Weaponry: A History :: essays research papers

Weaponry A HistoryWhat is the most perverting power in history? Is it a rocket torpedo that shoots sequent to the surface from a submarine, flies through the air toward an adversary sub, and hence dives at its target? Is it the electrically powered machine gun that spews bug out 110 rounds per second to obliterate its opponent completely? Maybe its an intercontinental ballistic missile armed with nuclear warheads, capable of cleanup hundreds of thousands with a single atomic bomb. Then again, is it the tank with thermal-imaging sight that senses an enemy vehicles heat so it can seeand eat upeven it total darkness? Actually, it is none of these. One must go all the way back to the beginning of weapons development, when humans first calculate out that certain tools made warfare a lot more effective. A persons arm, for example, could not throw a endocarp or stick very far, so people devised slings and sharp tips to let their projectiles travel farther, faster and land harder. Iron-tipped spears, javelins and swords came into existence when humans learned to work and shape metals thousands of years ago. Other early warfare devices included bows and arrows, catapults , and with the jejuneness of the horse, the horse-driven chariot. None of these primitive weapons seem to answer the above question, so deletion ahead to the transport of gunpowder from China to Europe in the ordinal century. With the introduction of gunpowder, the armor of the famed knights in shining armor piecemeal became enforceless against the penetration of ammunition shot from a harquebus, musket, or stem . By the fourteenth century, most European armies used gunpowder, rockets and other explosives in warfare. Yet the art of war was revolutionized again by the revolver and the reflexive firearm in the nineteenth century.The first major war to use the rapid-fire guns was WWI. New contraptions were needed to protect the soldiers, now hudd conduct in trenches, uneffective to move, let alone fight. Enter the tank. Infantry could now be on the offensive. Progress in the building of warships led to stronger, more lethal submarines that shoot torpedoes from beneath the waves. Torpedo-boat destroyers were then created to combat the submarines. Germanys defeat in WWI led to its development of ballistic missiles, one of the inventions that reformed warfare again. Advances in self-activating weapons and aviation were the latest innovations on the battlefront. However, it was the deadliest weapon ever created- the atomic bomb- that opinionated and ended the war once and for all.