At the beginning of the II millennium BC, copper began to be replaced by bronze. Around the same time, the first iron products appeared, but soft iron (not suitable for casting, since it required excessively high temperatures), as a material for weapons and tools, was worse than bronze - the Bronze Age continued for another 1000 years, until the development of technology carburizing, hardening and welding.

Even straight long swords were made of bronze. Moreover, in China, where bronze was cheap, the manufacture of weapons from it continued even in the 2nd century AD, that is, already in the era of the widespread use of iron tools. The bronze sword then, in principle, turned out to be lighter and sharper than the iron one, although due to the lower hardness of the cutting edge than that of steel, it was not suitable for cutting iron armor and fencing against an iron sword.

And later, bronze retained some importance, as it surpassed iron in manufacturability - if an iron product could be shaped only by forging (therefore, even ancient nails had a square section), then bronze tools could be cast.

A product of complex shape, for example, a helmet, was easier to cast than to forge. As for strength, bronze was definitely harder than iron and not as brittle as steel. Bronze armor, including solid-cast cuirasses, was used in Rome until the beginning of our era, while helmets in Europe and in the 19th century were mainly made of bronze.

An additional advantage of bronze was its convenience in mass production. So the Chinese, for example, already in the first millennium of the new era, cast bronze parts for crossbow locks, tips and eyes for crossbow bolts, and much more. The bronze tip, of course, did not have the penetration ability of iron, but each of the iron ones had to be forged and hardened separately, and the bronze ones were cast in a special machine, 100-200 pieces at a time, and they had almost unattainable quality for iron products at that time - standard.

Since the 15th century, bronze has again become a strategic material, as it turned out to be indispensable for the manufacture of cannons.

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