In The Anarchy, William Dalrymple attributes to a rainstorm the British victory over a much larger Mughal force at Plassey. The Mughal forces did not protect their gunpowder from the rain, so their artillery stopped firing. The Mughal commander assumed the British guns would also be silent and tried to overwhelm them with a cavalry charge, but the British did keep their powder dry and they eviscerated the Mughal cavalry and killed one of their commanders.
So, why didn’t the Mughals (or their French artillery advisers) keep their powder dry? Did they not have the technology to do it? Did they have an incorrect theory of why gunpowder didn’t work after rain? Were they just careless and overconfident? Had they simply not thought of doing so?
Hey there,
Just to let you know, your question is fine, and we're letting it stand. However, you should be aware that questions framed as 'Why didn't X do Y' relatively often don't get an answer that meets our standards (in our experience as moderators). There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, it often can be difficult to prove the counterfactual: historians know much more about what happened than what might have happened. Secondly, 'why didn't X do Y' questions are sometimes phrased in an ahistorical way. It's worth remembering that people in the past couldn't see into the future, and they generally didn't have all the information we now have about their situations; things that look obvious now didn't necessarily look that way at the time.
If you end up not getting a response after a day or two, consider asking a new question focusing instead on why what happened did happen (rather than why what didn't happen didn't happen) - this kind of question is more likely to get a response in our experience. Hope this helps!