Editing Weapon (section)

=== Modern history ===
{{More citations needed section|date=December 2021}}

==== Early modern ====
The European [[Renaissance]] marked the beginning of the implementation of firearms in western warfare. [[Gun]]s and [[rocket (weapon)|rockets]] were introduced to the battlefield.

[[Firearm]]s are qualitatively different from earlier weapons because they release energy from combustible [[propellant]]s, such as [[gunpowder]], rather than from a counterweight or spring. This energy is released very rapidly and can be replicated without much effort by the user. Therefore, even early firearms such as the [[arquebus]] were much more powerful than human-powered weapons. Firearms became increasingly important and effective during the 16th–19th centuries, with progressive improvements in [[Lock (firearm)|ignition mechanisms]] followed by revolutionary changes in [[ammunition]] handling and propellant. During the [[American Civil War]], new applications of firearms, including the [[machine gun]] and [[ironclad warship]], emerged that would still be recognizable and useful military weapons today, particularly in [[limited war|limited conflicts]]. In the 19th century, [[warship]] propulsion changed from [[sail]] power to [[fossil fuel]]-powered [[steam engine]]s.

[[File:Prussian bayonet clean.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.35|The [[bayonet]] is used as both a [[knife]] and, when attached to the front of a rifle, a [[polearm]].]]
Since the mid-18th century North American French-Indian war through the beginning of the 20th century, human-powered weapons were reduced from the primary weaponry of the battlefield to yielding gunpowder-based weaponry. Sometimes referred to as the "Age of Rifles",<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hind|first=Edward|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IK1gAAAAcAAJ|title=My Magazine. Being a Series of Poems, Tales, Sketches, Essays, Orations, Etc|publisher=J. and H. Clarke|year=1860|location=Nottingham|pages=263}}</ref> this period was characterized by the development of firearms for infantry and cannons for support, as well as the beginnings of mechanized weapons such as the [[machine gun]]. Artillery pieces such as [[howitzer]]s were able to destroy masonry fortresses and other fortifications, and this single invention caused a [[revolution in military affairs]], establishing tactics and doctrine that are still in use today.

==== World War I ====
{{See also|Military technology during World War I}}[[File:Vickers machine gun in the Battle of Passchendaele - September 1917.jpg|thumb|right|The [[Vickers machine gun|Vickers]] was the successor to the [[Maxim gun]] and remained in British military service for 79 consecutive years.]]
An important feature of [[industrial age]] warfare was [[technological escalation]] – innovations were rapidly matched through replication or countered by another innovation.

[[World War I]] marked the entry of fully industrialized warfare as well as [[weapons of mass destruction]] (''e.g.'', [[chemical weapon|chemical]] and [[biological agent|biological weapons]]), and new weapons were developed quickly to meet wartime needs. The [[Technology during World War I|technological escalation during World War I]] was profound, including the wide introduction of [[aircraft]] into [[Technology during World War I|warfare]] and naval warfare with the introduction of [[aircraft carrier]]s. Above all, it promised the military commanders independence from horses and a resurgence in [[maneuver warfare]] through the extensive use of motor vehicles. The changes that these military technologies underwent were evolutionary but defined their development for the rest of the century.{{Citation needed paragraph|date=December 2021}}

==== Interwar ====
This period of innovation in weapon design continued in the interwar period (between WWI and WWII) with the continuous evolution of weapon systems by all major industrial powers. The major armament firms were [[Schneider-Creusot]] (based in France), [[Škoda Works]] (Czechoslovakia), and [[Vickers]] (Great Britain). The 1920s were committed to [[disarmament]] and the outlawing of war and poison gas, but rearmament picked up rapidly in the 1930s. The munitions makers responded nimbly to the rapidly shifting strategic and economic landscape. The main purchasers of munitions from the big three companies were Romania, Yugoslavia, Greece, and Turkey{{snd}}and, to a lesser extent, Poland, Finland, the Baltic States, and the Soviet Union.<ref>Jonathan A. Grant, ''Between Depression and Disarmament: The International Armaments Business, 1919–1939'' (Cambridge UP,  2018). [https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=53757 Online review]</ref>

===== Criminalizing poison gas =====
Realistic critics understood that war could not really be outlawed, but its worst excesses might be banned. [[Poison gas]] became the focus of a worldwide crusade in the 1920s. Poison gas did not win battles, and the generals did not want it. The soldiers hated it far more intensely than bullets or explosive shells. By 1918, chemical shells made up 35 percent of French ammunition supplies, 25 percent of British, and 20 percent of American stock. The "Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous, or Other Gases and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare", also known as the [[Geneva Protocol]], was issued in 1925 and was accepted as policy by all major countries. In 1937, poison gas was manufactured in large quantities but not used except against nations that lacked modern weapons or gas masks.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Eric Croddy|author2=James J. Wirtz|title=Weapons of Mass Destruction: An Encyclopedia of Worldwide Policy, Technology, and History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZzlNgS70OHAC&pg=PA140|year=2005|publisher=ABC-CLIO|page=140|isbn=978-1-85109-490-5}}</ref><ref>Tim Cook,  "'Against God-Inspired Conscience': The Perception of Gas Warfare as a Weapon of Mass Destruction, 1915–1939." ''War & Society'' 18.1 (2000): 47–69.</ref>

==== World War II and postwar ====
{{See also|Military technology during World War II}}
[[File:Victory Show Cosby UK 06-09-2015 WW2 re-enactment Trade stalls Militaria personal gear replicas reprod.originals zaphad1 Flickr CCBY2.0 Misc. machine guns weapons etc IMG 3874.jpg|thumb|upright|A variety of firearms from the World War II and postwar eras on a [[firearm rack]]]]
Many modern military weapons, particularly ground-based ones, are relatively minor improvements to weapon systems developed during World War II. World War II marked perhaps the most frantic period of weapon development in the history of humanity. Massive numbers of new designs and concepts were fielded, and all existing technologies were improved between 1939 and 1945. The most powerful weapon invented during this period was the [[Nuclear weapon|nuclear bomb]]; however, many other weapons influenced the world, such as [[jet aircraft]] and [[radar]], but were overshadowed by the visibility of nuclear weapons and long-range rockets.{{Citation needed paragraph|date=December 2021}}

==== Nuclear weapons ====
{{Main|Nuclear holocaust}}
Since the realization of [[mutual assured destruction]] (MAD), the nuclear option of all-out war is no longer considered a survivable scenario. During the [[Cold War]] in the years following World War II, both the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a [[nuclear arms race]]. Each country and their allies continually attempted to out-develop each other in the field of nuclear armaments. Once the joint technological capabilities reached the point of being able to ensure the destruction of the Earth by 100 fold, a new tactic had to be developed. With this realization, armaments development funding shifted back to primarily sponsoring the development of conventional arms technologies for support of [[limited war]]s rather than [[total war]].<ref name="NuclearDefunding">{{cite journal |year=2004 |journal=The Ploughshares Monitor |volume=25 |issue=4 |author=Estabrooks, Sarah |url=http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/monitor/mond04f.htm |title=Funding for new nuclear weapons programs eliminated |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070620191013/http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/monitor/mond04f.htm |archive-date=June 20, 2007}}</ref>