Doctrine change

Crossbow: in mass use by the 10th century in Europe.
Full plate armor: appears early in the 15th century.

Non-credible confirmed.

Breastplates were a common armor feature since the Bronze Age, chill out
Or don't
I'm not your dad

ruins warfare
ruins wood armor
ruins half the fucking military meta

Sir I’m gonna have to ask you to display your ding dongs elsewhere
- This is just like 1984

md

    
> ruins combat
> ruins warfare
> ruins swordfights
> ruins hand-to-hand combats
> ruins an entire fucking combat doctrine

Gunpowder, and its consequences...

Bruh the sword was hugely in use for hundreds of years that that.. thing.. came along.
1796 light cavalry saber? Hello?The 1892 pattern? Swords were so important and well evolved to their function the barely had to adapt to fire arms till functional automatic fire became a thing.
the bayonet was a bigger game changer at the time
didn't need to bother with pikemen any longer as riflemen could be both
WHY ARE YOU GREEN??
- When putting text into [...] , do md [...] instead, then some formatter will display your meme-arrow texts in green.

I really hope the western allies have a plan for countering drones in the pipeline, otherwise the next time we fight an insurgency will be a bloodbath.

As someone who’s been following this fairly closely since the Syrians started toying with it, and the Ukrainians threw it into hyperdrive… There’s no good counter when drones are cheap to make and can be programmed to run on a flight course:
Jamming has to fight inverse square so the radius is trash (and kills a lot of useful civil RF ranges like WiFi). Something like 200 meters is a strong system currently, and power needs ramp up fast.
‘Kinetic hard kill’ like traditional air defense is way too expensive per shot, plus there’s issues with UXO, debris, and limited launching platforms. Legacy air defenses like Tunguska or FlakPanzer with programmable airburst rounds work best, but at very short range and make a lot of secondary fragments by design. Taking the guns out, interceptor missiles start at five figures.
Laser systems have a lot of promise with none of the explosive downsides whilst being cheaper per shot, but range isn’t great - you’re focusing energy to physically melt the target, and all light suffers from diffraction. It is better than jamming, but far too close for comfort.
That assumes you know the drone is coming, mind you. Piston-engine flying wings aren’t silent, but they are generally made of polymers/laminates that are hard to detect via radar. Thermal cameras and acoustic sensors so far are the best early warning systems, but radar is still a huge help.
And then there’s FPV and quadcopters. While a larger munition like Shaheed can be under $10k, even the more advanced FPV/quads with night vision (or even thermal) cameras frequently run under $1,000, up to a few thousand. Air dropped explosives have been fundamental in changing the course of the civil war in Myanmar for the rebels, it’s like having a budget Air Force and spy satellites on call.
- The air burst rounds sound like the best option, pretty much guaranteed kill against a slow moving drone, cost less than what you're shooting at, and useful against a wide range of targets.
- Hmm, what about Phalanx/CIWS for hard kill? Assuming you can track the target.
  Of course the real solution is trained birds.
- Have they looked at masers? Basically rf lasers.i think they're much cheaper than lasers and could be steered at drones but would only need enough power to interfere with guidance/ controls
- Gin and hubris tell me the leading defense will be other drones. Defense still has the range advantage: assholes come to you. You can easily make faster and lighter drones than whatever's targeting you, and if nothing else, punish attacks with loss of materiel. Which doesn't even require blowing up your zippy little drone, if the enemy's rotors can be fucked by anything more substantial than Silly String.
- Why not just use a big shotgun for the smaller stuff, skeet shooting style? I dunno how to really deal with much larger drones, but a shotgun should be able to deal with most human sized drone targets pretty easily

Now it's one of asymmetrical multi-player games where one guy plays a monster and everyone else just needs to survive

Devs plz nerf

"$35 hobby toy"

Well yeah, cheap drones can be used for war, but that's not all drones really are:

The crossbow suddenly doesn’t look as good when your pavise shields are still stuck in the wagon train and you’re in range of the English longbowmen.

Are you suggesting that rapid offensives - lunging out beyond your logistical network without taking the time to have your auxiliary force fully equipped for the task you expect of them - are a bad idea and will lead to said auxiliary forces putting in but a token effort instead of dying for an ally that clearly doesn't give enough of a shit about their lives?
But have you tried mounting it on a drone?

Massive skill issue

Crossbows are based, drones are cringe. Reject modernity