have prospered from the influx of cheap resources from the colonies and wouldn't be as dominant in a global sense. It could also still be much more divided, as unification came along with the power of guns and the prospect of new continents to plunder.
What an interesting world that would be. Completely alien to modern day eyes. China would probably be the number one global player, perhaps followed by India and maybe even some culturally more Mongol Russia long before any European nation. No USA as we know it. Probably nothing united in N.A. at all. Perhaps some descendants of the Inca or the Aztecs as another global player?
Or maybe Europe would have had to really band together and become a superstate to not be overrun? Or maybe there wouldn't be ANY real superpowers?
I'd say we'd likely have some kind of gladitorial sports as the main entertainment event, as personal combat skills stayed relevant for so much longer. The world could be much more warlike or even much more peaceful as WMDs were likely to be developed much later when technology already made for some globalization and a different balance of power would have been in place already.
Hasn't anybody written a good book about this? The setting allows for infinite possibilities. Heck, an author couold go nuts, as nobody could predict what would really have happened with certainty...
Cocoflash J Just not in the 16th and 17th century when the gunpowder thing really made the biggest technological difference.
Cocoflash J Early biological warfare, now that could be disastrous for mankind.
Or... Magic
Every time I look back at this, I keep envisioning a world of pneumatic weaponry once the industrial revolution hits. We tend to think of them as toys or sporting goods, like BB Rifles, and airsoft guns. But there were actual air powered rifles that were made for killing. The Austrian military used an Italian design from 1780 to 1815. Theoretically, you could create pneumatic cannons firing metal spikes at high velocities, enough to puncture armor. Picture something like the press guns from Break Blade, only not powered by magic crystals.
If gun powder never existed, Harambe would've never died
He would've been stabbed instead.
He would've been stabbed instead.
Or shot with an arrow
Technically speaking, Harambe may have never even been born. Who knows if the parents of Harambe would even procreate with the amount of things gunpowder has helped do which could influence that very action. Britain may not have been as powerful which eventually leads to the USA which would also eventually lead to the Cincinnati Zoo never being made, including the animals inside.
Now that's a world I would like to live in
I once saw a rapid-fire crossbow that fired about 12 arrows in less than a minute. I bet having them as hand-held and/or stationary weapon would impact modern warfare in the alternate timeline.
Luckily crossbows have significantly less penetration than rifle rounds.
But a long bow at 100 lb pull can put a good arrow through iron armor I've seen to done of course it was a dummy but still freekin iron armor
Yes iron armor not steel
Depends on what you are penetrating with Jelly? If you have tech to build rapid fire iron bolts, you will penetrate a shitload more than most modern bullets, even some AP rounds.
Also, modern crossbows can go right through a great deal of classes of body armor, so actually, if you want to go against someone in body body armor, it might be helpful to have a POWERFUL crossbow (not one of the not as powerful delivering models).
In alternative history land here; we would be faaar more advanced at this now, and yeah, for fortified long distance defenses, these could be quite deadly.
Or maybe a good shield and maxed out shield skill would come in handy.
If there was no gunpowder, and the industrial revolution came much later (early-mid 1900's) There might of been an era of steam-powered ships/airships and pneumatic weapons. Air cannons, spear launchers, mortars, and possibly jetpacks
Pneumatic guns. Steam powered weapons firing what are essentially normal bullets. The range is inferior, but the concept is the same. Put enough force into a projectile, it doesn't matter how, and you'll go though armor like butter.
SCIENCE!
Yea he didn't put in to account gasoline and metal and stuff was later found and improved on. Welcome in the steampunk age
The steampunk age!
I think, with warfare and no gun powder people would have looked for the next best solutions, yours makes allot of sense really, some of your idea's would probably happen, but I also think, armor, as cody mentioned, would be extremely important. Can I put wheels on something and ram it into soldiers like a horse? How can we prevent this from happening and guard massive amounts of soldiers? Is there a way to fight and also be guarded with this happening? Using armored crafts as cover and a way to break enemy lines, defeat the enemy, attack without being attacked, which would then turn into a rush for figuring out more ways of having automotive vehicles, heavily armored, and how to attack VIA those crafts, almost similar to Boats with big ass rams on them and spears on the side. Getting to a scenario where you're practically playing crash-derby on a battlefield, and ways to counter-act that.
Steampower could easily play a huge hand into this type of warfare, and I think it would play a huge roll.
10:47 Honestly, the strongest advantage that the conquistadores had against Aztecs and other Empires was their native allies from the Atlantic coast, as well as diseases and agricultural damage caused by feral pigs and the like, but I agree that many societies would be able to hold their own even then, without gunpowder.
well in the industrial revolution or possibly even sooner, people would've discovered nitroglycerin and other explosives too, let's not forget.
GravitySloth Railguns.
@@flare9757 laser guns
Lagfirst games We don’t know how to make laser guns yet... we have laser based defensive systems, but not anything handheld yet. However, we do have fully automatic Railgun rifles. The prototypes have been made in some guys garage, and has a lot of potential.
Don't forget that leads to smokeless powder for propelling bullets replacing gunpowder (yes gunpowder only refers to black powder).
@@flare9757 hey don't kill my dream
Ca-val-ry. Cavalry.....I keep thinking you're talking about crucifying Jesus. Which is offputting in a video about warfare.
It's even spelled Calvary in the closed captioning. My pedantic heart can't take it much longer.
Bro I know
Imagine what the blitzkrieg would look like;
A literal blood bath of armour and lances
Nah, they'd probably use steam guns or air guns
when you mentioned technological stagnation it reminded me about how in warhammer 40k the imperium has used the same tech for millennia. Since it was both considered sacred and served it's purpose, there was less of a need to upgrade, while the tau needed to constantly upgrade to compensate for their small numbers. could something like that happen in this age without gunpowder?
"Though it would be cool to see a D Day style invasion with arrows and armor"
"Heresy"
LMAO
A medieval version of d day I'm listening
You didn't directly state it, but what is interesting about the invention of guns is that it made armor obsolete and so over time soldiers lost more and more armor until eventually now they only wear clothing. Armor is only really making a comeback recently.
no need to state the obvious
Actually they did mention that. They said armor and weapon technology would continue to improve.
And the armor making a comeback can still only protect people from small-caliber handguns, shotguns, and shrapnel.
+Jeremy Nuiscence what the hell are you talking about? armor isnt limited to body armor, also body armor could protect the wearer from rifle round. Ever heard of level IV body armor?
Jeremy Nuiscence modern body armor is proofed against 1 30-06 shot to the center.
Even removing all forms of solid fuel explosive from combat, I think it's still safe to assume other forms of projectile weapons become more abundant. Granted, they will probably be used more like small artillery pieces. I can see the creation of mechanical ballistas that shoot bolts like a pitching machine throws baseballs. I can see armored cars with primarily flamethrowers as weapons. I can see that petroleum bombs and liquid fueled rockets might see wide use to burn a battlefield to utter devastation. Naval warfare would be completely focused on setting fires on enemy ships until ironclads come around. I can also imagine some absolutely sick mechanical melee weapons, like arm mounted pile drivers used to pierce an enemy's thick armor.
electromagnetic guns may come about too
Guns operated by electromagnets would be common. A bullet is placed in with the back being negative, and when you pull the trigger it completes a circuit, turning on the magnet's negative side, repelling the bullet at a high speed out of the barrel
Gotta love Gauss cannons.
Knights pouring out of apcs.
Steam canon would have been successful. Also he said gunpower, not nitroglycerine, which eventually became dynamite, gelignite, and cordite.
Weirdly i imagine a tank rolling down like cavalry but there is no cannon gunpowder so it just ram people over.
I don't want to be a bore here but as soon as modern chemistry comes around, someone is going to think "what if we include oxygen with a fuel so it can burn quickly in an enclosed environment" and intentionally invent a new form of gunpowder.
It would be cool to see Victorian soldiers using Steampunk rail guns against enemies with retractable shields though.
In what limited brain capacity knows
We would also have a story of an immortal king :^)
(Because china)
Angel Samael lol the alternate timeline would just make the invention of gunpowder be invented by a Highschool nerd
Technically Crossbow would have been more effective than the first Guns. Imagine whole armys just wielding Crossbows and doing the whole Line Infantry stuff.
They did it was called volley fire. Medieval even Renaissance armies had pike and shot formations based around bow and arrows and the crossbow.
plate and shield pretty much would make this useless
Crossbows would still have trouble reliably penetrating plate armor.
In WW2 we would be having huge landmarks made out of giant wooden arrows
@@autokrator_ in the early days of guns that was true for them too. I mean sometimes a pistol couldnt penetrate a breastplate if it was pressed against it.
Can we get that medieval D-day pic as a background picture?
I can imagine the beauty of medieval style D-day. Nazi footmen on the beach waiting for the Allied men at arms to arrive while thousands of crossbows and ballistas are being fired at the landing crafts while nazi knights are riding motorcycles with lances.
The theory that I've read is that it was gunpowder weapons (cannons and muskets, manned by conscripts with a little bit of training) that caused the end of feudalism. A cannon could knock down a castle's walls, and conscript with a musket could kill a highly trained armored knight. So, perhaps, if gunpowder had never existed, then feudalism would have remained the normal political structure, perhaps until the present day. It's like the theory of Punctuated Equilibrium in biology. Without the disruptive effect of gunpowder weapons, perhaps society would have remained in stasis for hundreds of years.
No gunpowder, no guns, no european world domination, no world wars, no nuclear energy and bombs, no cold war, no internet, no youtube, no AlternateHistoryHub.
Król Cieni Alternate Histories are very scary
***** If there was no gunpowder, guns will never exist. If there were no guns, there will be no world wars. If no world wars, no nuclear energy and bombs. It's sequence of events.
***** Without nukes WW II may never end.
Król Cieni no any technology or industrial revolution without uk
When thinking about alternative history, it's easier to say "what will *not* happen?"
no gun powder = harambe still alive
they would shoot him with a cross bow or something bigger like a ballista
+smilermiles ftw bit ott
+smilermiles ftw a ballista bolt would kill the kid aswell (good riddance)
They probably would've just used a tranquilizer gun that used compressed air instead.
Bows, crossbows. And also someone already said that
What if the US annexed all of Mexico in the Mexican/American war? (The US actually took over Mexico City during the war, but didn't incorporate Modern Mexico into the US)
there'd still be immagrants but they'd be the ones that mexico doesnt like, central americans
+Worminator Incorrect. Trump would be talking about illegal immigrants from Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Belize, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Panama instead of illegal Mexicans.
Some Americans did believe that the war "was fated to unite the two nations under republicanism" (republicanism in the sense of joining the American Republic).
So its not a all too unlikely scenario. But there were a few things preventing that outcome, 1. US was rather hostile to other cultures and incorporating that many people would be tough on both the Americans and the Mexicans.
2. Expanding and building on so much land would be extremely costly. 3. Adding more territory would further escalate the issue of slavery in the US as all of parts of Mexico except Texas would be a free state(Mexico was antislavery) unless they were designated as slave states by Congress. 4. The people disliked the idea of empire building and conquering foreign lands because of "liberty", "freedom", etc.
Perhaps the Confederates never declare independence because they would be completely outmatched. Perhaps they do and Mexico tries to declare independence and is put back down after the Civil War ends. Perhaps Mexico and the Confederates fight the Union (unlikely because issues of Texas and since Mexico was antislavery). Perhaps Mexico fights for the Union in return for higher autonomy and lands in Texas and California.
Trump would ejaculate
America would send their special forces to devastate the drug cartels. They wouldn't stand a chance against the FBI and ATF. A nicer America and world because less people dependant on drugs, and less crime caused from drugs and the firearms Mexican drug cartels can gather due to Mexico's weak government.
Gunpowder: * doesn’t exist *
The Byzantines: * Greek fire intensifies *
Omg yes
Molotovs would be discovered later
Extremely powerful airguns would be made
So the world's main weapon supplier would be airsoft on steroids.
In my opinion, yes
Yep, the first airgun was built in the late 18th century. If that stayed true by now we'd have some really scary pneumatic capabilities.
And with those being comparatively limited in power, I think we'd see a much greater emphasis on developing magnetic weapons as well. Perhaps accelerated development of focused laser technology, or weaponized radiation. Perhaps a greater emphasis on biological and chemical warfare? So many wonderful ways to kill people en masse!
Steam cannon were thing, but they couldn't conpete with conventional artilary.
I think electric-powered reapeating crossbows would be the standart 21st century weapon. or 22nd depending on how fast technology advances. hidraulics would play a larger role, we would see 'cannons' powered by water vapour preassure. flamethrowers become a more important part of warfare and napalm is never banned by the genebra conventions as it becomes too widespread.steam cannons would become the common siege weapon/artilliery and eventually walls would be phased out as well. oil is a great source of energy and would become more precious earlier on in human hystory as it would be a commodity used in the more frequent wars to power the machinery. metal prices would go up with the increased demand cause by the industrial revolution and armor would become rarer just like in our time.due to no gunpowder humanity is left without mining explosives and large-scale quarries, wich would slow down technological progress. tanks and airplanes are invented but aviation play a bit diferently: there are no dogfights and the only weapon that can be mounted on a plane is napalm or chemical weapons (and no gunpowder means no bombs untill someone invents nuclear explosives)when and if someone makes the first atomic bomb it will be a device so mindboglingly powerfull nothing before could ever compare, the honorary war ideal is suddently broken if it wasn't already by mustard gas and napalm and the risk of a nuclear apocalipse is much higher
lasers, you forgot lasers.
Gendo ruwo lasers require too much power to do anything significant. the only military aplication we currently have for lasers is disableing misiles. without gunpowder I doubt rocketry would go anywhere. lazers would still find industrial and cientific aplication though.
Nukes require conventional explosives
w8w0t sayitagain not all nukes. as I said there are ways to create preassure or accelerate a mass without the use of gunpowder. gunpowder just so happens to be the best way to do it, but others are theoretically possible too.
nice profile pic+comment combo though.
Yet all of these idea's come from gunpowered inventions.
"Calvary" oh god please no.
it triggers me every time lol
RIGHT?!?!?!
I didn't trained for years just to get killed like this!!!
I fully support the "wrong" way.
CHEERS LOVE
CAVALRY'S HERE
Id love to see a game made out of this idea
If it never existed then we wouldn't have to deal with that horrendous game franchise called "Call of Duty"
Then it would just be them fighting with swords and crossbows.
+whatevr99 which I would much rather have than space warfare
On the other hand imagine having all that fantasy millitary technology but every fight is a melee with steel swords.
Then we wouldn't have that amazing game 'Verdun'
+No fuck yea mate bro hmu on steam some time we can play some verdun WHISP3R is my steam name picture is a rainbow flame off a lighter
2:25 gold swords are actually complete shit and worse than iron.
NO SOUP FOR YOU! COME BACK ONE YEAR!
Jaron Sims
SORRY, IM ALL OUT OF BISCUITS!!!
I will come back in exactly one year
He was just making reference to Minecraft, where you get an advantage with Gold swords instead of Iron swords.
But the idea still remains the same with for example titanium or steel or diamonds.
How about gold coating steel swords then? :) To make them more stylish and fancy(although, admitedly, would not be practical, economical or serve any useful function to make it worthwhile for the common soldier, and would just be too time consuming if you wanted gold coated steel swords for say 10.000 men or more. It takes long enough time for swords as it is). That could work fairly well, just that any battle damage would make the underlying steel show through eventually.
Everyone's all saying "steam" or "pneumatic", but what about Greek Fire? If the Byzantines could hold out against the Seljuks, maybe it would spread further (despite being a secret). Replace guns with flamethrowers as the main infantry weapon. What would tactics look like?
Terrifying. Absolutely terrifying, is what tactics and warfare would be like.
+Nexi Corn Terrifying, but beuatiful. So much melting metal and screaming people. :3
If only the secret of Greek fire got out... we don't know if it even existed for sure.
Also, don't forget electricity. Railguns/Coilguns may still be inferior to conventional artillery, but if you don't have that, they may be a viable option. Not so much for small arms, though. Batteries and generators are still waaay too heavy.
Most important change would probably be that airplanes are pretty much unarmed. Crossbows won't do you much good in a dogfight, after all...
But that means bombers (and zeppelins) could drop firebombs with impunity, so the massive destruction of the two world wars still remains a possibility.
+Emily Hawthorn (Emmy)
When u play too much Medieval II
"Into the Badlands" came close, but that was a post-apocalypse, post-gun world. JoergSprave developed a repeating crossbow & improved on a repeating longbow on his YT page, also there's the rapid fire catapult from the 2nd Chronicles of Narnia movie; I think we'd see all 3 in a gunless world. Not to mention ballise on prop planes & helicopters.
"In the grim darkness of the 9th Century, there is only war".
I see what ya did. Nice.
I dont get it
It's a reference to the setting of Warhammer 40k, but normally it reads "in the grim darkness of the 41st millennium, there is only war". Hope this helps :)
@@sanguiniustheredangel2695 thanks
Humans kill eachother no matter what, and I pretty sure we would've found another way to kill eachother! I mean we're pretty good at that XD.
what if after the Industrial Revolution, they discovered electricity and develop that into an electric gun or something perhaps?
Magnetic accelerator. Something like it already exists I believe.
Would just be large and heavy, and easier to be used as a cannon.
Why bother when powerful steam guns would be widespread by the time the laws of electromagnetism are even discovered. Though yes, they would probably use railguns eventually, just like us.
Air rifles
Railguns
Guns could be created using magnets
Cody: "Then, something changed"
Me: Did the Fire Nation attack again? God damn it third time this week.
Napoleon:* Gulp *
Ottoman genesaries: * Gulp *
Jaissaries were originally archers, so they could still use that.
@@theonlygoodlookinghabsburg2081 Janissaries were regular foot soldiers with swords. You are confusing Turkoman cavalry with Ottoman Janissaries.
@@thenewcaliph766 I'm not confusing anything with anybody, just because the Turkoman cavalry was proficient in horse archery it doesn't mean they were the only ones who did archery.
@@theonlygoodlookinghabsburg2081 Im sorry if I didnt understand you. I was only saying that by the Ottoman period, horse archery and even archery as a whole was pretty obsolete. Armies were always composed of a large, beefy section of infantry both Janissary and Regular, cavalry and lots of siege equipment e.g. cannons, catapults etc.
@@thenewcaliph766 I have to disagree, in the early days of the Ottomans (before firearms were introduced) they had huge sections of cavalry when compared to the infantry.
Additionally, look at the Timurids, the Ak Koyunlu, the Safavids and the Mameluks, these armies used huge numbers of cavalry, some of them specificaly archer cavalry.
Without gunpowder, we probably would have never had dynamite. Mining would have been very different, and railroads would have probably gone around mountains rather than through...
Zayac the_Engineer your comment is written with mistake, but you're right, dinamite is C6H2CH3(NO2)3
As mentioned above, dynamite is made using nitroglycerin, not gunpowder.
But we might have found how to split a attom or just egnight enough oil to explode
We will be mining like steve xD
Griefing your friends would be a lot harder
What if the secret of gunpowder never got out of China?
Jackal head what if tang dinasty never allowed barbarian become their millitary general as far entering the court
zulfikar abdul what do you mean when you say "a barabarian to become a general"?
Do you mean Zhu Wen the man who ended the Tang Dynasty??
I think that it getting out of China was always inevitable, if they created it. Word would get around that China has some new, strange but very effective weapon that is improving, and suddenly the world would turn their attention to it.
Roose the Goose making gunpowder is not that simple, it may be possible that Chinese would have researched more into it and use it to invade the whole world even before timurs and Mongols.
Then China would have become the dominant force on the planet instead of Europe.
The funny part about this is that army's would probably use things like electric lances, gas weapons, flame throwers, hand held rail guns, and quite possibly crossbows
How ironic, some people were trying to make something for ever lasting life, in a result that made a weapon. Which eventually evolved into a super weapon that could destroy all of humanity and possibly life.
You forgot an important factor that gunpowder (directly and indirectly) affected.
Ambroise Paré was an influential war surgeon in the Renaissance era. His first major discovery was through bullet wounds (which could only be inflicted due to the existence of gunpowder) in which they used to pour boiling hot oil into the wound to remove infections. Ambroise Paré ran out of oil whilst treating his patients, so as a last ditch effort, created an ointment using an old Roman 'recipe' in which he mixed egg yolk, rose oil and turpentine. He never expected it to work, but miraculously it cured them, and not only did it cure them, but it did it better than the oil. The patients cured by the ointment were in no pain, whereas the ones treated with the oil were. This was a massive discovery on his part. He also made many other discoveries, many of which were ignored, such as his alternative solution to cauterising limbs, as germs in the air caused infection in the leg/arm leading to the patient's death. Another surgeon (whose name slips my mind) improved on that, which surely wouldn't have been the case if Ambroise Paré had not become a somewhat influential figure due to his ointment discovery.
If gunpowder never existed, Ambroise Paré wouldn't have became an influential figure of medicine, he would never have written his book, which was used by almost every other surgeon/doctor and it's arguable that he wouldn't have retired as a war surgeon to continue his studies (due to the nature of war before gun powder, and the massive need for doctors) and as such, wouldn't have design prosthetic limbs.
If gunpowder didn't exist, we wouldn't be as medically advanced as we are now.
Whether or not bullet wounds are required for Ambroise Paré to have become so desperate that he'd try a Roman miracle cure, we don't know.
Books Lift My Screen The treatment for bullet wounds was boiling hot oil. The only reason he went back to the old Roman treatment was because he ran out of oil. He wouldn't have ran out of oil if gunpowder didn't exist as he simply wouldn't be curing people of the infection caused from bullet wounds.
Saikou he said medical tech would be less advanced
He did!? Timestamp?
debatable but I get what you're saying. don't forget war is still war. Sooner or later people would've found something.
but...but....
war never changes
It's high noon.
but but
War has changed
JUSTICE RAINS FROM AHHHHHH
Heroes never die, for a price.
It doesn't people still murder and massacre each other
I wonder if an alternative would’ve been made, like a water-sodium type thing. I’m not a science guy but I know the elements related to sodium tend to react violently with water
There are many different explosive compounds, original blackpowder has been obsolete for a very long time so realistically barely anything would change in the long run