This raises the question how much they have blanket protections. We don't see defenses against fast rocks (or defenses against artificed weapons or defenses against the elements lead and copper.) We also don't see the extent of magical military innovation. I'd assume wizards would be able to create autonomous (sentient, even) wandering spells that waft about wanting nothing more in the universe than to lodge itself into an enemy head and explode (or turn the poor victim into a zombie host) Rowling never really shows she can think like DARPA.

In The Chronicles of Amber book II, The Guns of Avalon while the properties of black powder cease to be explosive in the true world of Amber, Corwin finds a jewelers rouge that serves as a nice substitute, and develops manufacturing of the substance to be used in Amber-compatible bullets (which are, themselves, to be used in automatic rifles held by his shadow troopers). This is an example of worldbuilding in which there is a defined incompatiblity of natural mechanics, which is then overcom3 by innovation.

Hogwarts is ambiguously covered by an anti-technology field, but it's never explained what mechanisms it covers. We assume this is why students have to use quills rather than Bic or Pilot rollerballs but the Weasley flying Ford Anglia works there, and we never see what happens to an iPhone, or even a Babbage Analytical Engine.

[–] azertyfun@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

Also there are cameras contemporary to some already deadly firearms (late 19th/early 20th century at a guess). You'd think at the very least a musket would work, or more likely a bolt-action rifle.

My headcannon is that wizard society is so fascist that they just find it too horrifyingly distasteful to use muggle technology (even against Voldermort himself), but also it's why they try so hard to stay hidden because deep down they know they stand no chance against anything resembling a modern muggle army, despite their claims of superiority. I mean, even if Hogwarts itself is protected against technology, an artillery shell is hardly technologically advanced and could be fired from tens of km away.