Kategoria BISAC: History >> Military - Weapons

The United States Infantry, the Queen of Battle, is the oldest established combat branch of the Nation's long established military. Only Infantry Riflemen, trained and deployed to cope with the chaos of face to face killing, are Constitutionally charged with the awesome personal and professional responsibility of taking human life.

The Queen of Battle is not a memoir; it is the disquieting story of how seemingly basically logical political decisions, sadly embodied by the precipitate change from the M1 rifle to the M16 rifle, encapsulated and symbolized the ascent and decline...

In the last century, researchers have uncovered approximately 50 Roman forts via excavations in Raetia. The rapid technological advancement of the last two decades allowed to use a variety of non-destructive methods, which enabled the discovery of more than 30 forts and Roman military installations, previously unknown. Furthermore, these new methods allowed observation of the mostly unknown inner layout of previously known forts, which led to many cases of chronologies being drastically redefined, as these had previously been dependent on find typologies. New inscriptions displaying the...

The development of cavalry firearms and the widespread disappearance of armor from the European battlefield saw a decline in the use of the cavalry lance in early modern warfare. However, by 1800 the lance, much changed from its medieval predecessors in both form and function, was back.

During the next century the use of the lance spread to the armed forces of almost every Western country, seeing action in every major conflict from the Napoleonic Wars to World War I including the Crimean and Franco-Prussian wars and across the Atlantic in the American Civil War. The lance even...

In an effort to provide the US infantryman with more firepower to cover the range gap between the hand grenade and the light mortar, the 40mm M79 grenade launcher--a shoulder-fired, single-shot weapon--entered service with US forces in 1961.

Reliable, easy to use, and lethally effective, the M79 soon became an iconic symbol of the Vietnam War and had a profound influence on small-unit tactics. As the Vietnam conflict continued, it was joined on the front line by experimental models such as the magazine-fed T148E1, as well as two launchers intended to be fitted under the barrel of the...

The Maginot Line was one of the most advanced networks of fortifications in history. Built in the aftermath of World War I, and stretching along the French eastern border from Belgium to Switzerland, it was designed to prevent German troops from ever setting foot on French soil again.

Its primary defensive weapons were the gun turrets. Beginning development in the 1870s and improving on German designs, they were constructed out of steel wedges and could revolve and disappear from sight after firing, making them impervious to enemy bombardment. They were deadly accurate and created...