ABSTRACT
Soldiers and inventors have always had a curious and complex relationship. The introduction of new weaponry has often given one side a decisive edge in battle and transformed the shape of armies and war. Given the stakes of victory and defeat, innovation in military technology has often been more dynamic than civilian innovation. For example, the military revolution of the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that produced effective cannon and muskets gave its European inventors a decisive edge over their Incan, Aztec, and Asian adversaries. Gunpowder weapons were quickly adopted by all the armies of Europe and forced painful adjustments in centuries-long methods of conducting war. Aristocratic castles that were vulnerable to cannonball were replaced by royal fortifications, defended by their low profile and thick earthen works. Bands of armored knights, soldiers armed with long pointed sticks called pikes, and archers were displaced by costly artillery and mercenary armies of musketeers, increasingly organized by strong central monarchies.
