I misunderstood you then. I though you were making a stronger claim about wheeled transport (assumed by me to be quite limited to Nile neigbourhood and even there, since, well, perfect Nile with northerly winds and northward current, what's not to love there?) falling into disuse in Egypt due to introduction of camels.
That camels were improvement on Asses or Onagers does not surprise me (nor does forgetting technology falling into disuse. I mean, Tasmanians forgot pretty much everything).
Oh, the Middle East had oxen and horses everywhere already. Camels are a very late arrival. The switch-over happened during Late Antiquity/Early Middle Ages, and spread with the Islamic conquest. Where camels arrived, wheeled vehicles soon disappeared altogether (some exceptions - e.g. coexisted in Asia Minor, India).
It is not "forgetting". It is simply camels were better. They are cheap, strong and sure-footed, and don't require road-maintenance.
I did not mean buy as expensive. I meant it, can i go and buy the guns from foreignets? Not everyone could do that effectively (i doubt Caribs could, for example).
There are plenty of European merchants - scrupulous and unscrupulous - who would be happy to sell it to them. Africans were sold heaps of guns.
Admittedly, lack of prior metallurgy among the Caribs may have contributed to reluctance of adoption. You don't need to manufacture guns, but you do need to maintain and repair them. African blacksmiths could do (and did) that easily. Caribs would have had more trouble.
But in general, yeah, military is expression of social system and limited by it, too. But that's another question. Was thete trouble integrating handguns into militaries in general? I do not think so, all around the world, at all times. The integration was different in Japan vs. Iroquois vs. Ethiopia and so on, of course.
Yes there was. You can't leave gunners spread out and unprotected, like you can archers. Archers can largely fend for themselves. But you have to reorganize units, concentrate and design new protective formations to make firearms effective.
Social pressure too. It may not be easy to persuade your noble warrior caste their duty is to stand back and remain stationary to protect some lame peasants with firing sticks. You're depriving them of a chance for heroic duels, glorious deeds and scalp-collecting.
Arrow were more expensive than bullets, iirc, but in general archers are dirt cheap, the cheapest kind of soldier. Maybe except nonexistent proverbial pitchfork wielding peasant
That's a curious conclusion. The OP's point is that archers were expensive. Expensive to train if you had them, expensive to hire if you didn't. And (in the OPs theory) the very reason firearms were adopted.
Afaik, poisoned arrows are simply weaker and not very useful in warfare (maybe some Amazon poison is different, dunno), so it wasn't used in it. Mongols too, used them for hunting, but very occassionally against humana.
Weaker than regular arrows? Surely not. But there may have been a matter of inconvenience. Poisoned arrows have to be capped to avoid accidents. You do not want to be reaching into your quiver and get pricked by accident - which might be likelier in the stress of a battle than in the calm of a hunt,
Like with all technological things, there are costs and benefits. If the benefit doesn't outweigh the cost, or you got better alternatives, you don't adopt it.
Well, since i mentioned horses in that village scenario... They were used everywhere they could be and some more which includes overwhelming majority of the world, including, let me make wild guess, half of Africa (and all of India, really, even if imported at great cost)
Not below the Sahel. Horses don't survive the tse-tse fly.
And it is not wise to take horses into a forested area. You're likelier to lose them than any advantage they might bring, And you can't afford to lose horses so cheaply.
They are not necessary for raiding a village but sure they are very useful. Probably even more if you don't have guns!
Their usefulness would be in chasing down fleers, which may be fine if the village is an open area. But if the village is in a forested area, it's only a few yards to the forest line and safety.
To capture stuff, it is much better to do as attackers normally do - approach quietly, spread out and assault from as many multiple sides as you can. A platoon of archers can do that.
Your initial proposal of a slow-moving clustered ball of fireworks moving from one direction is not a wise attacking approach. They're a big noisy target for concentrated missile fire, seen and heard well in advance. If they're not entirely mowed down before they reach the first hut, the enemy will just withdraw and keep hitting them again and again. Frontal assaults are very costly and rarely successful, regardless of how good your guns.
Horses are quicker & easier to spread out, but has its own set of problems - visible at even longer distance (those dust clouds they kick up) and not very maneuverable once they enter built up areas (easy to trap, etc.). Horses work great in open spaces, and are devastating in pursuits. But quite costly to assault with them.
I am pretyy sure Spaniards were limited to places where there was large population, including places with climate and poisons exactly like Castille.
Alas, they didn't have Googlemaps to see where these were. Spanish conquistadors disembarked on coasts, set up camps, marched inland and hoped for the best.
There are certain islands and coasts where they learned (at great cost) that you had better not go. Large swathes of the Spanish Main (northern South America) were quickly seen as problematic and avoided as no-go zones. There be poisoned arrows in them places.
So Pizarro's expedition was quite nerve-wracking and not very enticing. For all the rumors of El Dorado, South America had a very frightening reputation.
Though poisoned blankets are a myth, but - you are Portuguese, so maybe you can tell something about Bandeirantes possible encounters with curare wielding Natives?
Oh, they're not a myth. At least they were reported to be used in Brazil.
Happily most of the Tupi did not have curare (or, rather, happily for the colonists, unhappily for the Tupi). Except up in the Amazon/Guyanas.
But okay, arquebusiers either:
A) commit suicide at the thought of someone putting them in such place.
B) Forget guns and charge.
So you agree with me then? Battle tactics have to change to make firearms effective.
Sending archers forward on their lonesome was a pretty routine tactic. If you're merely replacing bows with guns, and then doing the same thing, it would be suicidal. As you note.
So it is not merely switching technology. You have to switch everything, you have to to change how you organize units and fight battles. And that is not always possible, or wanted, or desirable or worthwhile.
Also my finger hurts
Wrap it in armor next time.
