On Saturday, August 31, 2002, at 07:54 PM, Joshua Kronengold wrote: >> well, a weapon that entered the field in the middle >> ages against a weapon that incorporates all the refinements of the >> next >> couple hundred years would be like bringing a knife to a gun-fight. > > This statement assumes combat advancements are linear, and always > toward "more deadly". They're not. > That is true. The Turks had cannons at the siege of Constantinople (The largest designed by a Hungarian, go figure) but they did killed very few people. Their effect was mostly psychological. ------ "Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself (I am large, I contain multiitudes)"---Walt Whitman