That is IF there is no alternative (which was the case in ancient Europe) and the only weapon of choice for that small nation is one that can only be mastered by extensive training, like a bow. they got no choice but to continue training to be good at it. If given a choice, I would believe any nation would choose a weapon that can be mastered easily so that the pease time can be spent doing something more useful, like farming which would keep those highly skilled fighters alive. Also, maybe for a small nation, the best they can do is to train highly skilled soldiers, but this does not give them any advantage on the battlefield since the rules of wars do not change with the size of the nation.
From the end of the Medieval warm period and the collapse of European Agriculture along with the arrival of the black death the entire population collapsed. Crossbow never went out of use, but became the weapon of mercs. When 99% of your population has to farm and still leaves little surplus then armies are going to be small and knights, mercs and a few highly trained specialist types like archers are the best best. If you strip the fields to create a bigger army- you don't plant and you don't harvest.
Still, ease of use is a trade mark for a well-developed weapon, no matter what the population of a nation is. As a matter of fact, even for a small nation, having a weapon that can be used by less trained personnel is still better than one that can only be mastered via decades of training. A good case, again: AK-47 (most of the nations using AK-47 are small and poor nations. And this weapon has enabled the users to fight effectively).
Not too effectively when fighting western nations. A better example would be thousands of T-55, T-62 and T-72 tanks vs a perhaps a thousand combined M1A1/Challenger 1 tanks. The larger amount of inferior weapons with a mix of conscript and professional troops did little to even slow down the Coalition advance in 91.
Hmmm, 1979. It's a little old. I don't about the field of History. In biomedical sciences, anything before 1990 is considered too old. In fact, when we publish papers, we mainly cite works done within the last 5-6 years. As our understanding of things evolves, data and views published too long ago are usually considered inadequate to represent the most mature understanding of things.
Its not the same in history if the book relies on a good collection of primary source documents. Where newer is better is when there is a lack of primary source documents. Three good examples are ancient civilizations where history must combine archeology, oral tradition and documents from neighbors to try and paint a picture of the past. As new stuff is unearthed the picture gets fleshed out and misconceptions changed. Another example is events in the recent past say the Cold War where a lot of the primary source documents and witnesses are still under government lock and key and so pictures remain incomplete. The final example is situation where ones sides history is actively suppressed to make way for a larger over culture like native Americans, non-Han minorities, or the Scottish.
When dealing with the Mongols however we have an abundance of primary source documents from all sides of the story. This means the picture is fairly complete. Thus while we may argue about draw weights, prevalence of chainmail, types of arrow heads etc, numbers on either side of a battle are less a point of contention. If the Mongols says they invaded Outer Nowhervia with 3 Tumen then we can accept an upper limit of 30,000 minus battle losses and other attrition. If contemporary Chronicler says Outer Nowhervia and its allies sallied forth with X. The process of determining the number of troops fielded is a matter of counting the nobles applying averages to the menies (fighting tails) and best guesses base don other reports for near useless anyway peasant levies. For example, if other reports from multiple sources around the same time say an average Baron usually went to war with 2 pages, 1 squire, 3 mounted men at arms and 4 crossbowmen and the army had 50 barons in it they we know that there are 200-250 heavy cav (depending on how advanced the squires are) and 200 crossbow +/- just a few percentage points via what the barons brought to war.
The Mongols thanks to China were much better record keepers than the Europeans. As the baron example points out, they also had much more unified command and control in the early years. During some battles vs the Mongols in Russia and Poland you would have several sovereigns on the field. Talk about a nightmare way to try and fight a war. each rulers forces would only answer to them, and then often only commanders would be loyal while that sub commanders troops would not be liegeholden to the ruler, but to the vassal if the vassal was tenant in chief. Thus while a baron might be called upon to furnish X in a time of war for his ruler, those troops might actually be more loyal to the Baron than the ruler.
