Most important military inventions of all Time

What inventions or discoveries undoubtedly changed warfare since the first caveman dispute?

Fire
Disease
Bronze
Iron
Steel
Bow and Arrow
The First vehicle on Water
Shield
Horse
Gunpowder
Rifling
Steam Engine
Tank
Airplane
Machine-Gun
Poison Gas
Jet Engine
Missiles
Helicopters

 

You have a lot of the ones i would of place soar21 but ya beat me to it.,

Reinforced concrete bunkers
First wheeled chariots
Rifle magazines used in bulk to replace the weapons bullet (rounds), instead of manualy refiling with clip ammo
Assault Rifles
Sel propelled guns.
Stealth air craft

 

Computers and Artificial Intelligence are likely to change warfare a lot as they allow decision making at a litterally inhuman speed, very useful in today's high intensity combat. BTW I'm pretty scared of this, as a former professional programmer I know software bugs will happen, it would be nice to have an international treaty banning the most extreme cases as an "arms race" in this field is really scary !!!

- "drills" (both Roman and Prussian styles)
- The stirrup that made horsemen a lot more effective and made cavalry the dominant weapon.
- Smokeless powder made small caliber magazine or belt fed weapons possible making the bayonet that had ruled the battlefiel for a couple of centuries obsolete (too bad the WW1 generals didn't realize this).
- The humble medium mortar that's possibly the biggest killer in the modern battlefield.

 

I'd go with just one ; the rifled bullet.

 

nuclear bomb.

 

Phalanx formation
Self contained cartridges

 

communications..

 

I'd say airplanes. Turned war from 2-D to 3-D.

 

I'd like to have artillery in there somewhere, but I don't exactly know what revolutionized it from trebuchet to Paladin.

 

Drills, tactics and strategy.

The rest is useless without these three.

No "great commander" is famous for inventing a new toy, but rather for inventing new strategies and tactics.

 

That would be the Marine Rifleman

 

Aircraft carriers they surely have been in the right places at times depending on your outlook of course, and without them history could have gone a different way for sure in the last 68 years anyway.

 

I guess the most important invention depends on how you view war.
Do you view it simply as a Colonel hoping to win the battle? A General striving to win a campaign? A Commander in Chief of one nation attempting to defeat another rival CiC?

Or perhaps you view it from another side, perhaps a commander wanting an invention that will save his troops from incoming fire such as armour or trenchs, or perhaps an invention to save those soldiers already hit.

You can even view inventions from a soldiers point of view, such as the invention of a song to help pass the time or to raise moral, or even the simple invention of lamintines by Australian soldiers to starve of hunger.

Although all these may not be military inventions, they all have military applications or even were invented at the time of war to help prolong or end the war, medicine to keep the wounded in action, food to keep the troops strong, entertainment to encourage, all are just as important as military weapons.

 

wars are for one reason victoryis the goal.. crass i know but thats war. so it has to be a weapon that wins and will bring a successful conclusion to war you fight today without forethought to any future conflicts or troop morale good though they are. the end will be morale enough ..crass again i know.

 

dont forget cannons!

 

The English long bow ruled for a 100 years.

 

Although not a strictly military invention, the stirrup on sadles revolutionized cavalry warfare.

 

The para and the ghurka. Point at enemy, light fuse and retire.

 

Any horse mounted troops...

 

GUNPOWDER!


WW1 and WW2 with bows and arrows?



John.