Weapons
Bangalore Torpedo
Universal wire-cutting device. The Bangalore Torpedo consisted of a 1.8-m (6-ft) light steel tube of 38-mm (1 -in) diameter, packed with 1.8 kg (4 lb) of ammonal blasting explosive. The ends of the charge were prepared for detonators, while the tube had ‘male’ and ‘female’ bayonet joints at its ends, with spring locking clips, so that a number of…
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Combat Issues – Chinese Chariots
Fighting from a moving chariot would have been difficult at best, given the bumping and jarring, not to mention the fleeting moment when a shock weapon could be brought to bear against nearby fighters on the ground or used to strike warriors in an oncoming vehicle. Thus the exceptional accomplishments…
Railguns
Railguns are being researched as weapons with projectiles that do not contain explosives, but are given extremely high velocities: 3,500 m/s (11,500 ft/s, approximately Mach 10 at sea level) or more (for comparison, the M16 rifle has a muzzle speed of 930 m/s, or 3,050 ft/s), which would make their…
Roman Shipboard Weapons I
Rams The earliest rams, which emerged in the mid-ninth century BC, transformed warfare on water from an encounter between armed men on vessels, to a battle between the vessels themselves for the ram made the ship that mounted it into the weapon, a guided missile no less. The earliest…
Roman Shipboard Weapons II
Grapnels such as this, attached to lengths of rope, were thrown to ensnare an enemy ship and to pull it close enough to enable it to be boarded. A variation of this was attached to a shaft (the harpax) which could be shot from an artillery piece for longer…
Junkers Ju 52 – DEMIANSK
DEMIANSK OFFENSIVE OPERATION (MARCH 6–APRIL 9, 1942) A failed Red Army offensive conducted by Briansk Front. The conception for the ground campaign was both audacious and ferocious. It aimed at replicating the German encirclements of Red Army troops that marked the five-month battle before Moscow that began in November 1941.…
ISU ASSAULT GUNS IN ACTION
A Soviet GAZ-MM 4 x 2 cargo truck drives past a line of ISU-152 assault guns in Lvov, in the Ukraine, in July 1944. The photograph gives a good view of the chassis’ running gear, with KV-l’s spoked wheels rather than the disc wheels used on the T-34 and its…