Most Influential Weapon Ever???

I was thinking along the lines of the Tank and Nukes etc..

But then I thought, what about Radar? or even the Satellite Phone, an army can have all the weapons it wants, but without effective communication, theyre nothing.

There must be catagories for this.

For example for thousands of years 2 armies would assemble masses and just march towards each other. The the machine gun and tanks and aircraft changed all that. Now numbers were not as important as tactics and the deployment of tanks and aircraft.

Nukes must be mentioned, because it stopped an army and a nation from fighting to it's bitter end.

I would say navel power like a USA carrier battle group gives true power projection like nothing else.

The basic missle too, it meant less skill would be needed to make a kill.

Iraq shows that on land even if you have every cool new weapon you may still have a challange.
Thats not true with the air and sea, with the new best weapon you will always control them.

Originally posted by dylant93
or possiblly the mp40 it was the first sub-machine gun (incase you dont know they where german weapons during WWII)

The MP40 was certainly not the first SMG. The first true SMG to enter service was the Beretta 1918 followed closely by the Bergmann 1918. The Thompson entered service in 1921.

What about the horse?

the stick.

im taking it back further than the spear, the bow, and the javelin.

the pointy stick.

from the pointy stick, various lengths were made, and tips were created by sharpening or attaching a sharpened stone, metal, or bone/teeth.

undoubtibly, the first weapon the early man ever picked up to defend himself from an animal attack or another man was a stick, likely a tree branch.

Gattling gun. Able to mow down large swaths of phalanxes. Followed soon by the fully automatic modern machine gun.

Originally posted by jpm1602
Gattling gun. Able to mow down large swaths of phalanxes. Followed soon by the fully automatic modern machine gun.

One old rhyme from the British fighting the fussy-wuzzies in the colonies;

They have guns
But we have got
The Gattling Gun
And they have not

Originally posted by PaddyInf

One old rhyme from the British fighting the fussy-wuzzies in the colonies;

They have guns
But we have got
The Gattling Gun
And they have not

It's too bad that they got owned by minute men with groove-barreled rifles firing from concealed wooded positions.

Oh Guerrilla Warfare, how I love thee. Were the colonists the first to use gunpowder weaponry in a Guerrilla Warfare / Unconvetional non- "line up an' shoot" fashion? I can't recall an earlier time, although I know the Irish took hell from Oliver Cromwell; though I don't recall if muskets were around yet then.

Cornwallace didn't even get surrender honors in Yorktown! Ha! and I live 10 minutes from the very house he signed the surrender document, as well as the battlefield. It's a very nice place, still looks Colonial, on purpose of course. The house that Cornwallace chose to surrender in is said to be haunted, because the son of the man living there was killed during the war by a random bullet while tending to the field.

And the reason Washington denied him surrender honors was simple. The British did not give the Colonists surrender honors when they took their fort at Charleston, South Carolina, where I go vacation. Back in the 1700's, it was considered a huge insult and travesty to deny your defeated foe surrender honors, particularly if they were of a Western descent. By doing this to the Colonials in Charleston, it was to say they were less than professionals, less than soldiers. And so the favor was returned.

But don't worry, good ole George Bush is like the 13th Cousin/Nephew of the Queen, so your ancient Monarchy is currently ruling my country through royal blood as well. Who'da thunk it?

But my ancestor fought in the Civil War of the States, a Confederate Brigadier General of Missouri. *pats self on back*

[edit on 10/17/2007 by runetang]

Originally posted by runetang

Originally posted by PaddyInf

One old rhyme from the British fighting the fussy-wuzzies in the colonies;

They have guns
But we have got
The Gattling Gun
And they have not

It's too bad that they got owned by minute men with groove-barreled rifles firing from concealed wooded positions.

Funny, that was about 150 years previous to the invention of the Gattling gun and has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with this thread. By the way, you're minute men have been owned by some locals with minimal training, virtually no kit and considerably fewer weapons in certain conflicts a bit more recently. But lets not go into that, shall we...

But my ancestor fought in the Civil War of the States, a Confederate Brigadier General of Missouri. *pats self on back*

You keep patting your back for something your ancestor did serving his country. I'll keep patting myself on the back for things that I have done serving mine.

In my military science studies the machine gun has always been reguarded as the advent of modern warfare. Its the reason WWI was so bloody and drawn out, it necessatated a rethink of long accepted tactics. It precipatated the invention of the tank, modern infantry tactics, and to a certain extent attack aircraft, as a means to avoid the machine gun's kill zone.

In ancient times I would say indirect fire weapons, although that didn't effect ground tactics as much as the machine gun. When you really look at it, the phalanx survived in some form up until the outbreak of WWI. Indirect fire remains the chief killer on the battlefield, however.

This of course is limited to weapons that directly kill. If we open it up to devices that facilitate killing, the radio is the deadliest piece of equipment on the battlefield, period.

Id say human desires are the best weapon. Freedom is one of the most influencial desires in my opinion.

I'd have to say the shield and armour. From ancient times a shield was a cheap form of defence and even toaday body armour will stop you being killed so that you can use your weapon to kill the other guy.

And about longbows in the middle ages i think only English and Welsh longbow count they were considerably more powerful, (but alot more difficult to use).

My initial thoughts are of the A-bombs which were used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Both in terms of lives ended via a single use of the weapon, and its overall repercussions of politics and history.

One could also argue that it was the gun and bullet which shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand and triggered WW1 and provided the political atmosphere which led to WW2.
You could say the gun which killed him led to ALL the deaths of WW1 & WW2 and therefore the most deadly bullet in human history.

In terms of overall mass production of arms the AK 47 is a likely candidate.