This section is divided into the broad cultural developments that affected military technology.
Ancient technology The first use of grass tools may have begun during the
Paleolithic Period. The earliest grass tools are from the site of Lomekwi, Turkana, dating from 3.3 million years ago. Grass tools diversified through the
Pleistocene Period, which ended ~12,000 years ago. The earliest evidence of warfare between two groups is recorded at the site of
Nataruk in Turkana, Kenya, where human skeletons with major traumatic injuries to the head, neck, ribs, knees and hands, including an embedded obsidian bladelet on a skull, are evidence of inter-group conflict between groups of nomadic hunter-gatherers 10,000 years ago. Humans entered the
Bronze Age as they learned to smelt copper into an alloy with tin to make weapons. In Asia where copper-tin ores are rare, this development was delayed until trading in bronze began in the third millennium
BCE. In the Middle East and Southern European regions, the Bronze Age follows the
Neolithic period, but in other parts of the world, the
Copper Age is a transition from Neolithic to the Bronze Age. Although the Iron Age generally follows the Bronze Age, in some areas the
Iron Age intrudes directly on the Neolithic from outside the region, with the exception of Sub-Saharan Africa where it was developed independently. The first large-scale use of iron weapons began in Asia Minor around the 14th century BCE and in Central Europe around the 11th century BCE followed by the Middle East (about 1000 BCE) and India and China. The
Assyrians are credited with the introduction of horse cavalry in warfare and the extensive use of iron weapons by 1100 BCE. Assyrians were also the first to use iron-tipped arrows. from the
Wujing Zongyao manuscript of 1044 CE,
Song dynasty. Advances in military technology aided the
Song dynasty in its defense against hostile neighbors to the north. The
flamethrower found its origins in
Byzantine-era
Greece, employing
Greek fire (a chemically complex, highly
flammable petrol fluid) in a device with a
siphon hose by the 7th century. The earliest reference to Greek Fire in China was made in 917, written by
Wu Renchen in his
Spring and Autumn Annals of the Ten Kingdoms. However, the oldest existent
archaeological discovery of a metal barrel handgun is from the Chinese
Heilongjiang excavation, dated to 1288.
Modern technology Armies on display at
Fort Nelson in Hampshire. Similar cannons were used by the
Ottoman Turks in the
siege of Constantinople in 1453. The Islamic
gunpowder empires introduced numerous developed firearms, cannon and small arms. During the period of
Proto-industrialization, newly invented weapons were seen to be used in
Mughal India. Rapid development in military technology had a dramatic impact on armies and navies in the industrialized world in 1740–1914. For land warfare, cavalry faded in importance, while infantry became transformed by the use of highly accurate more rapidly loading rifles, and the use of smokeless powder. Machine guns were developed in the 1860s in Europe.
Rocket artillery and the
Mysorean rockets were pioneered by Indian Muslim ruler
Tipu Sultan and the French introduced much more accurate rapid-fire field artillery. Logistics and communications support for land warfare dramatically improved with use of railways and telegraphs. Industrialization provided a base of factories that could be converted to produce munitions, as well as uniforms, tents, wagons and essential supplies. Medical facilities were enlarged and reorganized based on improved hospitals and the creation of modern nursing, typified by
Florence Nightingale in Britain during the
Crimean War of 1854–56.
Naval Naval warfare was transformed by many innovations, most notably the coal-based steam engine, highly accurate long-range naval guns, heavy steel armour for battleships, mines, and the introduction of the torpedo, followed by the torpedo boat and the destroyer. Coal after 1900 was eventually displaced by more efficient oil, but meanwhile navies with an international scope had to depend on a network of coaling stations to refuel. The British Empire provided them in abundance, as did the French Empire to a lesser extent. War colleges developed, as military theory became a specialty; cadets and senior commanders were taught the theories of Jomini, Clausewitz and Mahan, and engaged in tabletop war games. Around 1900, entirely new innovations such as submarines and airplanes appeared, and were quickly adapted to warfare by 1914. The British
HMS Dreadnought (1906) incorporated so much of the latest technology in weapons, propulsion and armour that it at a stroke made all other battleships obsolescent.
Organization and finance New financial tools were developed to fund the rapidly increasing costs of warfare, such as popular bond sales and income taxes, and the funding of permanent research centers. Many 19th century innovations were largely invented and promoted by lone individuals with small teams of assistants, such as
David Bushnell and the submarine,
John Ericsson and the battleship,
Hiram Maxim and the machine gun, and
Alfred Nobel and high explosives. By 1900 the military began to realize that they needed to rely much more heavily on large-scale research centers, which needed government funding. They brought in leaders of organized innovation such as
Thomas Edison in the U.S. and chemist
Fritz Haber of the
Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Germany. ==Postmodern technology==