Gunpowder.

This is coolbert:

After viewing the various embedded You Tube video the devoted reader to the blog will have to draw your own conclusions.

From the Strategy Page CIC article # 472 by Professor Al Nofi:

"Gunpowder Empires"

 "By the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century firearms were sufficiently advanced as to provide an overwhelming advantage when used against peoples who were entirely unfamiliar with them. This sparked the era of 'Gunpowder Empires.'”

OVERWHELMING ADVANTAGE!!

Gunpowder Empires as deemed to include: * The Spanish [Mexico] from 1519 AND * The Spanish [Peru] from 1526.

Firearms and gunpowder could not been a DECISIVE factor both with regard to Spanish conquest of both the Aztec and Incan Empires. Firearms [to include cannon and small arms as understood at the time both] too FEW in number and the RATE of FIRE too slow. Not a DECISIVE factor.

Thank Spanish victory rather to:

* Steel armor and steel edged weapons.
* Horses [used in a mass formation charge].
* Guile and ruthlessness.
* Lots and lots of allies.
* Disease.

I had always believed that the widespread use of gunpowder weaponry [cannon and what moderns call small-arms] was almost exclusively a phenomenon restricted to the European cultural domain. But this apparently is not so. Even Bert learns something all the time and is better for it too.

coolbert.