StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Instead going gunpowder warfare WIs, I decided to try Information Warfare WIs.

Now for the op. In 272 B.C.E. a Carthaginian Inventor creates Binoculars using the Galilean optics principle. He then show cases his invention to the military, who promptly take him under their wing.

How much effect will this simple Information Warfare tool have on Carthaginian military forces? Can it save them from Rome? Or will they still fall, then it begs the question of what the Romans will make of captured Binoculars and other optics?

Speculate away.

Assuming the Carthaginians are able to keep this technology to themselves and how to make them secret for a time, it very well could win them the First Punic War with Rome. However unless you're going to rule against it, I would expect that in many situations such as at sea, a telescope or "spyglass" would be the version used in order to provide a better level of magnification with the technology type available.

A big key is that it could allow commanders to better monitor and control major battles since they can do a better job of actually seeing what's happening, especially if someone uses binoculars from an elevated platform. An advantage when trying to monitor the enemy from a great distance as forces approach is that the binoculars can allow a commander or observer assisting him to determine what types of forces have been places in different locations and gives him a better grasp of the enemy's intentions while otherwise he would just be able to make out vague man shapes at that distance.

The binoculars should be a really HUGE advantage at sea. Basically it should allow lookouts to figure out at a great distance in many cases whether that speck or specks on the horizon represent merchant ships, and enemy fleet, or some other neutral power's naval forces. The binoculars should also greatly assist in figuring out how many ships and what types a fleet represents at a great distance.

This kind of information can give a key edge to Carthaginian forces allowing them to for instance to figure out if what they are seeing is an enemy force or ship worth pursing or not, or a clearly more powerful fleet they should run away from. From a great enough distance, the enemy fleet observers may not even be able to tell initially if the specs they are observing have reacted to them or are moving towards or away from them, making it extremely tough for the enemy commander to figure out how he should respond. If the side without the technology heads in the direction of the specs, he may discover eventually that its a clearly superior force heading straight towards him. (A clever enough Carthaginian naval commander might even take steps to effectively conceal the true size of his force once he knows he has the advantage in order for it to get much closer to the enemy fleet before it would potentially react to the reality of the situation.)

If the binoculars are combined with some sort of visual signaling system (I.E. flags or the like) allowing a fair amount of information to be convoyed, binoculars should allow the fleet to received commands and coordinate with different portions a substantial distance apart. A general evaluation by a commander of what's happening during a major fleet battle is another area it should prove to be an advantage. The binoculars should be able to be distributed somewhat more widely at sea than on land without the same degree of increased risk of them being captured because the individual assigned the binoculars and other sailors can be instructed to throw them overboard if it appears the ship may be about to be captured.

If Carthage wins the First Carthaginian War this could obviously potentially end up having a huge impact on history and possibly create a situation where Carthage remains the dominant power in the Mediterranean and not Rome. However sooner or later I would expect another country, and eventually countries, to get ahold of a copy of the binoculars and they should be able to figure how it works and copy it. (Some of the European "barbarians" presumably won't manage it, but most of the Mediterranean based powers should be capable.)

It's nigh on impossible. The development of optics requires a great degree of precision in how the glass is formed and made. The only references to anything optical in the earlier ancient times pertain to lenses which focus light from the sun I.E. Biconvex lenses which are the simplest to either make or simply find (Suetonius, I think, mentions that Nero used to watch the games through a Diamond to fix his vision. Same sort of principle.) In order to make a binocular you need a very clean clear glass which has no air bubbles in it and the ability to then grind it down so that you have both a balanced convex and concave lens. This would be completely beyond the Carthaginian's ability to produce, and might only be able to come into production during the early Roman Empire.

^Even they did not manage anything like the glass needed for this. Telescopes, the first steps towards binoculars, were only in widespread use by the navies of the colonial powers in the eighteenth century.

So in short, like Straha said, it is impossible for the carthaginians to mass manufacture them, even if they somehow get a plan for them.