sword Archives

A panther tank and panzer grenadiers of the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking help to break the encirclement of the Russian town of Kowel in the strategically important area of the Pripet Marshes.

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Waffen SS General Felix Steiner’s WWII Legacy

By Pat McTaggart

“Where is Steiner?” Adolf Hitler demanded as his Thousand Year Reich crumbled around him in April 1945. “Is he attacking yet?” Read more

European knights battle Seljuq Turks outside the walls of Antioch. The city was a stronghold blocking the Crusaders’ way to the Holy Land.

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Deus le Veult! The Siege of Antioch

By John Murphy, Jr.

Shortly before dawn on June 3, 1098, Bohemund of Taranto, one of the leaders of the First Crusade and the survivor of many campaigns, stood in the shadow of the Tower of the Two Sisters, one of the strongest points in the defenses of the ancient city of Antioch. Read more

Roman legionaries clamber out of galleys and wade toward the battle on the English shore.

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Julius Caesar’s Expedition to Brittania

By Ludwig Dyck

By the summer of 55 bc, 45-year-old Roman proconsul Gaius Julius Caesar was a veteran military campaigner. For the past three years, under his lead, the tramp of hobnailed sandals had resounded across the countryside of Gaul, the westernmost province of the Roman empire. Read more

Wounded but triumphant, Grand Master Pierre D’Aubusson receives homage from his worshipful Knights Hospitallers after beating back the Turkish siege of Rhodes.

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Siege of Rhodes: The Will Of The Hospitallers

By William McPeak

Although the great Crusades were over by 1309 ad, one old crusading order continued to evolve, flourish, and make enemies—the Knights Hospitallers of St. Read more

By 1135, there were probably five thousand medieval knights in England, but they differed little from their great-grandfathers who fought with William the Conqueror at Hastings.

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Medieval Knights: Arms and Armor at Northallerton

by Terry Gore

Numerous pictorial representations show us the arms and armor of the 12th-century Anglo-Norman knight, the most famous being the Bayeux Tapestry. Read more

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The Roman Gladius

By Gabriele Esposito

Few weapons in world history have had such great tactical importance as the Roman gladius. To understand the importance this short sword had on the battlefields of antiquity, it is best to start with the Roman historian Livy. Read more

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Sinking the USS Reuben James

By Joseph Connor, Jr.

When the destroyer USS Reuben James (DD-245) was assigned to convoy duty in the North Atlantic in the autumn of 1941, its crew had a sense of foreboding and feared the worst. Read more

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Vanguard of Elephants on the Hydaspes River

By Gabrielle Esposito

The Macedonian soldiers stood transfixed on the flood plain as the Pauravan army advanced toward them. The ground shook with each step the great lumbering war elephants took as they advanced toward the wide-eyed Greeks. Read more

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The Wars of the Roses: The Weapons That Defined the English Civil Wars

By William F. Floyd, Jr.

The men of Bridport on the coast of southwestern England kept extra weapons on hand to deal with the raids endemic during the Hundred Years War that preceded the Wars of the Roses. Read more

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Sabers, Scimitars, and Swords

By Victor Kamenir

On the coat of arms of Finland, a crowned lion tramples upon a curved sword with his hind paws while brandishing a straight sword in his right forepaw. Read more

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Battle of Chickamauga: Death in the Deep Woods

By Cowan Brew

It was nearly 11 on the morning of September 20, 1863, and the woods around slow-moving Chickamauga Creek in northwest Georgia were ominously quiet. Read more

Although first dismissed by some older veterans, soldiers in World War II eventually warmed up to the Lee-Enfield Rifle and came to appreciate its benefits.

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The Lee-Enfield Rifle and its Effectiveness in World War II

By Arnold Blumberg

By 1901, the Small Arms Committee—the body within the War Office tasked with arming the British Army with weapons—sought to replace their then-standard issue rifle: the Magazine Lee-Metford Rifle Mark II. Read more

Robert Taylor’s painting Valor in the Pacific shows Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers of the 499th Bomb Group, 20th Air Force, headed home to bases in the Marianas after dropping their cargoes of death and destruction on Tokyo. Low on fuel, their escort of P-51 Mustang fighters begins to turn away toward bases of their own.

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Prelude to Iwo Jima: The Japanese Assault On B-29 Base On Marianas

By Michael P. Slater

From an altitude of 30,000 feet, the swift Japanese reconnaissance aircraft flew high over Saipan and Tinian, photographing the brisk and extensive engineering effort under way on the American airfields far below. Read more

To a casual observer there would be little to distinguish an Anglo-Saxon thegn from his Norse Viking counterpart.

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Norse Viking Warriors vs. Anglo-Saxon Thegns

By Eric Niderost

It can indeed be rather difficult to understand the differences between Anglo-Saxon thegns and the Norse Viking warriors. Read more

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The Spear, Axe & Sword: Viking Weapons

by Michael Haskew

The fearsome Vikings who pillaged and colonized throughout Western Europe and much of the known world from the Eighth to the 11th centuries were armed with weaponry that served them well in combat. Read more

In 1571, Don Juan set out to confront the Muslim fleet Lepanto. But what kind of soldiers did he battle with?

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Muslim Equipment at the Battle of Lepanto

William J. McPeak

The Muslims at the Battle of Lepanto still wore turbans and headdresses, along with the occasional steel cap with their usual kilij sabre and flowing robes. Read more

The armies that gathered on June 18, 1053 for the Battle of Civitate, or Civitella del Fortore, were not so disparate as the numbers might indicate.

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The Battle of Civitate (Civitella del Fortore)

by Terry Gore

It is true that the Normans were greatly outnumbered at the Battle of Civitate, likely by as much as two to one or more. Read more

The 15th century was the golden age for medieval knight armor. Warriors would often cover themselves in a suit of arms made of iron plate, enveloping their bodies in a metal coating.

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Medieval Knight Armor: The Iron Plate Suit of Arms

Brooke C. Stoddard

The golden age of armor lasted from about 1400 to 1550. And what an age it was. Who can look at a fine suit of armor from this period and not feel a mixture of pity and awe? Read more

From Around the Network

Ironclads at War

Action off Santa Cruz: Last Stand of the USS Hornet

Battling for Bougainville

Collecting Tanker Helmets