Weapons
LTV SLAM – Project PLUTO
In the mid-1950s, nuclear ramjet powerplants for cruise missiles were studied, and in January 1957 the development of such a weapon system was officially initiated as Project Pluto. The reactor for the ramjet was developed at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory (which eventually became the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, LLNL), while ramjet itself would be built by Marquardt. The initial reactor…
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IS-2 IN ACTION
A Soviet officer, standing on the road, directs a column of IS-2 heavy tanks along the streets of the suburbs of Berlin in May 1945. Tank desant troops shown in this picture are seated on the rear deck of the tank. These infantrymen would be absolutely invaluable during the…
The corvus
To compensate for their lack of nautical expertise, however, the Romans introduced a technical innovation that exploited their legionaries’ aptitude for close-quarter fighting. A 12-foot pillar of wood with a pulley on the top was fitted to the prow of every vessel. To this pillar a boarding bridge was attached…
Late Roman – Patrician Roman Warships 400-550
This is from HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE SHIP – LECTURE NOTES, Undergraduate Teaching Materials originally compiled by John Illsley, former Lecturer in Medieval History, School of History and Welsh History University of Wales, Bangor “The Roman trireme, together with the Liburnian, dominated the Mediterranean until the last stages of…
‘Greek Fire’
While the Europeans were fighting wars in ways that would not have astonished Archimedes or Julius Caesar, a brief, sudden flash of science many miles to the east managed to save the last vestige of the Roman Empire—for a while, anyway. It happened in Byzantium, the state created by Emperor…