So, I'm confused about guns in the mid to late 1800's. So, we have powder and shot guns and rifles...

That was an issue all the way up to the Vietnam war.

So what about early firearms? When did handgonnes and arquebuses and that shit show up?

Cavalry was still king when these things showed up right?

>why would any company produce a brand new model cap and ball revolver when they could as easily produce a new cartridge loaded revolver?

They could not. Patents protected Colt's access to the revolver, period, for a number of years (1836-1856)-- and then Smith and Wesson owned the patent on cartridge revolvers until 1869. So, really, even if they wanted to the field wasn't open until 1870 when we see, predictably, a proliferation of these designs.

For your purposes, you have some research to do. Both of these patents lead to lots of innovators trying to create alternative solutions, and your players may encounter all of the following:

Under Colt's patent years: Volcanic repeating pistols, "turret revolver" designs, and Harmonica and Pepperbox firearms remained popular.

Under the Smith and Wesson years:look up teat-fire, cup-fire and lipfire cartridges. Lots of companies would also end up just paying royalties to S&W and producing licensed cartridge guns.

Now, as importantly: I think what you are really asking is why would people continue to use cap and ball Colts over cartridge S&Ws? And why is it that even the US army went for the Colt 1860 -- a percussion cap revolver -- over the Smith & Wesson cartridge guns?

And the answer is power. At the time -- and we're looking at a fairly narrow window, from 1856 to 1870 -- no one had figured out how to produce cartridges that would work with larger rounds (at least at scale). That S&W model 1 was a low pressure .22 short. By the end of the civil war they had made it up to a .32. You're in the mid 1870s by the time a .38 and then .44 is out -- in short, until cartridge firearms finally closed the gap in power with black powder pistols. At that point customers and militaries convert en-masse, and with S&Ws patent expiring the field explodes.

The thing is that when firearms showed up, the change was so gradual that you need to get really specific, geographically, when you ask questions like that.

And Cavalry (knights and the like) stopped being king a lot earlier than they wanted to admit themselves. Like, the entire Habsburg house got hacked to pieces by burly swiss peasants with halberds and longspears and the idea that knights might be obsolete still didn't sink in for a long time.

Knights and full plate armor were around at the same time guns and gunpowder were, and in fact the overlap between the two was a pretty damn long period of time. While plate armor was pretty effective at stopping bullets it wasn't effective at stopping nobles from realizing they could just replace their knights with a shitload of dudes with guns for a fraction of the cost.

Literally patent law. Colt and a few other companies fought over some BS patents involving dubious claims that prevented the widespread introduction of cartridge weapons for decades.

Cultural/economic issues also arise, many nations refused to issue multi shot guns because ammo was too expensive. T

Also things take time to introduce, bolt action rifles are still widespread even though they were technologically obsolete a century ago.

>Cavalry was still king when these things showed up right?
Yep, and cavalry was still highly relevant for a long time after - not least because they adopted firearms as well, some firing on the move, some being mounted infantry

The very first firearms in the west are seen about 1400 or so, and by 1500 were in pretty regular use, with the first major victory that depended on firearms about that time.
The paper cartridge was introduced in 1586.

Now, that's handguns. Rifles are another issue, but actually convert over largely earlier: by 1865 it is clear the way the wind is blowing: if you're set after then you're not going to find a lot of new muzzle loaders being produced.

Without having a date I cannot do much here, but, a few general points:

1. Percussion Caps were still relatively new, showing up in 1820. They were highly reliable, cheap, and ubiquitous. Nipple sizes (the thing you stick the caps on) were regular enough that you didn't have to worry about supply much. They also were reliable as hell: cartridges had to be _good_ before they were better than percussion caps.

2. The US operates through the civil war with percussion rifled muskets as its line weapon, because they did the job, put out a good rate of fire, and were cheap -- 1/3 or less the cost of a repeater at the time. And that's not even considering the cost of ammunition. Aforementioned points by other posters about military leaders not wanting soldiers to fire needlessly are also on point.

3. Breach-loading paper cartridges precede metal cartridges. Pic related. The "Needle Gun" was adopted by the Prussian military in the early 1840s, as a breach-loading weapon with paper cartridges that included their own primer. The "needle" refers to a firing pin. Ultimately, the design of the bolt (the closing chamber) was new, and didn't contain the pressure of the blast well -- resulting in reduced pressure and lower range and power.

4. While the needle gun had real problems, it spurred other breach-loading developments. By the late 1850s, if your players were private citizens, they would have a selection of cartridge-loading firearms to choose from.

You can't just say that cavalry were king when firearms showed up without being specific, because as a sweeping statement it's not that simple, and outright false in a lot of conflicts and regions. Firearms were around in the 14th century, but not a huge factor for a long time yet, and cavalry suffered a LOT way before guns became a big issue.

The English slapped the French around by relying on archers and fighting dismounted several times during the 14th century, and the Habsburgs trying to muscle in on the swiss cantons ended in disaster, repeatedly for them when knights came up against longspears and early halberds even before them, in the early 14th century. In the 15th century you have the hussite wars where innovative tactics and reliance on polearms and ranged weapons defeated cavalry repeatedly, even when guns were still a minority weapon.

If you want dominant cavalry you need to look further back, look at specific conflicts, or fast forward all the way to the 16th century and the winged hussars when they were the only ones who had figured out how to murderfuck firearm infantry with cavalry charges long after everyone else started to focus less and less on cavalry.

Cavalry continued to be king for quite a long time and the most superheavy of shock cavalry didn't come around till long after the firearm earned it's place on the field.

Yeah, "king" is almost always a misnomer, and cavalry in particular can often be over-recognised through the prestige and wealth often associated with it.

The earliest signs of cannons in Europe are form 1326, when we get one illustration (pic) and one written account mentioning them. So 1320's.

As far as I can tell hand-held gun showed up somewhere before the mid century, maybe in the forties. In the latter parts of the century saltpetre farms start popping up, ending reliance on imports form Indian mines.

A simple serpentine lever to hold the match is probably form the end of the 14th century, ca 1400 we can find it with a spring to hold it back. The basic touch-hole remains common until the end of the 15th century.

Simple dry-mix "serpentine" gunpowder is replaced by "knollen" wet-mixed somewhere in the early 15th century or so.

Breech-loaded cannons using removable chamber-pieces (keep a few pre-loaded spares around, hint hint) may have turned up as early as the start of the 15th century, hand-held variants where around by the middle.

The Hussite wars, 1421-1434, are in many ways when firearms really show their usefulness for the first time.

"Proper" stocks, instead of a staff for example, are IIRC a late 15th century thing, and about there we see the proper matchlock appear as well. Taken together, somewhere close to the turn of the century, we get the arquebus.

Rifled barrels late 15th century, wheellock firearms are first mentioned in 1507, the pepperbox was around by 1530 if not earlier, revolvers (usually long guns, very rarely pistols) before the end of the 16th century. Snaphance lock somewhere mid-late 16th century IIRC, turning into the flintlock proper towards the end of the century(?).

The musket first turns up as a very large cousin to the arquebus in the 16th century, perhaps having started out as a wall gun brought into open battle. It then shrinks a bit and takes over as the main infantry gun from the arquebus, and then keeps shrinking until by the mid century or so it's in many ways the arquebus come again in function.

As for cavalry, it was not really the uncontested champion any more in the 14th century and onwards, as solid infantry blocks started to be able to resist them. The infantry was usually severely lacking on the offence however, so unless your enemy was one that'd reliably attack you'd really want a combined arms approach. The knight as a heavily armoured lancer remains effective until a bit into the 16th century, when the pistol starts replacing the lance, and the knight becomes a pistoleer. The heavily armoured shock cavalry then sticks around until the mid 17th century or so, at which point it starts getting phased out. By the year 1700 it'll probably be pretty hard to find someone with more than a helmet and a breastplate (and even that much is perhaps mostly a French thing), though that configuration will in some places persist until WW1.

Simple answer to pointless argument starter - basic economy, sex-bomb. Rifles were around at that point for roughtly two centuries. So were cartridges. But shit was simply expensive to produce, unreliable and simply impossible to mass-produce.
Cue jump in manufacture techniques all over different industries (2nd industrial revolution, ho!), making bolt-action, magazine-fed, cartridge-shooting rifles simply cheap enough to bother with using them with every single grunt. Even if you remove magazines from the equation, you still need a shitload of things to take into account. French added something as basic as rubber ring to their Chassepot rifle and suddenly it had effective range of way over 1 km, something roughtly a decade later was considered simply impossible, even with a rifle.

Damn it, earlier, not later

Why doesnt everyone make electric cars?
Why dont you have one?

Also, bear in mind that this was cutting edge technology. Lots of cartridge designs were offered that then quickly disappeared as their manufacturers tanked or switched to a new design.

Cartridge markings had no real standards either and just because ammo fits doesn't mean that it is effective or safe in that gun.

This definitely did not encourage adoption and resupply of ammunition should be a very real problem for your campaign, especially if you're following the usual troupes and most weapons & ammo are found rather than purchased.

In contrast, black powder is fairly consistent and a closely fitting projectile of similar proportions is fine to use.

>nd... powder and shot firearms keep being produced? For decades!? What the hell happened? Was the industry resisting change?

Blackpowder spoils. Cartridges didn't become a real game changer until guncotton and smokeless powder had become viewable as propellants because you'd basically either put the same ammout of work into getting your ammo ready and replacing it as you did without cartridges or you'd have to deal with spoilt ones from commercial batches all the fucking time.

The military also resisted giving their soldiers the guns they prefered, which generally were magazine-fed ones that could quickly be readied for the next shot. They were still arguments being made about single-shot rifles being the superior choice for military applications up to WW1.

>Like, the entire Habsburg house got hacked to pieces by burly swiss peasants with halberds and longspears
You greatly underestimate the fecundity of the House of Habsburg and overestimate the impact of the Battle at Morgarten.

>companies like Winchester and Colt who ended a lot of fairly enterprising, competitive and innovating companies by beating them to death with sacks of cash

Not to mention patents. Colt had a patent on the concept of boring a hole through a revolver cylinder. I mean, that's just drilling a hole. Those fuckers somehow managed to spin drilling a hole into being an original idea that deserved legal protection. Which is fucking ridiculous. This practice alone ensured a number of really weird guns and cartirdges were made, because suddenly only Colt could make normal revolvers.

But if you did end up patenting something that could directly compete with them, they did indeed end up buying up your tiny shop, just to put you out of business.

>Colt had a patent on the concept of boring a hole through a revolver cylinder.

Sure there wasn't anything more to that patent? Or was 19th century US patent law even worse than the current stuff? Because I don't see the nearly-bankrupt Colt of the Paterson days doing very well against prior art claims otherwise.

Morgarten was the beginning of the rise.

Cavalry beat those fucking peasants at Marignano

Bruh they had breechloading, rifled guns by 1420 and wheellock pistols by 1550 ish. Yet armies stuck to smoothbore muzzle loading matchlocks until 1650-1700. Economies of scale man.

>rifling in 1420
Not on anything smaller than a culverin, which was a carriage-mounted cannon.

It's not just cost, you can't make reliable breechloaders without a number of metallurgy processes. The breechloader that people keep insisting would have totally revolutionized 18th century warfare was an easily fouled mess and no amount of "muh accurate reproduction" has managed to get over that problem inherent to blackpowder.

Until poudre B and cordite there is no way to make a reliable fast firing gun that will work for more than a couple shots anyway.

Wheellocks being canned, however, was entirely a cost issue, they were more reliable than flintlocks, lacked the snapping action that could fuck up your aim (which could lead to entire volleys going overhead of the opposing troops), but they were expensive af.

Which still didn't stop the swedish army from trying to convince the estates-general of Sweden to fund a new type of wheellock in the 18th century.

Not necessarily, the term culverin was used earlier as a handgun. Basically pre 1550 terminology is a chaotic shitfest.

That said the earliest mention of rifling I heard of was for a handgun shooting competition around 1420 and I am pretty sure those were in fact personal firearms.

US patent law by fucking default was ridiculous and keep being so. Technically you could patent ANYTHING in early 19th century, including things that were around for centuries at that point. All it took was drawing a patent schematics, apply documentation and bam! You are done, here is your patent sir, enjoy fucking up just about everyone.
Then probably die out of disentery, with the patent held by your heir completely uninterested in the whole thing, but nobody else can do this shit for free anymore and need to pay absurd fees.

Patents are literally one of the worst inventions that are out there. But then again, I'm from post-commie nation, so I have no sentiment toward "private intellectual property", as such concept didn't exist for me till I was attending uni and we had entire subject dedicated to drill copyrights into us. After all, why would anyone want to keep KNOWLEDGE as private property?

This appears to be the patent, as filed by Rollin White: google.com/patents/US12648

>After all, why would anyone want to keep KNOWLEDGE as private property?

I'm so commie I might BE the Red under the Bed but I can get it. They want the opportunity for someone who invested time, effort and money to get benefits from it rather than having a big business go 'Well, thanks for all the work. Our factories will start pumping it out with no gain for you'

The issue is that it's too easy to abuse what IS a good idea of a base system.

user, you are missing the point - it's the big business who will use it to fuck up your small-ass workshop, not the other way around.

The issue is how patents by default are simply stupid, especially if they don't simply work on basic principle "Ok, you've got here 5 years of when this is your property, then fuck you, everyone benefits".

He was emphasising that Big Businesses fucking Workshops would likely happen even more without patents, as instead of having to buy you out they could just straight up copy

Missed one, the transition form knollen powder to controlled grain corning seems to be an early to mid 16th century thing, following improvements in saltpetre making that made it less prone to sucking up moisture.

One major issue with rifling is that the bullet has to engage the rifling, ie it needs to fill out the grooves, which means it's too big for the lands. With a breech loader shooting ball ammo, that means it's going to take a bit of time violence to get the bloody thing down the barrel. With military firearms often shooting under-bore ammo as it as to speed up reloading and reduce fouling sensitivity (the abhorrent accuracy that resulted being less of an issue with gunpowder smoke obscuring things), the thought of going for something significantly slower and mroe fouling sensitive than a smoothbore with properly fitted balls, well...

Thus rifling remained rare until the minie ball, the ass of which expanded when fired to engage the rifling.

Shooting competitions would be where rifling had a chance before such, with time generally being plentiful and accuracy being the entire point.

So somehow even worse.

Seems the hole in this case has to be at the rear, to specifically allow reloading form the rear. So at least slightly more specific, but yes, damn.

Also, the text recognition software really did a number on that one.

Exactly. Without patents there is nothing protecting the newcomer to the industry and his new idea. The established Big Business can instantly go 'Well, that's a nice idea but we have the industrial capacity and marketing to take advantage of it. It's our idea now'.

I can see the idea of patents, they exist to make sure that the inventor of something can see some actual profit from it rather than it being instantly co-opted by someone else.

The system itself, however, is kinda fucked.

>2016
>People seriously believe patents are protecting anyone else than Big Business
And let me guess - everyone should pull themselves by their boothstraps?

The earliest recorded pistol duels were actually done on horse back

...I was saying what the concept is supposed to be about, not how it works in practice.

How do you believe that patents are supposed to work with new inventions?

>Let me start the same argument as always on Veeky Forums, 27th time this week

>Or was 19th century US patent law even worse than the current stuff?

We're talking about the country that only aknowledged that people who aren't citizens of the US can potentially hold IP rights at the tail end of the 1980s.

...wait, what?

I believe patents should cease to exist, just like that. The only thing they do is protecting someone's ass, usually someone who is already sitting on golden chair with cushy pillow.
What? No grants for research? No company security? That's bullshit. People invested into R&D without patents just as much. It's a corporate business that keeps defending its own ass so they can make cash without actually doing anything at all and god forbid upgrading the existing things, because that means the patent is no longer valid and they are no longer having monopoly.
I really love it with Chinese and their utter contempt toward copyrights, not just because being nominally commies, but on purely cultural level. Because they are fucking everyone big time with their knock-offs and openly saying "well then, sue us"

Different user, but you can thank Disney for fucking up everyone. They've lobbied during Reagan administration so much shit to protect "their" property and every other corporation benefit by proxy, since American law is based on precedense, so allow one and everyone is allowed to pull the same thing.
So yeah, Clappistani as always protecting freedom and fair chances of the already entitled.

>by their boothstraps
In looking up boot straps (they're just fabric hooks really), apparently the saying "to pull oneself up by one's bootstraps" was already in use during the 19th century... as an example of an impossible task, with the idiom dating to at least 1834.
Amusing that now people would use it seriously.

And the conversation was about theory, not actuality

didnt these three shot burst fire functions got developed becouse of this?

From what I recall yes.

user, this is the entire point of this saying - how impossible it is, and yet how Americans keep sprouting it as some revelation.

Also, if you didn't notice, we are not living in theoretical wordl, but actual one. We just can't assume things working in theory, because they fucking need to work in reality

The market would balance itself out in the scenario of a naive idiot telling everyone how his invention works, and a much larger business being able to capitalize on his invention and push out products that are cheaper for consumers than that guy just trying to do it on his own.

Of course without a patent system telling trade secrets would become an incredibly cutthroat problem that could wipe out new businesses.

The patent system should just be a flat 15-20 years backed by increased efforts to make it easier for people without much money to defend their patents. After the 15-20 years is up the patent falls under a period of semi ownership until death + 20 years. The semi ownership license is that businesses must cite the author or company's name they are using the patents for in some form to inform other businesses whose patents they are using.

This would be the same way for copyright law, only the citation license would be intended to make sure consumers know the product isn't official rather than just other businesses.

>Cavalry was still king when these things showed up right?

cavalry was still a highly valued part of the army up until after the great war

after seeing action prior to the front stabilising(like pic related) the British cavalry were largly kept in reserve by French and later Haig so they could quickly exploit any breaks in the line

>After the 15-20 years is up the patent falls under a period of semi ownership until death + 20 years.
What for?
No, really, what for? We already have bullshit like that in place and all it does it "b-but we have the rights for this!"
Fucking copyrights are rotten and exactly because such clausule corporations are openly lobbying to extent the "+80 years after death/" into "forever and ever".

FUCK this shit.

I can understand that attitude, that knowledge should be spread and be allowed to benefit humanity, but I can also see the flip side of the problem.

Innovation is spurred on by greed. As you know very well, capitalism works because we're exploiting the greed of the common man, rather than asking of him his virtue. Innovation and invention is no exception. A man creates, he reaps the riches, society benefits from a new invention. That's why the patent system (sometimes) works.

>cavalry was still a highly valued part of the army up until after the great war
No user.
You are confusing "being used" with "being highly valued". Cavalry was pretty much obsolete with mass introduction of breech-loading rifles and one can argue it was obsolete even sooner, at the end of Napoleonic period. It was idiots who still considered it valid up until WW1, which taught everyone a final lesson they are using obsolete tactics that don't work against modern weapons.

The point of the semi ownership is that you can't do anything to stop somebody from using your patent, but they must state that they used your patent in their product.

It would be such an easy thing for companies to do that there would rarely be any need for a court case.

>Greed is the only driving force that exists
user, are you American? And if not, why are you perpetuating American bullshit?
There is curiosity. There is simple need for something better. There is general progress in related fields. There is pride, if you seriously need to keep it on basic human instincts. There is desire to do things with as little work as possible. There is the desire to reach higher efficiency, not because monetary profit, but lowering the toll of given task. Oh, and let's don't forget that some people simply are good and are doing things for benefit of human race out of kindness.
And so on and forth. Greed is what perpetuates the company that MIGHT hire you to do something for them, not a open-them-all key.

>but they must state that they used your patent in their product.
Again, WHAT FOR. Explain this to me, because something is apparently skipping me here. Why would you need to cite it?

>cavalry is used by all armies worldwide even in WWI
>obsolete
Don't be such a contrarian.

I can't tell, do people (Americans, I've never actually heard it said in person) say it only to mean "an impossible attempt to produce success out of nothing"?
Or do they sometimes mean it as "people should genuinely attempt to succeed purely on their own merits"

The theory comment was in answer to "you seriously believe patents are..." comment/insult, which was kind of unfounded, given that the user and I were stressing one of the reasons patents were made to be a thing.
Neither of us said they were very good at it, or that we believed that they were.

Because it would work in a very similar way to the copyright reform to simplify the laws, and also patent inventors would get extremely butthurt if only copyright creators got the semi ownership license.

>Neither of us said they were very good at it

God no, they are a terrible system. There is, however, reasons why you'd want something to protect small companies from having ideas stolen by bigger companies.

About the only small 'relief' was that the patents where comparatively short term, but even 10-15yr was quite a pain in the arse for anyone looking to develop equipment.

Cavalry was next to useless on the western front and against the Russians which was a static clown circus, they just got them off their horses and into the trenches for the most part when they got slim on numbers.
Other fronts however, (like the Battle of Beersheba) in the deserts and anywhere else mobility could be used they gave the enemy a lot of grief.
Horse drawn artillery though floated around for quite some time after 'cavalry' was effectively dead and buried into the WW2 period but don't really remember it being used post WW2 off the top of my head.

Yeah, it's like "this thing exists to do a job - the job is nigh impossible, and the thing is bad at the job anyway, but it's marginally better than not having the thing at all", though the amount it helps bigger companies is a pretty big downside.
Well, sort of, big companies have good points too, but their situations allow them to benefit from patents more than most.

>Top brass using absolutely outdated tactics
>WW1 proving that in every single front and instance
>HURR BUT THEY WERE USING IT SO SURELY IT COULDN'T BE BAD DURR
Seriously user? Seriously?

The moment machine guns were bought by Brits in 1880s, pretty much ALL military development till that point became obsolete. Add to that indirect artillery fire of Germans and suddenly you end up with absolutely obsolete army and tactics, with weapons capable of obliterating entire regiments like it was nothing.
And you will clinge to cavalry just because it was used. French were using fucking curraisiers at the wake of the war. Fucking cavalry with fucking armoured breastplates. You are going to tell me it wasn't obsolete, just because it was in use?

How fucking retarded you are from 1 to Nebraska?

Let me get this straight - we should implement cancerous law that was proven long ago to be counter productive to fuck up patents even more?

>WW1 proving that in every single front and instance

The whole eastern front, user.

The whole eastern front.

The whole half of the war that didn't feature any Anglos at all.

Chinese used cavalry at trainings with nuke explosions.

Nigga all it is is stating whose work you're building off of. This has been the way it works in both the open source software world and the free culture world. How fucking dense are you.

As a Russian I couldn't laugh harder on your bullshit.
At least the user who pulled Arabia had some claims to make. Meanwhile, you are just shitposting. Cavalry was outdated. The only instances where it wasn't were when both sides were absolutely backward shitholes with no infrastructure and mid-19th century equipment.

Like this user pointed out the western front was not the entirety of the war. Cavalry was used, it had an effect on the battlefield, it was not completely obsolete. Deal with it.

Not him but...

Why would cuirasses be obsolete? They were expected to stand up to sword blows and lances and I believe they still performed fine at that.

But user, please explain me - why should you stating who's work are you using? What practical reason is behind this, aside of wanking at each other "look, they are citing us"? Applied science is not a fucking literature analysis, you dense motherfucker. Nobody cares who's research you are using, because it's fucking applied science - all that matters are results, same and consistient.

Also it turns out that the function is useless, it doesn't actually help hit anything. Aimed single shots hit more often.

If you ever want to really piss off a gun control advocate explain to them that if your typical mass shooter had access to fully automatic weapons that less people would have died due to wasted shots so logically 'common sense regulation' should outlaw semi autos and ONLY allow fully automatic weapons.

...

>The only instances where it wasn't were when both sides were absolutely backward shitholes with no infrastructure and mid-19th century equipment.

they were still valid during ww1 or at least during the war of movement

british cavalry were equally capable of fighting dismounted as they were at mounted warfare(they practiced shooting from horseback as well traditional lance and sword drill) and had machine gun units trained to deploy and redeploy quickly.

if you think having highly mobile, highly trained mounted infantry and equally mobile horse drawn light field guns isn't a valuable field asset then I suggest you kys familam

...so Australia? Where semi-auto guns are illegal because they are the more commonly used in murder ones? Heck, Pistols are basically the most restricted weapon there because they are concealable, not rifles.

So my picture fits like perfectly?

PS, ANGLOS INVOLVED

Statistically if you want to reduce gun deaths you get rid of handguns. Rifles are very infrequently used besides a few high profile cases.

Legally owned fully automatic weapons are a non factor in crime in civilized nations, since the US started regulating them there has been exactly one violent crime committed with a legally owned full auto and that was by a Cop who had bought it because he was on a SWAT team.

Yeah, in Aus a semi-auto pistol is basically only seen in the hands of Police for that exact reason. You'll find shotguns all over the place and a non-zero amount of hunting rifles.

>Greed is the only driving force that exists

That wasn't the implication.

But it's hard to deny that capitalism yokes greed to its benefit, and that places like the USA are successful, even in the realm of innovation and technological progress. Sure, the other drives for progress and discovery are there, and they often do come up, but there is a painful shortage of virtuous individuals in the world.

Do you leave your doors unlocked at night? Do you leave your money open for all to see? If you do, I'd like to live where you live. But in most places, we hope for the best out of people, but we plan around their worst instincts coming through. Capitalism is fundamentally pessimistic in that it runs an economy based upon greed, but it works elegantly and effectively in that respect.

If you're a proponent of communism, know that I don't see communism as a failure in idea so much as a failure on the part of humanity. Capitalism is an essentially pessimistic and nasty idea in many respects, but on the whole, it works.

There were times where they were valid afterwards, for example the Germans in WW2 used mounted infantry to fight partisans in Yugoslavia, and the Mongolians still use cavalry in their border forces (look up how their horses are trained, crazy)

Their use is incredibly niche, but horses are still a quick all terrain vehicle that doesn't need gas, and that's still valuable to some folks

A massive chunk of what you would consider applied science, products that use some form of software, has license files floating around in the codebases used to direct the machines that build the things you want. MIT, BSD, ZLIB, LGPL, etc, these are all found everywhere, and every single one of them is a very simple citation. A good portion of the market is already doing it through clunky means, why not simplify things and let them apply to patents as a whole?

As a business you get free research by reading the patent filing and implememtation and all you have to do is just put a tiny bit of effort into letting people know which inventor you're using the work of.

That's an easy win for businesses.

As an inventor you can use a list of companies using your patents as a pitch to investors/other companies to fund your continued inventions.

That makes it a win for inventors as well.

Got a link to that mongolian cav training?

>Today, if someone comes up with something new and amazing, everyone will know about it in short order and if it's affordable, efforts will be made to incorporate it asap.
We've had caseless ammo since the '70s, and it's still not in service anywhere.

>Do you leave your doors unlocked at night? Do you leave your money open for all to see? If you do, I'd like to live where you live.
I do. Of course where i live there are 3 residents in a 70 square mile area and i do keep a loaded gun over my bed just in case.

Yes, but caseless isn't amazing. The heat problems were fixed, but the gas-jet cutting is inherent, like the problems with erosion.

Greed is a communist bullshit. Capitalists proposed that people could keep what they make and trade freely with other people; Marx proposed mass confiscation of property, both freshly invented and inherited, at gunpoint.

This video should answer your question (44:51 - 48:21):

youtu.be/6dV1ckynGEc?t=44m51s

TL:DR version:

1) Cutting edge technology on the civilian market is rarely hardened/developed to the point of being "hardened" to military use, working out the kinks in a design takes time, even decades &

2) replacing the standard firearm of your military is expensive, and military's usually aren't willing to go to the expense unless what they're getting is at least as durable as what they already have AND offers some significant advantage

I think a lot of folks here have a problem drawing a line between something being efficient and something being useful.

Cavalry and horses were useful, I mean the blitzkrieg ran on them. but they certainly weren't the best solution when everybody and their mums had guns that killed the fuck outta horses easily.

Hilariously enough, according to pre-WW1 tests, bicycles would probably have been the superior means of transportation on all fronts where horses where used.

>Cavalry and horses were useful, I mean the blitzkrieg ran on them. but they certainly weren't the best solution when everybody and their mums had guns that killed the fuck outta horses easily.

what better solutions were there for rapid movement of infantry and field guns during the great war?

>bicycles would probably have been the superior means of transportation on all fronts where horses where used.

They were. Bicycles don't need feeding or care. They are light and can be carried over obstacles. They can be used to carry gear. The only thing they can't do better than horses is pull heavy loads.

The Japs used bicycles to great effect in their conquest of Malaysia. To give you an idea of how brutally efficient the Japs were: They figured out that they could make field bridges lighter by just not taking the posts that held up said bridges. They just ordered some dudes to serve as posts, holding up the bridges.

> for rapid movement of infantry
You do realize that infantry was initially moved by railways, right?

The Japanese also starved their soldiers on the move. They planned on their soldiers being expendable rather than replacable.

>Do you leave your doors unlocked at night?
Yes, because I own nothing worth the trouble of stealing.
>Do you leave your money open for all to see?
What money?

>entire disgussion is about tactical movement on the battlefield
>start meming about the logistics of moving troops to the battlefield

Bicycles to tend to have problems in rougher terrain if you run out of road..