Early modern warfare Early modern warfare is associated with the start of the widespread use of gunpowder and the development of suitable weapons to use the explosive , including artillery and handgun s such as the arquebus and later the musket , and for this reason the era is also summarized as the age of gunpowder warfare . Prior to the 15th century , gunpowder was used on a limited basis , but its use became universal in the early modern period , its apex occurring during the Napoleonic Wars from 1792 to 1815 . This entire period is contained within the Age of Sail , which characteristic dominated the era ' s naval tactics , including the use of gunpowder in naval artillery . All of the Great Power s of Europe and the Middle East were actively fighting numerous wars throughout this period , grouped in rough geographical and chronological terms as the European wars of religion between the 1520s and the 1640s ( including the Thirty Years ' War , the Eighty Years ' War and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms ) and the Franco - Spanish War ( 1635 – 1659 ) ; the Northern Wars , Polish – Swedish wars and Russo - Swedish Wars ; the Russo - Turkish Wars , Ottoman – Habsburg wars , and other Ottoman wars in Europe . In the Horn of Africa ; the Adal ' s conquest of Ethiopia and the involving of the Ottomans , Mamluks and the Portuguese . In Asia the Persia – Portugal war , the Mughal conquests , the Chinese Ten Great Campaigns , and the Anglo - Mysore Wars ; and throughout the 18th century the " Second Hundred Years ' War " , an umbrella term which includes the Nine Years ' War , Seven Years ' War , War of the Spanish Succession , War of the Austrian Succession , and finally the American War of Independence , French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars of the late 18th to early 19th centuries which mark the end of this era . The understanding of " gunpowder warfare " , expressed here , comes from the works of Michael Roberts who argued that a military revolution occurred in the 16th century that forever changed warfare , and society in general . Since he wrote in the 1950s his narrative has been augmented and challenged by other scholars . Use of gunpowder before the 15th century . Gunpowder warfare was used in the Mongol invasions of Japan in 1274 and 1281 , specifically in the form of explosive bombs fired from catapults against enemy soldiers . Japanese scrolls contain illustrations of bombs used by the Mongols against mounted samurai . Archaeological evidence of the use of gunpowder include the discovery of multiple shells of the explosive bombs in an underwater shipwreck off the shore of Japan , with X - rays providing proof that they contained gunpowder . Europe . Beginning of polygonal fortifications . The period from 1500 – 1801 saw a rapid advance in techniques of fortification in Europe . Whereas medieval castles had relied on high walls to keep out attackers , early modern fortifications had to withstand artillery bombardments . To do this , engineers developed a style of fortress known as the " trace itallienne " or " Italian style " . These had low , thick , sloping walls , that would either absorb or glance off cannon fire . In addition , they were shaped like stars , with bastions protruding at sharp angles . The reason for this was to ensure that every bastion could be supported with fire from an adjacent bastion , leaving no " dead ground " for an attacker to take cover in . These new fortifications quickly negated the advantages cannon had offered to besiegers . A polygonal fort is a fortification in the style that evolved around the middle of the 18th century , in response to the development of explosive shells . The complex and sophisticated designs of star fort s that preceded them were highly effective against cannon assault , but proved much less effective against the more accurate fire of rifled guns and the destructive power of explosive shells . The polygonal style of fortification is also described as a " flankless fort " . Many such forts were built in the United Kingdom and the British Empire during the government of Lord Palmerston , and so they are also often referred to as Palmerston forts . Their low profile makes them easy to overlook . In response to the vulnerabilities of star forts , military engineers evolved a much simpler but more robust style of fortification . An example of this style can be seen at Fort McHenry in Baltimore in the United States of America , the home of the famous battle where " The Star - Spangled Banner " was penned by Francis Scott Key . Firearms . The power of aristocracies " vis à vis " states diminished throughout Western Europe during this period . Aristocrats ' 200 - to 400 - year - old ancestral castles no longer provided useful defences against artillery . The nobility ' s importance in warfare also eroded as medieval heavy cavalry lost its central role in battle . The heavy cavalry - made up of armored knights - had begun to fade in importance in the Late Middle Ages . The English longbow and the Swiss pike had both proven their ability to devastate larger armed forces of mounted knights . However , the proper use of the longbow required a lifetime of training , making it impossible to amass very large forces of archers . The proper use of the pike required complex operations in formation and a great deal of fortitude and cohesion by the pikemen , again making amassing large forces difficult . Starting in the early 14th - century , arnourers added plate - armour pieces to the traditional protective linked mail armour of knights and men - at - arms to guard against the arrows of the longbow and crossbow . By 1415 some infantrymen began deploying the first " hand cannons " , and the earliest small - bore arquebus es , with burning " match locks " , appeared on the battlefield in the later 15th century . Decline of plate armour . During a period of 250 years ( 1400 to 1650 ) soldiers wore extensive plate armour in virtually all major European battles : both some infantrymen ( usually pikemen ) and almost all mounted troops . Plate armour was expected to deflect edged weapons and to stop an arquebus or pistol ball fired from a distance , and it usually did . The threat ( firearms ) and the remedy ( plate armour ) for it tended to work as long as the velocity and weight of the ball remained quite low , but over time more effective firearms , like flintlock musket s ( entering use after 1650 ) could kill an armoured man at a distance of even 100 yards ( though without accuracy ) . The flintlock musket , carried by most infantrymen other than pikemen after 1650 , fired a heavier charge and ball than the matchlock arquebus . A recruit could be trained to use a musket in a matter of weeks . Since the early muskets lacked accuracy , training in marksmanship was of little benefit . Operating a musket did not require the great physical strength of a pikeman or the fairly rare skills of a horseman . Unlike their arquebus predecessors , flintlock muskets could neutralize even the most heavily armoured cavalry forces . Since a firearm requires little training to operate , a peasant with a gun could now undermine the order and respect maintained by mounted cavalry in Europe and their Eastern equivalents . Though well - smithed plate - armour could still prevent the penetration of gunpowder - weapons , by 1690 it had become no match for massed firearms in a frontal attack and its use ended , even among the cavalry . By the end of the 17th century , soldiers in the infantry and most cavalry units alike preferred the higher mobility offered by a completely unarmoured state to the slight protection - but greatly lessened mobility - offered by wearing plate armour . Transition to flintlock muskets . The arquebus , in use from 1410 , was one of the first hand - held firearms that were relatively light ( it still required a stand to balance on ) and a single person could operate one . One of these weapons was first recorded as being used in the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 , although this was still very much a medieval battle . The term " musket " originally applied to a heavier form of the arquebus , which fired a shot that could pierce plate armour , though only at close range . In the 16th century it still had to be mounted on a support stick to keep it steady . The caliver was the lighter form of the arquebus . By 1600 armies phased out these firearms in favour of a new lighter matchlock musket . Throughout the 16th century and up until 1690 , muskets used the matchlock design . However , the matchlock design was superseded in the 1690s by the flintlock musket , which was less prone to misfires and had a faster reloading rate . By this time , only light - cavalry scouting units , " the eyes of the army " , continued to wear front and back armor plates to protect themselves from distant or undisciplined musket - equipped troops . While soldiers armed with firearms could inflict great damage on cavalry at a moderate distance , at close quarters the cavalry could slaughter the musket - armed infantry if they could break their formation and close to engage in melee combat . For many years infantry formations included a mix of troops armed with both firearms to provide striking power and pikes to allow for the defence of the arquebusiers or musketeers from a cavalry charge . The invention of the bayonet allowed the combining of these two weapons into one in the 1690s , which transformed the infantry into the most important branch of the early modern military — one that uniformly made use of flintlock muskets tipped with bayonets . Nature of war . This period saw the size and scale of warfare greatly increase . The number of combatants involved escalated steadily from the mid 16th century and dramatically expanded after the 1660s . For example , the King of France could field around 20 , 000 men in total for his wars against Spain in the 1550s , but could mobilize up to 500 , 000 men into the field by 1700 in the War of the Spanish Succession . Moreover , wars became increasingly deadly in this period . This may in part be attributed to improvements in weapons technology and in the techniques of using it ( for example infantry volley fire ) . However , the main reason was that armies were now much bigger , but logistical support for them was inadequate . This meant that armies tended to devastate civilian areas in an effort to feed themselves , causing famines and population displacement . This was exacerbated by the increasing length of conflicts , such as the Thirty Years ' War and Eighty Years ' War , which subjected fought over areas to repeated devastation . For this reason , the wars of this era were among the most lethal before the modern period . For example , the Thirty Years ' War and the contemporary Wars of the Three Kingdoms , were the most bloody conflicts in the history of Germany and Britain respectively before the First World War . Another factor adding to bloodshed in war was the lack of a clear set of rules concerning the treatment of prisoners and non - combatants . While prisoners were usually ransomed for money or other prisoners , they were sometimes slaughtered out of hand - as at the battle of Dungans Hill in 1647 . One of the reasons for warfare ' s increased impact was its indecisiveness . Armies were slow moving in an era before good roads and canals . Battles were relatively rare as armies could manoeuvre for months , with no direct conflict . In addition , battles were often made irrelevant by the proliferation of advanced , bastioned fortifications . To control an area , armies had to take fortified towns , regardless of whether they defeated their enemies field armies . As a result , by far the most common battles of the era were siege s , hugely time - consuming and expensive affairs . Storming a fortified city could result in massive casualties and cities which did not surrender before an assault were usually brutally sacked - for example Magdeburg in 1631 or Drogheda in 1649 . In addition , both garrisons and besiegers often suffered heavily from disease . The indecisive nature of conflict meant wars were long and endemic . Conflicts stretched on for decades and many states spent more years at war than they did at peace . The Spanish attempt to reconquer the Netherlands after the Dutch Revolt became bogged down in endless siege warfare . The expense caused the Spanish monarchy to declare bankruptcy several times , beginning in 1577 . The changes in warfare eventually made the mercenary forces of the Renaissance and Middle Ages obsolete . However this was a gradual change . As late as the Thirty Years ' War ( 1618 – 48 ) , most troops were mercenaries . However , after this conflict , most states invested in better disciplined and more ideologically inspired troops . For a time mercenaries became important as trainers and administrators , but soon these tasks were also taken by the state . The massive size of these armies required a large supporting force of administrators . The newly centralized states were forced to set up vast organized bureaucracies to manage these armies , which some historians argue is the basis of the modern bureaucratic state . The combination of increased taxes and increased centralisation of government functions caused a series of revolts across Europe such as the Fronde in France and the English Civil War . In many countries , the resolution of this conflict was the rise of monarchical absolutism . Only in England and the Netherlands did representative government evolve as an alternative . From the late 17th century , states learned how to finance wars through long term low interest loans from national banking institutions like the Bank of England . The first state to master this process was the Dutch Republic . This transformation in the armies of Europe had great social impact . J . F . C . Fuller famously stated that " the musket made the infantryman and the infantryman made the democrat . " This argument states that the defence of the state now rested on the common man , not on the aristocrats , revolts by the underclass , that had routinely been defeated in the Middle Ages , could now conceivably threaten the power of the state . However , aristocrats continued to monopolise the officer corps of almost all early modern armies , including their high command . Moreover , popular revolts almost always failed unless they had the support and patronage of the noble or gentry classes . The new armies , because of their vast expense , were also dependent on taxation and the commercial classes who also began to demand a greater role in society . The great commercial powers of the Dutch and English matched much larger states in military might . As any man could be quickly trained in the use of a musket , it became far easier to form massive armies . The inaccuracy of the weapons necessitated large groups of massed soldiers . This led to a rapid swelling of the size of armies . For the first time huge masses of the population could enter combat , rather than just the highly skilled professionals . It has been argued that the drawing of men from across the nation into an organized corps helped breed national unity and patriotism , and during this period the modern notion of the nation state was born . However , this would only become apparent after the French Revolutionary Wars . At this time , the levée en masse and conscription would become the defining paradigm of modern warfare . Before then , however , most national armies were in fact composed of many nationalities . For example , although the Swedish Army under Gustavus Adolphus was originally recruited by a kind of national conscription , the losses of the Thirty Years ' War meant that by 1648 over 80 % of its troops were foreign mercenaries . In Spain , armies were recruited from all the Spanish European territories including Spain , Italy , Wallonia and Germany . The French recruited soldiers from Germany , Switzerland and elsewhere as well as from France . Britain recruited Hessian troops until the late 18th century . Irish Catholics made careers for themselves in the armies of many European states ( See the Flight of the Wild Geese ) . Infantry . Column - This formation was typically used while marching , although with sufficient will and mass it was effective at breaking through line formations , albeit with heavy casualties . Line - A simple two - or three - rank deep line formation allowed most muskets to be brought to bear and was the most commonly used battle formation . Often the first rank would kneel after firing to allow the second rank to fire . Square - This formation was used against cavalry . Bayonets would be fixed , the first line would kneel with their muskets angled upward ( much like a pike . ) The second and third lines would fire at the cavalry when it came close . This formation was very ineffective when faced with combined cavalry and infantry , or artillery fire in the case of plain squares . Skirmisher s - Light infantry would advance and be the first to fire to draw the enemy to attack . Sharpshooters would not target common soldiers , but the officers so that the men were without leadership . Cavalry . The rise of gunpowder reduced the importance of the once - dominant heavy cavalry , but it remained effective in a new role into the 19th century . The cavalry , along with the infantry , became more professional in this period but it retained its greater social and military prestige than the infantry . Light cavalry was introduced for skirmishing and scouting because of its advantage in speed and mobility . The new types of cavalry units introduced in this period were the dragoons or mounted infantry . Dragoons were intended to travel on horseback but fight on foot and were armed with carbines and pistols . Even orthodox cavalry carried firearms , especially the pistol , which they used in a tactic known as the caracole . Cavalry charges using swords on undisciplined infantry could still be quite decisive , but a frontal charge against well - ordered musketeers and pikemen was all but futile . Cavalry units , from the 16th century on , were more likely to charge other cavalry on the flanks of an infantry formation and try to work their way behind the enemy infantry . When they achieved this and pursued a fleeing enemy , heavy cavalry could still destroy an enemy army . However , the power formerly wielded by a heavy cavalry - focused army was at an end . For the first time in millennia , the settled people of the agricultural regions could defeat the horse peoples of the steppe in open combat . The power of the Mongols was broken in Russia and , no longer threatened from the east , Russia began to assert itself as a major force in European affairs . Never again would nomads from the east threaten to overrun Europe or the Middle East . In the Siege of Kazan ( 1552 ) , Russia had employed cavalry , infantry armed with arquebus ( Streltsy ) , artillery and sappers , while the Khanate of Kazan had only employed cavalry . The use of sappers proved decisive . The one exception to this was the Ottoman Empire , which had been founded by Turkish horsemen . Arguably the world ' s greatest power for almost the entirety of the early modern period , the Ottomans were some of the first to embrace gunpowder artillery and firearms and integrated them into their already formidable fighting abilities . As European infantry became better armed and disciplined , by about 1700 , the Ottoman forces began to be regularly defeated by the troops of the Austrian Habsburgs and other Western forces . Naval warfare . The spread of European power around the world was closely tied to naval developments in this period . The caravel for the first time made unruly seas like the Atlantic Ocean open to exploration , trade , and military conquest . While in all previous eras , European navies had been largely confined to operations in coastal waters , and were generally used only in a support role for land - based forces , this changed with the introduction of the new vessels like the caravel , carack and galleon and the increasing importance of international waterborne trade in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries . The new caravels were large enough and powerful enough to be armed with cannons with which they could bombard both shoreline defenses and other vessels . Islamic empires . Ottoman Empire . The Ottoman Empire had been one of the first Middle Eastern states ( that extended into Europe , making them the first European state as well ) to effectively use gunpowder weapons and used them to great effect conquering much of the Middle East , North Africa , and the Balkans . In the 17th century the state began to stagnate as more modern technologies and strategies were not adopted . Specifically , the Ottoman Empire was slow to adopt innovations like boring cannon ( rather than casting them in a mold ) , making the conversion from matchlock firearms to flintlocks , and the lightening of field guns and carriages . In part this was because the military elite had become a powerful force in the empire and change threatened their positions . David Nicolle theorizes that one contributing factor to the Ottoman reluctance to adopt the flintlock musket , despite its superiority over the matchlock ignition system , was the dusty climate of much of the Middle East which could cause problems with reliability . Overall , the Ottoman Empire between the 15th and 18th centuries has been assessed as a third - tier military producer , that is a producer which copies existing technologies , but does not capture the underlying process of innovation ( first - tier producer ) or adaption ( second - tier producer ) . Other research , though , complicates that view . A Chinese military manual published in 1644 compared Ottoman and European firearms in the following manner : Firearms have been in use since the beginning of the dynasty , and field armies in battle formation have found them convenient and useful to carry along . . . Since muskets have been transmitted to China , these weapons have lost their effectiveness . . . In battle formation , aside from various cannon such as the " three generals , " the breach loading swivel gun , and the " hundred - league thunder , " nothing has more range or power than the Ottoman musket . The next best is the European one . The fact that Ottoman firearms were considered by 17th - century Chinese writers to be superior to European firearms demonstrates that the Ottoman Empire was at least a second tier producer of muskets during this period . However , some claim that the ' European ' firearms the Chinese researcher tested were actually Japanese arquebuses based on fifty - year - old Portuguese models . The design of the Ottoman matchlock is substantially different from that of the European variety and it in turn influenced the matchlocks produced in both Safavid Persia and Mughal India . 15th century . The Ottoman Empire was one of the first states to put gunpowder weapons into widespread use . The famous Janissary corps of the Ottoman army began using matchlock muskets as early as the 1440s . The army of Mehmed the Conqueror , which conquered Constantinople in 1453 , included both artillery and foot soldiers armed with gunpowder weapons . The Ottomans brought to the siege sixty - nine guns in fifteen separate batteries and trained them at the walls of the city . The barrage of Ottoman cannon fire lasted forty days , and they are estimated to have fired 19 , 320 times . 16th century . The 16th century saw the first widespread use of the matchlock musket as a decisive weapon on the battlefield with the Turks becoming leaders in this regard . The first of these campaigns was the campaign against the Persians in 1514 under Yavuz Sultan Selim , or Selim the Grim . Armed with gunpowder weapons , his army defeated the Persians at the Battle of Chaldiran . After his victory over the Safavids , Selim turned his attention towards the Mamluk dynasty in Egypt . The decisive battle of his campaign against the Mamluks , and the battle which highlighted the importance of the musket in the Ottoman military , was the Battle of Raydaniyah , fought in 1517 . There , Selim outflanked the entrenched Mamluk artillery , and attacked the Mamluk forces with his Janissaries . The Janissaries , armed with firearms , destroyed the Mamluk army , armed mostly with traditional swords and javelins . Reference was made by João de Barros to a sea battle outside Jiddah , in 1517 , between Portuguese and Ottoman vessels . The Muslim force under Salman Reis had " " three or four basilisks firing balls of thirty palms in circumference " " . This was estimated to be a cannon of about 90 inch bore " " firing cut stone balls of approximately 1 , 000 pounds " ( 453 kg ) " . After the death of Selim , he was succeeded by his son Suleiman the Magnificent . During his reign , gunpowder weapons continued to be used effectively . One important example , is the Battle of Mohács in 1526 . During this battle , Ottoman artillery , and Janissaries armed with muskets , were able to cut down charging Hungarian cavalry . 17th century . Although the cannon and musket were employed by the Ottomans long beforehand , by the 17th century they witnessed how ineffective the traditional cavalry charges were in the face of concentrated musket - fire volleys . In a report given by an Ottoman general in 1602 , he confessed that the army was in a distressed position due to the emphasis in European forces for musket - wielding infantry , while the Ottomans relied heavily on cavalry . Thereafter it was suggested that the janissaries , who were already trained and equipped with muskets , become more heavily involved in the imperial army while led by their " agha " . By the middle of the 17th century , the continued reliance of the Ottomans on over - heavy ordnance had been made out by European officers as a liability . Raimondo Montecuccoli , the Habsburg commander who defeated the Ottomans at Battle of Saint Gotthard commented on Ottoman cannon : Persia . Soon after the Ottoman Empire , 2 other Muslim gunpowder empires appeared : the Safavid Empire in Persia and the Mughal Empire in India . They both began in the early 16th century but later collapsed in the 18th century . The refusal of their Qizilbash forces to use firearms contributed to the Safavid rout at Chaldiran in 1514 . Despite this initial reluctance , the Persians very rapidly acquired the art of making and using handguns . A Venetian envoy , Vincenzo di Alessandri , in a report presented to the Council of Ten on 24 September 1572 , observes : Mughal Empire . Babur , the founder of the Mughal Empire on the Indian subcontinent , employed firearm s , gun carts and movable artillery in battle . In particular , he used them at the first Battle of Panipat ( 1526 ) to defeat the much larger forces of Ibrahim Lodhi , the last ruler of the Delhi Sultanate . Other battles he fought using gunpowder weapons include the Battle of Khanwa in 1527 against Rana Sanga , and the Battle of Ghaghra in 1529 . His descendants also employed gunpowder weapons in their expansion of the Mughal Empire , such as Akbar the Great at the second Battle of Panipat ( 1556 ) against Adil Shah Suri and Hemu of the Sur Dynasty . In 1582 , Fathullah Shirazi , a Persian - Indian developed a seventeen - barrelled cannon , fired with a matchlock . Kingdom of Mysore . The first iron rocket s were developed by Tipu Sultan , a Muslim ruler of the South Indian Kingdom of Mysore . He successfully used these iron rockets against the larger forces of the British East India Company during the Anglo - Mysore Wars . The Mysore rockets of this period were much more advanced than what the British had seen , chiefly because of the use of iron tubes for holding the propellant ; this enabled higher thrust and longer range for the missile ( up to 2 km range ) . After Tipu ' s eventual defeat in the Fourth Anglo - Mysore War and the capture of the Mysore iron rockets , they were influential in British rocket development and were soon put into use in the Napoleonic Wars . Somalia . The Ethiopian – Adal war was a military conflict between the Ethiopian Empire and the Adal Sultanate from 1529 until 1543 . The Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al - Ghazi ( nicknamed Gurey in Somali and Gragn in Amharic ( ግራኝ Graññ ) , both meaning " the left - handed " ) came close to extinguishing the ancient realm of Ethiopia , and converting all of its subjects to Islam ; the intervention of the European Cristóvão da Gama , son of the famous navigator Vasco da Gama , helped to prevent this outcome . Many historians trace the origins of hostility between Somalia and Ethiopia to this war . Some historians also argue that this conflict proved , through their use on both sides , the value of firearms such as the matchlock musket , cannons , and the arquebus over traditional weapons . Imam Ahmed was the first African commander to use cannon warfare on the continent during the Adal ' s conquest of the Ethiopian Empire under Dawit II . East Asia . In Japan the pattern of military development was somewhat different from that in Europe or the Middle East . Soon after contact with Portuguese traders in the year 1543 , firearms were adopted in the nation and an era of gunpowder warfare followed for several decades , culminating at the famous Battle of Nagashino in 1575 , where volley fire was introduced . The Japanese under Toyotomi Hideyoshi also used firearms against the Koreans and Chinese during the Imjin War of the 1590s , which proved effective , yet the Chinese and Koreans matched this with farther - range cannon fire . Once the Japanese home islands were unified in the early 17th century , the Tokugawa shogunate launched an effort to solidify the power of the feudal samurai class and banned the use and manufacture of all firearms ( as well as repairs to feudal castles ) . Between the seventeenth and late 19th centuries Japanese warfare remained medieval and its society feudal in nature . Western arquebuses and matchlocks were imported into Vietnam during the 16th century . The raging and lengthy wars between Le and Mac dynasties , and later Trinh and Nguyen clans invoked an arm race between the opposing factions . Gunnery and marksmanship rapidly spread across the country and soon Vietnamese musketeers became infamous as masters of firearms . See also . Early modern period Gunpowder History of gunpowder Gunpowder magazine Specific : Kabinettskriege Technology of the Song Dynasty Hwacha Singijeons Battle of Caishi Battle of Tangdao