You’d need metallurgy which was only invented in the process of building bigger naval guns, much later.
The issue was pressurizing the steam, which want possible in the middle ages. You had no rubber for seals, no steal that would hold, and no tools to drill holes precisely enough.
That’s why the Romans already used stream for simple parlor tricks but it couldn’t be made to do actual work until the modern era
no rubber for seals
Modern synthetic rubber would indeed be unavailable, but I vaguely recall reading something to the effect that early steam engines used leather seals or something like that.
But yeah, there’s a lot of missing prerequisites for machinery. Even simple rotary power – like from a windmill or waterwheel – would suffer from being incapable of long distance transmission
gibmiser@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Real science and innovation comes in increments