Kategoria BISAC: History >> Military - Weapons

Browning .30-caliber machine guns saw US Army, Navy, Marine, and Air Force service in World War I & II, Korea, and Vietnam, and are still occasionally found in use elsewhere even today. Produced in both water-cooled and air-cooled versions, it has been employed in every imaginable role for a machine gun - antipersonnel, antiaircraft, mounted on aircraft as both defensive and offensive armament, defensive armament aboard vehicles (armored and soft-skin), mounted on watercraft, and others.

The .30-caliber story began in World War I, as legendary US weapon-designer John M. Browning...

As a lightweight machine gun, the American designed Lewis Gun made a place for itself in World War I & World War II.

Although machine guns were widely issued and used during the bloody opening months of World War I, these deadly weapons proved to be too heavy to be tactically mobile. Casting around for existing designs to supplement inadequate stocks of the excellent Vickers gun, the British adopted the US-designed Lewis gun, which had not found favour with the US Army. The British quickly came to realise that while the new weapon was unable to match its heavier cousin in terms of...

Many nations, peoples and special interest groups believe that violence will advance their cause. Warfare has changed greatly since the Second World War; it continued to change during the late 20th century and this process is still accelerating. Political, technological, social and religious forces are shaping the future of warfare, but most western armed forces have yet to evolve significantly from the cold war era when they trained to resist a conventional invasion by the Warsaw Pact. America is now the only...

Reveals the history of Britain's most hidden research and testing site for the military

Orford Ness is so secret a place that most people have never even heard of it. Yet, the role it played in inventing and testing weapons over the course of the 20th century was far more significant and much longer than that of Bletchley Park. Nestled on a remote part of the Suffolk coast, Orford Ness operated for more than 80 years as a highly classified research and testing site for the British military, the Atomic Research Establishment, and, at one point, even the U.S. Department of...

Developed to replace the Model 1892 Krag-Jorgensen rifle, the Model 1903 Springfield was a five-shot bolt-action rifle that introduced the .30-06 cartridge - the standard US round until the introduction of the 7.62mm NATO cartridge - and gave the US infantryman a durable, magazine-fed weapon so renowned for its accuracy that it remained in service as a sniping rifle for decades after it was superseded by the M1 Garand in 1937. Extensively used in World War I, the M1903 Springfield saw widespread combat in World War II and Korea; even during the Vietnam War, US Marine snipers still used...

Winchester, Remington, Ithaca Gun Company, Stevens, Savage, Mossberg, Benelli, and other gun manufacturers have produced a range of combat shotguns for US armed forces. When a soldier must face multiple opponents at close quarters, few weapons can match the shotgun. From World War I to the War on Terror, the shotgun has been a devastating weapon in the hands of US troops. For urban combat, prisoner control, and shipboard operations it remains as deadly today as it was a century ago.

Early combat shotguns were basically sawed-off versions of the double-barreled shotguns used for sporting...