Reasons why one nation may have firearms but another doesn't?

Yeah, this will probably be the case. I mentioned earlier that, according to some quick research, I found that the oxidizer in gunpowder wasn't produced artificially until the American Civil War, and a method for industrial-scale production wasn't developed until just prior to the First World War. So, in this world my story is set in, I'm thinking the antagonist nation has developed a way to produce it artificially, but not at industrial scale yet, and they're keeping the recipe and instructions a secret.

The idea, in my mind, is that since ammunition is expensive to make due to the scarcity of oxidizers, they don't want to issue a firearm to every soldier on the field and have to deal with the logistics of keeping them all supplied with ammo.
To draw from real life, even though we've never had an ammunition shortage, much of the reason full-automatic firing capability was removed from the M16A2 and replaced with burst-fire was due to ammunition waste during the Vietnam War; paranoid stressed-out combat grunts would unload an entire magazine just because a twig snapped in the jungle.
You can't have that kind of thing happening when ammunition is scarce. Probably best to have just a handful of big guns, and put them on airships or something, so that their use and ammo consumption can be monitored by an officer or some other such responsible figure.

 

This issue reminds me of one of the underlying plot themes of Iain Banks' Hydrogen Sonata.

Spoiler: Plot spoiler

The parallel there is that there are the Culture citizens that abhor violence and weapons. The Culture had a recent war (several centuries before) with an aggressive species, the Idiran Empire. The Culture won the war, but lost a lot, including a faction within their society where ultra pacifists broke off from the Culture itself.

In contrast, the Gzilt structured their society around the military and every citizen was considered a military asset. They had all of the guns and military ranks and the most up-to-date military technology. Unlike the Culture, though, the Gzilt have not been to war recently.

A Gzilt faction comes into friction with the Culture in one place involving a Culture vessel, Mistake Not..., that was an old outdated war ship that fought in the Idiran war. Despite this, it manages to outwit the Gzilt.

That was just one subplot within the book, but the conclusion here is that you'd better not take on a pacifist who barely won a war if you haven't been to war yourself.

The take home here is that there are many reasons why societies might take up weapons or eschew them. It can be historical, cultural or practical. You seem to be focussing on the practical, but there are possibly more compelling social or historical storylines to pursue if you're interested in going down that rabbit hole.

You only need to look at our own world for contrasts. There are countries that have a gun culture, such as the USA. There are others, like Australia, New Zealand and the UK that have strong gun controls and where seeing an armed civilian in public is likely to result in the police armed offenders squad taking them down for no reason other than that they were carrying.

 

However, you can look at the examples of the countries neighbouring Japan. China, under the Guangxu Emperor started to reform but that was totally scuppered by the Dowager Empress Cixi. The country was beset with a weak government, warlordism and corruption, and failed to modernise enough to fight off the Japanese when they came.

Korea was also isolationist, even more so than Japan - hence why it was (and is) called "the hermit kingdom". It tried to modernise at the end of the 19th century (even though it had been forced open for some years), but it was too late, and in 1910, it was annexed by Japan. Politics was again the reason for the slow pace, pitting conservatives against progressives - and when you've been at peace and isolated for 200 years, the conservatives are a powerful voice.

 

Just please, please don't go down the "we don't use guns because they're dishonourable". Ain't no culture in the world ever rejected something that made it easier to kill the other guy.

 

It was never invaded because it would have been costier to exploit it through occupation than through diplomatic abuse. Hence the boxer wars too.

Asymmetric warfare is different and would have been the case for an invasion of Qing China. As it was the case against many underdeveloped nations. It means the complete steamrolling of enemy armies and the enemy relying on increasing the cost of occupation until the invader just decides it isn't worth it. EG, Afghanistan, Vietnam or the Latin American revolutions.

I do not think OP seeks asymmetrical warfare here, but proper rivalry/confrontations. But he/she can correct me on this.

So to re-phrase my initial post, you either venture onto asymmetric warfare or adaptation & almost-equal forces.

 

All countries listed use 5.56 and 7.62 NATO carbines in war. Canada is using the same armoured vehicles as Germany. Australia fields Steyr weapons shared with Austria, along with American colt and German H&K carbines.

War is about efficiency. The slightest lack can lead to a very swift defeat.

You will want the highest trained army with the best weapons available - this was the same when Hussite and Swiss mercenaries were around, or when the Prussians designed their new 1809 musket against Napoleon.

Religion and cultural barriers tend to melt away the more people realize total war arrived.

 

This is sound, but it does raise another question: what are the average soldiers of these two nations armed with?

Whatever weapons you pick--fantastical or mundane--I think they need to present enough of a threat to justify the development of your antagonist nation's tanks. If all the regular soldiers only have polearms and bows, for example, there's little reason to use such a heavily armored weapons platform outside of sieges. Placing machine guns/automatic cannons/artillery pieces on lighter platforms like trucks and saving all that metal for infantry body armor instead of tanks seems more efficient in this hypothetical scenario.

 

Or just saving the money to hire mercenaries or build bath houses.

 

True. But based on what OP has said, the antagonist nation has essentially monopolized access to gunpowder and all the weapons which use it, so I'm not sure if there's a peer who's dangerous enough to prompt the development of tanks and the like.

A past civil war in the antagonist nation might work as an explanation. Otherwise, some sort of speculative element--whether it be outright magic or maybe some sort of exotic beasts of war--in the hands of another country seems like the most believable way to make this setup work.

 

Extra points if the mercenaries are from the same people that will ultimately sack your capital. Bath houses are pretty sweet though. Priorities...

 

I've always been a sucker for the war mage, necromancer or sorcerer trope. It makes the world a much more exotic and interesting place. Of course, that moves it squarely into the fantasy category, which I assume isn't where you're aiming.

 

This exactly. I'll reiterate that these aren't the only two nations in this world; there are six inhabited continents (the two "main" nations of the story being on different ones), and on the antagonist's continent (Voroa), there are three countries - not to mention the antagonist nation is incredibly large, geographically, and so there probably used to be more. Voroa is connected by land to another continent, Euroris (and separated by mountains, like Asia/Europe), which contains another small handful of nations. The protagonist nation is located on the continent Savrus, which has its own handful of nations.
I'll start calling the "protagonist" and "antagonist" nations Nation A and Nation V (their first letters) now, for easier typing.

This is why I'm kinda glad this thread has continued past answering my initial question, because now you're making me think of background info I hadn't considered before. Everything beyond this point I'm making up as I go lol.

So, it's already been established that a neighbor of Nation A is one of the most under-developed in the world, and has also been Nation A's primary enemy until now (or, until 15 years ago, their last war). Aside from those two, there are 3 other nations on the Savrus continent, but technologically they mostly follow Nation A's lead.
So, Nation A's weapons development would have been based on their neighbor nation's weapons development, which isn't much. This would have allowed Nation A to advance in other ways, while still engaging in the same type of sword, shield, and arrow warfare familiar to most of our world's history.

Meanwhile on the Voroa/Euroris landmass, I picture the people of Euroris being more advanced than those of Savrus, and with Euroris containing 7 nations, it's likely that war is common there. So maybe Euroris initially led the world's weapons development, until Nation V came along and tried to take their land for mining and development. Cue several generations of sporadic wars with mixed results. Nation V and the nations of Euroris (especially those near the border regions) developed accordingly, reached the age of crossbows, cue arms race over who can have the most powerful crossbow or the best armor or the best armor-piercing bolts, etc (this is likely the point where they begin exploring the idea of armored vehicles). Then someone in Nation V remembers that mineral that was discovered a while back, the one that has since found use in mining explosives... now they get ideas, and it's not long from there before they have firearms.

And basically, after my story starts, Nation V becomes relevant when they decide to hit Euroris again, this time with their new toys. Once Euroris is subdued (or at least the nations which pose the most threat), then they set their sights on Savrus, particularly Nation A, and that's where the story's heroes must intervene.

Wanna clarify one thing while I'm at it: It's not that Nation V has a "monopoly" on gunpowder, it's just that the mineral they use as an oxidizer is mostly found on the continent of Voroa, where Nation V is located. It exists elsewhere, just not in large enough quantities to make it viable for arming a military with - where it is mined elsewhere, it's typically for explosives for mining and construction. Nation V has discovered a method to produce the oxidizer artificially, and that's what allows them to make enough to use in weapons - once that closely-guarded state secret gets out, it won't be long until everyone's got their own boomsticks.

 

With the geopolitical and tech situation fleshed out by all this worldbuilding material, your basic premise sounds pretty solid. The only thing I'll add is the advent of artillery might be a better point for people to start experimenting with armored vehicles; crossbows don't seem like they'd have the destructive potential to prompt it on their own.

 

The advent of armoured vehicles was peasant militia aiming to defend themselves against cavalry.

 

You can trace them back even earlier if you want, to the likes of siege towers and battering rams. But I think it's pretty clear these aren't what "armored vehicle" means in context. We're talking about why this nation developed self-propelled armored vehicles with mounted gunpowder weapons.

 

I feel like you might also have something much bigger and stronger in mind than I do, @X Equestris. When I say "tanks" I don't mean like what we have today; I don't even mean like our WWI-era tanks, what I envision is even lesser than that. Compared to our tanks, these vehicles would be rather light and small.
Imagine sticking all-terrain treads and a metal panel exterior on a steam-powered VW Beetle-sized vehicle, and that's about what it is. The guns are a later invention that gets retrofitted onto a number of them.

I think heavy crossbows and light artillery are enough to spur the invention of such a machine; it would simply be a transportation device to move a small group of personnel across a battlefield safely. IMO you don't need to face that big of a threat to recognize the value of an invention like that.

 

Perhaps they developed them to defeat a now-extinct race of dragons who used to terrorise their land.

 

Your description in the OP brings to mind something between the earliest armored cars and the very first landships, so that's roughly what I've been going off of.

The issue I see with crossbows as a trigger for armored vehicle development is their very low rate of fire. Repeating designs could make up for it, but they usually sacrifice penetrating power, so "Let's redesign our body armor" or "Let's dig trenches for cover" seems like a more likely response to such a threat than "Let's invent a vehicle to protect our troops".

On the other hand, something like shrapnel artillery shells would probably be devastating enough to spur a more outside the box solution. You can armor a vehicle more heavily than a person, after all. It doesn't have to be really heavily armored, just enough to protect passengers from shrapnel. So you end up with your primitive APCs.

Much as I love the intersection of speculative elements and technology, I think OP is going for a more grounded approach.

 

In a fictional story, it may be better to use an unreasonable reason rather than a reasonable one. Suppose all the craftsmen belong to guilds, each one representing one particular field of expertise. There are firm demarcations between the crafts and heavy penalties for craftsmen who cross the lines. The guides sponsor the politicians and effectively run the country. Since a gun requires several different crafts to be employed, there is a long-running dispute over who should be allowed to make them. No one in power wants a new guild to be formed as this may upset the balance of political power in the country. The whole system has effectively tied itself in a knot and shot itself in the foot.

 

Or perhaps, and this could explain why only one nation has them, they were developed to fight a civil war. If both sides have the same military doctrines and advanced technology, whoever comes up with a superior solution first usually wins...

 

How about a different economic system?

After all, let's say the Antagonist Nation has an extremely efficient and centralized bureaucracy, with mass trade routes and lots of roads and bridges. There is a ton of money spent on infrastructure, like massive steel works, steel foundries, and schools. Entire armies of bureaucrats, craftmen, engineers, and everyone else, working like clockwork to churn out weaponry and the requisite chemicals.

The other nations? Not so much. They're far more different. There's no centralized bureaucracy, only large numbers of feudal lords and many divided and not-so loyal forms of government. You want to build a road? Congrats, every 2-bit landlord the road goes through wants a toll. You want to spend a lot of money on a steelworks? Well, you have to raise taxes, and such a thing will cause your vassals to rebel against you. You want a centralized bureaucracy to help run everything? Well, your underlings and people propping up your rule aren't going to tolerate that kind of power centralization.

And then there's the fact that there just may not be the institutionalized knowledge to do so. Take creating a tank or a anti-castle gun. You need an incredible number of engineers, technicians, and people to do it. You need a mass disseminating of information. Your local craftsman guild might not like disseminating trade secrets, and even if they did, there's not nearly enough craftsman to make more than a few tanks. Shitty tanks that will be destroyed the moment they're on the field. You want to manage resources to start up-teching? Ignoring the fact that the owners of these mines and foundries won't be happy (your system doesn't let you seize assets), you need an army of bean counters to move and coordinate everything. It will take you 10 years to make that administration, 10 years you don't have.

Remember. Early stuff was shit.Yes, its easy to make gunpowder. But useful gunpowder is a whole another dice. Gunpowder has to be of a certain grain size before it can be useful and reliable. Which means it has to be *ground*. Grinding gunpowder. You're probably going to have people die while doing it. It also has to be made reliably, and with large batches, with similar quality, or its useless for anything more than a fancy prototype or proof of concept. Same thing for creating steam engines. Half the steam engine's creators died in massive explosions, because the high pressure caused the tanks to explode, killing everyone in the lab. And you don't have a lot of smart people in the first place, because this is the 1800s.

And last but not least, remember this. Your monarch leader has a very weak ability to just topple their subordinates when they turn rebellious. A king is 'first among equals' instead of 'dictator'. Without cannons and any other kind of good siege weaponry? There's no way to quickly and easily break sieges. Which means that your monarch has to spend *a lot of money* to bring rebellious subordinates to heel. And if majority of feudal lords rebel, then that means that she's going to die. She may not be able to marshall the resources to mass produce good guns, because those resources aren't hers to command anyway.

 

You seem to contradict yourself. 1800s technology AND tanks/airships? You aren't having tanks without an industrial revolution, complex things like military vessels require interchangeable parts. You could simply make your weapons ineffective in war. A bolt action hunting rifle is great for deer. Because you take one shot, you either hit the deer or miss. You don't get a second shot. In war, you need to be able to spray bullets, which requires fairly complex designing. You could make the technology just not there yet.

 

The historical answer to slow firing rates was volley fire.

 

I believe that he's talking about multiple nations with *very* different levels in technological advance.