Carracks, another Medieval European-only invention

[cutaway of Ferdinand Magellan's carrack The Trinidad]

Carracks were invented only in Medieval Europe. They revolutionized warfare, transport and exploration. The Portuguese and Spanish missions of discovery were completed in carracks. The first carracks were built in the 14^th century premised on the 'rounded cog', another medieval European invention. The Medieval carrack was the world's first functional ocean-going boat, suitable for oceanic travel in any climate; technologically quite more advanced than the Viking longship [itself a remarkable piece of engineering].

The early carrack was not that manoeuvrable but it had the advantage of being able to carry more men than other ships and supplies. Trade cargo, gun ports, and arquebuses or early musket bearing soldiers were also standard features. Some carracks such as the English vessel Henri Grâce à Dieu weighed more than 1,000 tons, had large fore and aft castles. These huge warships had no equal in the world. [source]

Hattendorf and Inger in their book, 'War in at Sea in the Middle Ages and Renaissance', make the following observation [link]:

“Busses, flumes, gabots, hulks, doggers, lodships, crayers, spinaces, galleys, carracks, barges, nefs, tarites, boats, ships and cogs are named in the records of English vessels active in the early phase of the Hundred Years war from 1337 to 1360.”

The above is quite a catalogue of 14^th century innovation and only covers a partial list of naval assets deployed both during war and in peace. This variety of floating technology did not exist anywhere else in the world.

By the mid-14^th century therefore, varieties of carracks were common. Glick writes in 'Medieval Technology' [here], that the 'roundish' shape of the carrack was fitted with guns – another medieval European creation – by 1500. As carracks grew in size and density more gun ports were added making the carrack a veritable fortress at sea. By 1550 European navies supplemented by guns and muskets, were invincible and small numbers of European ships could sink armadas of Moslem or Asian fleets.

Without carracks of course, the voyages of discovery never would have materialized, and much to the amusement of modern multi-culturalists, there never would have developed civilization extra-Europa and a world economy. How titillating this thought is for the large of brain. Carracks were only invented in Europe, which means that surely the benighted Christians must have stole them from the all-knowing, all-seeing Arabs or Chinese ? 

 Of course they did not. Ship technology was alive and vibrant in Medieval Europe dating from the fall of the dead weight called the Roman empire. If Europeans 'stole' all this technology as the Marxists claim, why then did small European-carrack fleets wipe out much larger Moslem, Indian and Chinese navies from the 15^th century onwards ? Surely these other 'civilizations' would have produced more advanced weaponry?