when were guns first used in war

The first use of firearms in warfare dates to the 14th century, with the earliest documented developments appearing in China and spreading to Europe by the mid-1300s. By the Battle of Crecy in 1346, there are records of hand cannons and early gunpowder weapons being used in European warfare, signaling the transition from primarily melee to firearm-enabled tactics. Over the following decades, gunpowder weapons—hand cannons, bombards, and rudimentary arquebuses—became more common in various regions, eventually transforming military tactics and making firearms a central component of battlefield power by the end of the 15th and into the 16th centuries.