Weapons of War

Weapons of War

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PAGE CONTENTS;

Weapons of War

The AK-47

A Brief Histsory of the Tank

Chemical Weapons

Weapons of War

before 30,000 BC - Clever humans develop projectile weapons, first spears and then bows and arrows. The first spears were just sharpened sticks, but the bow was the "killer app" of the Stone Age. The potential energy stored in the bent bow could transfer all at once to the arrow as kinetic energy. Result: lunch, or a dead neighbor.

circa 8,000 BC - Jericho puts up its patented stone walls, among the world's first major defensive fortifications. Later defensive walls would be immense. Babylon's were more than 100 feet high.

circa 4,000 BC - Humans invent the chariot, in the region that is now Russia and Kazakhstan. It quickly becomes the premier war vehicle of its day. Some cultures mounted an archer behind the chariot driver, but most used the vehicle simply as a way to get G.I. Joshua into battle.

circa 1500 BC - Ancient smiths fashion bronze swords, but their effectiveness is limited by the relative softness of the metal. Only developments in iron a few centuries later would allow swords to grow into long, flashy showpieces that could make any warrior brag.

490 BC - The Battle of Marathon in ancient Greece goes badly for the Persians, as the Athenians demonstrate the power of formations. The Athenians fought Greek style, where heavily armored foot soldiers (known as hoplites) locked shields and thrust with spears over the shield wall. The Persians had far greater numbers, but Greek discipline spanked Persian power.

350 BC - Philip II of Macedonia introduces the sarissa, a pike as long as 21 feet wielded by soldiers in a tight phalanx formation. Opposing armies simply couldn't penetrate the wall of pikes--though the Macedonians' pikes had no trouble penetrating them. Philip's son, Alexander the Great, seized the advantage and won every battle he fought.

2nd century BC - Hardy horsemen on the Asian steppes invent the stirrup. In earlier centuries, few people called in the cavalry because it was pretty easy to knock a rider off his horse. The simple stirrup changed all that.

53 BC - A small Parthian force of mounted archers destroys seven Roman legions (more than 40,000 men) at the Battle of Carrhae in Mesopotamia. Though the battle proved the effectiveness of mobile artillery, the Romans continued to depend primarily on infantry. It would cost them dearly.

70 - Roman forces besieging Jerusalem prove they have the stones for artillery, using catapults capable of throwing a 50-pound stone more than 400 yards. Rome pinched the idea from the Greeks, but mastered the art.

378 - Germanic horsemen kill the Roman emperor Valens and crush his army at the Battle of Adrianople near today's Bulgaria. Military historians date this as the beginning of the age of cavalry in Europe. For centuries, the mounted warrior reigned supreme.

678 - The Byzantines employ "Greek fire," a devastating stream of burning liquid that saves their empire. Used primarily in naval combat, the burning liquid adhered to anything it touched. Water couldn't douse it; only sand and urine did the trick. The exact composition of "Greek fire" remains a mystery.

13th century - Plate armor becomes the protection of choice for discriminating European knights. Too many had been caught dead in increasingly unfashionable chain mail, which did little to protect against a bone-crushing blow or a penetrating crossbow bolt. Confronted with plate, bow makers bent over backward to increase firing power.

14th century - Infantrymen finally knock armored cavalrymen off their high horses, with help from some new weapons. The English use the long-range longbow with devastating success in the Hundred Years' War, while pole arms such as the pike and halberd bring victory to the Scots and Swiss.

1453 - Ottoman Turks blast the walls of Constantinople to bits with 70 cannons, including a 19-ton doomsday weapon firing an 800-pound ball. Constantinople falls, and gunpowder use (once confined to China) explodes across Europe. The French put cannons on wheels, the English put cannons on ships, and the Germans put "mini-cannons" in soldiers' hands to replace the crossbow.

17th century - A new and improved "mini-cannon," the flintlock musket, joins with the bayonet to knock earlier firearms and the pike out of infantrymen's arsenal. By the late 17th century, armor is just for show.

1776 - The American Turtle becomes the first submarine used in combat. The seven-foot wooden walnut and its one-man crew (who doubled as the engine) can't quite manage to attach a bomb to the bottom of a British frigate. Yet British officers recognize the threat and move their fleet out of New York harbor.

1862 - The Confederate ship Virginia (originally the Union ship Merrimack) and the U.S.S. Monitor fight to a draw off the coast of Virginia. The ships introduce steel hulls and gun turrets to naval warfare, instantly rendering all other warships obsolete and beginning a naval revolution that culminates in the battleships of World War II.

1903 - The battle for the high ground takes on a new meaning when Orville and Wilbur Wright invent a working airplane. From World War I on, supremacy of the skies becomes crucial to military victory. Aircraft carriers soon supplant battleships as the ultimate projection of force.

1917 - The British army rolls out hundreds of tanks in the World War I Battle of Cambrai in France, routing German forces along a six-mile front. The armored vehicles change the way ground battles are fought and give weary warhorses their first break in centuries.

1944 - As World War II turns against Germany, Adolf Hitler hurls V-2 rockets at the British. With a range of 200 miles and a speed six times faster than any airplane, it is a weapon for which there is no defense. After the war, the United States and Soviet Union use German research, and German engineers, to develop missiles that extend their military reach around the globe.

1945 - U.S. President Harry Truman authorizes the use of atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. The two bombs dropped kill more than 110,000 people instantly and force Japan to surrender. With the ability to unleash more destructive power in a second than had been dealt in all of human history, "The Bomb" changes not only war, but civilization itself.

Mark Diller and Christopher Call
Updated April 17, 2006

The AK-47

The AK-47 (shortened from Russian Avtomat Kalashnikova 1947) is a gas-operated assault rifle designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov, and produced by Russian manufacturer Izhevsk Mechanical Works and used in many Eastern bloc nations during the Cold War. It was adopted and standardized in 1947.

Compared with the auto-loading rifles used in World War II, the AK-47 was generally more compact, with a shorter range, a smaller 7.62 x 39 mm cartridge, and was capable of selective fire. It was one of the first true assault rifles and remains the most widely used. The AK-47 and its numerous variants and descendants have been produced in greater numbers than any other assault rifle and are in production to this day.

During the Second World War, Germany had developed the groundbreaking concept of the assault rifle. This concept was based on the knowledge that most military engagements in modern warfare were happening at fairly close range with the majority happening within 110 yards. The power and range of contemporary rifle cartridges was overly powerful for such engagements. As a result, a cartridge and firearm were sought combining the features of a submachine gun (high-capacity magazine and fully-automatic fire capability) with an intermediate-power cartridge that would be effective to a range of 330 yards.

Despite circumstantial evidence, Mikhail Kalashnikov denies that his rifle was based on the German assault rifle. It is best described as a hybrid of several previous innovations. To support this position, the AK-47 owes more to the M1 Garand Rifle than any German design. The genius in the design of the Kalashnikov rifle is in the simplification of those contributing designs and adaptation to mass production. The AK-47 can be seen as a fusion of the best that the M1 Garand offered combined with the best aspects of the StG44 made by the best processes available in the Soviet Union at the time.

The AK-47 is simple, inexpensive to manufacture and easy to clean and maintain. Its ruggedness and reliability are legendary. The large gas piston, generous clearances between moving parts, and tapered cartridge case design allow the gun to endure large amounts of foreign matter and fouling without failing to cycle. This reliability comes at the cost of accuracy, as the looser tolerances do not allow the precision and consistency that are required of more accurate firearms.

A Brief History of the Tank

The fighting conditions World War I prompted the British Army to begin research into a self-propelled vehicle which could cross trenches, crush barbed wire, and would be impervious to fire from machine-guns. Having already seen a Rolls-Royce Armoured Car, First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill decided to oversee further development. The first successful prototype tank, nicknamed Little Willie, was tested by the British Army on September 6, 1915. For secrecy's sake, the word tank was used to give the workers the impression they were constructing tracked water containers for the British army in Mesopotamia, and it was made official on December 24, 1915.

The first tank became operational when Captain H. W. Mortimore of the Royal Navy took a Mark I into action at Delville Wood during the Battle of the Somme on September 15, 1916. The first successful use of massed tanks in combat occurred at the Battle of Cambrai on November 20, 1917. Tanks were later used again to great effect in the Battle of Amiens, Allied forces breaking an entrenched German position with armoured support. The tank would eventually make trench warfare obsolete, and the thousands of tanks fielded during the war by French and British forces made a significant contribution.

Initial results with tanks were mixed, with problems in reliability (and impatient high command) causing considerable attrition in combat. Deployment in small groups also lessened their tactical value and impact, which was still formidable during first encounters. German forces suffered from shock and lacked counter-weapons, though they did (accidentally) discover solid anti-tank shot, and the use of wider trenches to limit the British tanks' mobility.

A tank is a tracked armoured fighting vehicle, designed to engage enemy forces by the use of direct fire. Characterised by heavy weapons and armour, a tank also has a high degree of mobility that allows it to cross rough terrain at relatively high speeds. While tanks are expensive to operate and logistically demanding, they are among the most formidable and versatile weapons of the modern battlefield, both for their ability to engage other ground targets and their shock value against infantry.

While tanks are powerful fighting machines, they seldom operate alone, being organised into armoured units in combined arms forces. Without such support, tanks, despite their armour and mobility, are vulnerable to infantry, mines, artillery, and air power. Tanks are also at a disadvantage in wooded terrain and urban environments, which cancel the advantages of the tank's long-range firepower, limit the crew's ability to detect potential threats, and can even limit the turret's ability to traverse.

Chemical Weapons

Human beings have been poisoning each other for centuries. But it wasn't until World War I that science advanced and honor declined enough for humans to do it with the ruthless efficiency of the modern age.

The first lethal chemical attacks in that war were none too sophisticated. German troops simply opened canisters of chlorine gas upwind of the Allies. Later, when the British first released poison gas, the wind blew it right back at them. But gas-filled artillery shells fixed that, and both sides embraced chemical war. Before peace came, there were more than a million chemical casualties, and more than 90,000 deaths.

Today, lethal chemical weapons generally fall into one of three categories. Choking agents, such as chlorine gas, attack the respiratory system and destroy lung tissue. Blister agents, such as mustard gas, burn and blister all tissue, from the skin of your face to the membranes of your eyes, nose, and throat. Nerve agents, the most deadly, disable your nervous system, causing your heart and lungs to fail.

Choking Agents

Chlorine and Phosgene Gas

Modern choking agents appeared in 1915. Soon the sight and pungent smell of a green chlorine cloud inspired terror in both sides' trenches. Poet Wilfred Owen, a British officer killed in action just a week before World War I's end, captured the horror of choking gas attack:

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!--An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

But for all the terror, chlorine wasn't the best poison. The green cloud and nauseating smell were tell-tale warnings for troops, who quickly donned protective masks. So, at the end of 1915, the war chemists introduced phosgene gas. It's the world's most deadly choking agent even today. Colorless phosgene gas gives less warning, and causes less coughing, than chlorine, and that allows more gas to reach the lungs. Victims suffocate, as their ravaged lungs fill with fluid.

Blister Agents

Mustard Gas

The chemists introduced mustard gas in 1917 as a way to further foil the defense of gas masks. Choking agents share a weakness: they can't hurt you if you don't inhale. Blister agents like mustard gas have no such weakness. All they need is an unprotected patch of skin.

The name "mustard gas" is a complete red herring. Mustard gas isn't made of mustard--it's a sulfur or nitrogen compound. And it's not a gas--it's a liquid. It's known as mustard gas because it can sometimes take mustard's color and smell, and because it's generally delivered in vapor form.

Once the vapor is released, the oily drops settle to the ground and remain dangerous for days, or even weeks. Even a drop can blister and burn the skin, and leave painful oozing ulcers that can take months to heal. Vapor that's inhaled, or swallowed, or that gets in the eyes can choke, nauseate, and blind, and cause the same ulcers internally. So soldiers confronted with mustard gas must use both masks and clumsy protective suits.

Nerve Agents

Tabun, Sarin, and VX

In the 1930s, German scientists made a horrible advance in chemical weaponry. Experimenting with insecticides, they discovered tabun and sarin, each hundreds of times more toxic than the cyanide gas used to kill in Nazi death camps. Both attack and disrupt the nervous system, leading to cognitive dysfunction, convulsions, and respiratory and cardiac failure. Like mustard gas, they can be delivered as liquid or vapor, so soldiers need masks and protective suits.

Nazi engineers put the new nerve poison in bombs and artillery shells, but for whatever reason, the weapons stayed on the shelf. Saddam Hussein had no such compunctions during the Iran-Iraq War. In 1984, he started using tabun-filled bombs on Iranian troops, the first ever use of a nerve agent in war. In 1987, he started using tabun, sarin, and VX on Iraqi Kurds.

VX, created by British scientists in the 1950s, is the most deadly nerve agent there is, hundreds of times more deadly than sarin when absorbed through the skin. Just a fraction of a milligram can kill. Fortunately, nerve agents do have a flaw: there are antidotes, such as atropine, that will counteract their effects. But the antidote must be injected immediately to work.

Michael Himick
April 19, 2006

The Nuclear Age
The nuclear age began in a small laboratory underneath the football field at the University of Chicago in 1942. There, physicist Enrico Fermi conducted the world's first controlled nuclear reaction. Just three years later, World War II ended with the detonation of nuclear bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. The scientists of the top-secret Manhattan Project did their job terrifyingly well.

Even before the Manhattan Project, scientists knew that certain elements were unstable, slowly emitting energy as their atomic state changed over time. Some of these radioactive elements, uranium and plutonium in particular, could undergo nuclear fission. That is, the nucleus of their atoms could be split into two equal fragments, releasing large amounts of energy and a few stray neutrons, too. If these stray neutrons could strike and split other atoms, physicists figured, you could create a sustained nuclear reaction.

The problem is that it's very difficult to create just the right conditions for a sustained reaction. The solution, scientists found, is to concentrate a sufficient mass of radioactive material together, so that when one atom splits, stray neutrons stand a good chance of striking and splitting some neighbors, which then release more neutrons to continue the chaos. The mass necessary to achieve this chain reaction is known as "critical mass."

Yet it's not enough to have a critical mass of uranium or plutonium. You need the right kind of uranium or plutonium, as each exists in several different isotopes. Isotopes of an element may have the same chemical properties, but because they have different numbers of neutrons in their nucleus, they have different radioactive properties.

Only uranium-235 and plutonium-239 have the right nuclear stuff for sustainable fission. You can mine uranium ore out of the earth, but almost all of the ore is uranium-238, and you'll need to mine huge amounts to extract even a little U-235. The right plutonium is even harder to get, because it doesn't exist in the earth at all. It has to be produced in sophisticated nuclear reactors. Only after these difficult and expensive processes will you have the purified "weapons-grade" material needed for a nuclear weapon.

The thermonuclear weapons in modern arsenals are even more complex--not to mention a thousand times more powerful than the bomb exploded over Hiroshima. First detonated in 1952, thermonuclear, or hydrogen, bombs use the intense heat of a fission reaction to start a second, fusion reaction, in which hydrogen isotopes combine to form helium. To fit together, the hydrogen atoms must lose mass. The mass becomes energy, and kilotons of destructive force become megatons.

Nightmare Scenario

A 10-megaton nuclear weapon (current U.S. warhead strength) creates an explosion equivalent to the detonation of 10 million tons of TNT. That's 10 million tons versus less than 200 pounds of nuclear fuel. Half of the energy released by a nuclear explosion is in the blast itself. Pressure waves emanating from a 10-megaton blast would exceed 30 pounds per square inch and generate winds in excess of 700 miles per hour. Such winds could knock down steel-and-concrete buildings with ease. Even 20 miles away, the blast would shatter windows and uproot trees.

Temperatures around ground zero would rise to more than 20 million degrees Fahrenheit--hotter than the sun. Everything in a 2-mile radius would be vaporized. Ten miles out, materials like glass and steel would melt. At 15 miles, temperatures would reach 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit, igniting all combustible materials and producing innumerable fires. Even at distances greater than 20 miles, humans would suffer serious burns in the intense heat.

Still, despite the massive damage it can cause, the explosion itself is for many the least worrisome aspect of nuclear weapons. When the smoke clears and the fires are out, the bomb's most insidious effect remains: radiation.

Radiation is all around you. It bombards you every moment of your life, everywhere you go. Don't panic, though--radiation is simply traveling energy, and most of it is harmless. Only some forms, like ultraviolet light and X-rays, are harmful if you're exposed too long. Radiation like this, called ionizing radiation, contains enough energy to break down chemical bonds in substances that absorb it.

Radioactive elements like uranium and plutonium emit, among other things, gamma rays, packing 10,000 times more energy than visible light. Gamma rays can pass right through humans. Only dense materials like lead can block them. Because gamma radiation can penetrate human tissue, even external exposure is harmful, causing the ionization of atoms in your body. This leads to massive cellular damage, resulting in system-wide "radiation sickness" and, with enough exposure, death.

Although damage from the blast, heat, and even external radiation burns may heal over time, the ionizing damage done to the DNA in human cells will remain. Sooner or later, the body's own replication of damaged DNA leads to the final danger of a nuclear blast: cancer, mutation, and genetic abnormalities. The final fatalities can take years--even decades--to occur.

Christopher Call
February 14, 2005

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