[bluGill]

The Chinese invented cannons about the time they invented gun power. However by coincidence their forts used stone walls thick enough to resist cannon fire and so it was not really better than the various catapult systems they also had (which also couldn't breach their fort walls).

https://acoup.blog/2021/12/17/collections-fortification-part... Goes into this in more detail for a couple paragraphs.

[mikhailfranco]

The introduction of counterweight trebuchet from the Mongol empire in Persia for the seige of the Southern Sung city of Xiangyang is well documented here:

https://deremilitari.org/2014/05/the-mongol-siege-of-xiangya...

I like the idea of pausing a seige in China to send a message to some experts in Mosul, wait for them to ride back, then build their novel device, and win.

[sorokod]

Shooting in steep trajectory, howitzer style, would still be valuable.

[ben_w]

You have to know it’s possible, and be able to aim at useful internal targets despite this being well before aerial surveillance photographs and calculus.

My guess is there’s probably a whole bunch of neat things we could build with existing manufacturing tools, that we don’t yet know are even possible, and which the future will have similar discussions about.