Alchemist's lab/school/university = uselesS?

[Kobal2fr]

It's always a possibility, of course. I suppose it's a hard thing to accurately test...

For what it's worth, experience chevrons - while they do up the defense skill and melee skill values on the unit card - do not increase a unit's missile attack value either, yet they have been proven beyond any shade of doubt to increase missile kills (that is, for bows and crossbows - the quirkiness of gunmen rankswitching mechanisms back then made it hard to get reliable data IIRC). Wether it was caused by higher accuracy, higher lethality, better concentration of shots/volleys or whatnot has never been conclusively found AFAIK. Couldn't provide you with a direct link to the research post I'm thinking of, but search is your friend ;). Siege engines also fire much more accurately with XP, but their unit card doesn't show it.

With that in mind, it's not alltogether improbable that a weapon upgrade could make a difference without showing it on the unit card.

[Old Geezer]

Caveat: I never tested gunpowder units with various chevrons to see if they get more kills. Archers certainly do get more kills and each chevron gives a little boost. The melee values go up 1 for the first chevron and for the first silver and first gold, I believe. I don't think anyone has tested to see if the intermediate chevrons help with melee kill, as the testing would be very problematic requiring such a large number of tests that almost any normal gamer's boredom tolerance would be exceeded.