We've learned, in my world, after years of study, that severe emotional trauma is sometimes enough to make a person forget things that they've been through. Not in a complete and total way, but in a manner that just makes it difficult to access memories that exist. Sometimes they can pick out flashes, details without context, specific events, but larger overarching understanding of the circumstances that they've gone through is often shadowed from them.
It is normal to have a degree of confusion when it comes to a chaotic situation, but for it to persist that long and for memory gaps that large, there's something more going on.
That we're more than equipped to help you with. I have to admit. I wouldn't mind taking a look at what you've developed. I'm curious. It took centuries and a half a dozen countries in our world for anything functional to be developed in the realm of firearms after the discovery of gunpowder.