Another pointless rant

Since it's creation, the Hobbes Fan Club has gone in some strange directions. Basicly I post whatever i'm thinking about at the time so of course it's going to be science based and touch on as much stuff as possible. Of the 59% of my posts which are science alone, I calculated that, I have no life (it's actualy 59.0909% but who cares about precision these days? Too low a number of people.). So as such I will be adding another post to the list of pointless scientific rants on this blog. Enjoy!

This particular post is going to be half science and half history based. And for those of you who know me you know that when I say history, I generally mean the history of warfare. I will be discussing my three favorite inventions that changed the nature of warfare. Naturaly there have been many other advances before, since and between but there are so many I could make another blog to discuss them all. Too make it faire i'm not going to include the invention of the A-Bomb, gun or the discovery of metals like iron or steel.

The Marian reforms, which took place in the year 107 BC, were the reforms of the roman army by the roman Gaius Marius. These reforms changed the art of warfare. How? By creating the first professional army in the world. I am not including the spartans in this calculation of the "first" professional army because they weren't payed thus they weren't professional but the main reason is that they are a complete, if small, society. Not one army. Gaius Marius created the power-house that was the roman army he streamlined the process that had already existed of calling on civilians, conscripts, to fight in times of crisis but also created an elite. The legionaires, so well known in history for their dicipline. The auxiliary, the conscripts, were the none roman soldiers who wanted to join the army. The causes for this have been similar throughout history ranging from need of employment to search for adventure. Now having a full time portion of the army Marius could have them devote more time to training, thus resulting in such legendary groups as the Praetorian guard, official military guard of the emperor. When the roman civilization colapsed their army style died with them but as all historians know, you can still learn from the past, unfortunately most people simply turn a blind eye to things that happened over 50 years ago. A similar style of professional army was developed thousands of years later but I still give credit to Gaius Marius.

The third item is based on the second in the list of technologies that changed warfare so it is only natural that I explain this item first. Gunpowder. Kind of an obviously important developement considering that it led to the firearm and the bomb so it is only natural that it be included in my list. Invented in china, gunpowder became a major factor in all warfare since it's discovery. Once the european factions had gotten their hands on it gun powder naturally became the most commun form of weapon on the contenant. It is one of those unwritten (as far as I know) rules of warfare. Give your army the best weapons and it stands to reason that you stand a better chance of winning battles, thus winning wars, which leads to greater wealth, which lets you wage bigger wars, thus accumulating more wealth, etc.

The final item on this list is something much less grand then a whole army marching perfectly in time from years of drilling or the discovery of an explosive powder leading to bombs and guns. It is however an extremely important factor in modern firearms. Most people who are not historians or do not deal with firearms do not know about them but there are small, spiraling grooves which extend the length of a gun barrell. These grooves are called riffeling. Now these may seem a small developement compared to many other advancements throughout history however they are of vital importance. When a bullet is fired it expands to fill the barrel thus filling in the spiralling grooves. Since they are spiralling the grooves force the bullet into the spin. It is scientifically proven, or else they would not be in use, that a spinning projectile is more accurate over a greater OR smaller range. The invention of riffeling led to snipers and longer range artillery. A good example of the importance of riffeling is as follows. Historically, a nations waters have extended as far as that country could protect past their cost line. In current times it has become more political then actual military since missiles can be launched from land into the middle of basicly any ocean thus making it so that national waters worldwide would overlape. When cannons were the choice method of defense, the average national water boundry was 2 miles since that was the reach of unriffeled cannons. When riffled cannons came into play, not even artillery yet just cannons with little scratches down the barrel, that boundry expanded to 15 miles. 7.5 times the range because of little grooves. Naturally I am impressed by such a simple invention doing so much.

This concludes the list of my three favorite developements leading to the advancement of warfare throughout history. If you didn't fall asleep while reading this post please tell me and we can have some grand conversations on such topics. Until the next pointless rant.