Jan Fischer, American Soldier In His Military Life

Since then, the advances made by human societies and that of weapons has been irretrievably linked. Stone weapons gave way to Bronze Age weapons, and later the Iron Age weapons. With each technological change was realised some tangible increase in military capability, such as through greater effectiveness of a sharper edge in defeating leather armour, or improved density of materials used in manufacture of weapons.
On land the first really significant technological advance in warfare was the development of the ranged weapons and notably the sling. The next significant advance came with the domestication of the horses and mastering of horse riding.
Arguably the greatest invention that affected not just the military, but all society, after adoption of fire, was the wheel, and its use in the construction of the chariot. There were no advances in military technology until, from the mechanical arm action of a slinger, the Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Persians, Chinese, etc. development the siege engines. The bow was manufactured in increasingly larger and more powerful versions to increase both the weapon range and armour penetration performance. These developed into the powerful composite and/or recurve bows, and crossbows of Ancient China. These proved particularly useful during the rise of cavalry, encased in ever-more sophisticated armour, dominating the battlefield.
Somewhat earlier in medieval China, gunpowder had been invented, and was increasingly used by the military in combat. The use of gunpowder in the early vase-like mortars in Europe, and advanced versions of the long bow and cross bow, which all had armour-piercing arrowheads, that put an end to the dominance of the armoured knight. After the long bow, which required great skill and strength to use, the next most significant technological advance was the musket, which could be used effectively with little training. In time the successors to muskets and cannon, in the form of rifles and artillery, would become core battlefield technology.