Quote Originally Posted by yoshikwalla View Post
Mankind's shift from Bow and Arrow to Muskets and Rifles was a great change that caused bows to become technologically obsolete.
Sort of, the technology for the bow and arrow is still in use today, the mongolian bow and arrow used two different materials for their long bows which is still used today (composites). The French musketeers preferred to use swords as muskets and rifles at the time were highly inefficient, a crossbow was much quicker on the reload. Even in the 1800's with cowboys the accuracy of pistols was pretty horrific, it wasn't the fastest draw that one but the guy that got lucky with his shot. Rifles had the advantage (eventually) of range and tactics were drawn up (Rourkes Drift, watch the film Zulu) which negated the disadvantages of using rifles. It wasn't really until the machine gun came along that other classes of weaponry became obsolete, a weapon that can fire 60 shots a minute is good, a rifleman in the early 1800's could only manage 3 shots per minute if they were very very good.