weapons

The RAF’s Dambusting Lancaster Bomber

In the summer of 2018 a British father and son who were catching crabs along Reculver Beach in Kent stumbled upon a historical item of intense value. Read more

weapons

The A-6 Intruder in Vietnam

It was dark and difficult to see on the night of April 18, 1966, but the U.S. Navy was counting on that. Read more

weapons

Nuclear Submarine Disaster

Even in the age of ultra-sophisticated nuclear submarines, with their advanced computers, sonar, navigation, and communication systems, the hard truth is inescapable: the sea is the most hostile environment on Earth. Read more

weapons

The Elefant Tank Destroyer

It is dusk on July 17, 1943. The Red Army has not only withstood Hitler’s Operation Citadel to eliminate the Kursk salient, but it has launched its own offensive. Read more

weapons

The M50A1 Ontos Anti-tank Vehicle

On January 30, 1968, eight battalions of North Vietnamese Army infantry infiltrated the city of Hue in South Vietnam. Read more

weapons

The U.S. Navy’s Defective Mark 14 Torpedo

Lieutenant Dan Daspit, captain of the U.S. submarine Tinosa could not believe his luck. Framed neatly in the periscope eyepiece was a sitting duck. Read more

weapons

Hitler’s Wonder Weapons

Imagine that you are an Allied soldier in the ETO. You are in your foxhole on the front line, looking and listening for any sign that the Germans are about to attack your position. Read more

weapons

The M29 Weasel: The WWII Track Vehicle Never Used as Intended

The M29 Weasel was a machine conceived by a bizarre British chemist obsessed with ice for a unit that did not exist and a mission that never occurred. Read more

weapons

Ordnance: The Piper L-4 “Eyes in the Sky”

Despite being caught up in the tide of isolationism prevalent duringthe interval between the world wars, the United States Army was lucky enough to have Congressional funding for the further development and expansion of its fledgling air arm, known initially in 1926 as the Army Air Corps and in 1941 renamed the Army Air Forces. Read more

weapons

Junkers Ju-87 Stuka: What Made the Luftwaffe Vulture so Fearsome

One of the deadliest and most effective airplanes of the Axis powers, the Junkers Ju-87 Stuka, owed its origin to a fearless World War I ace and, ironically, to innovative American aviation visionaries in the peaceful early 1930s. Read more

weapons

The T-34 Tank: The Story of Soviet Russia’s Rugged Armored Vehicle

December 1941 was a dark month and the end of a dark year for the Soviets as the Germans pressed ever onward toward Moscow, the lair where Joseph Stalin and his minions plotted what to do next against the Nazi juggernaut that had, in a few short months, rolled over everything before them. Read more

weapons

World War II British Submarine Operations in the Pacific

By Arnold Blumberg

During World War II, after the Royal Navy’s traumatic departure from the Pacific Ocean in early 1942, the 4th Submarine Flotilla and its depot ship, the HMS Adamant, operated with the Eastern Fleet based at Trincomalee––a large, natural harbor located on the coast of Sri Lanka in the heart of the Indian Ocean. Read more

weapons

Ordnance: Boeing B-29 Superfortress Game Changer

The Boeing B-29 Superfortress was a game changer. First rolling off the assembly line as a production aircraft in July 1943, the Superfortress was the answer to America’s need for a high-level long-range strategic bomber. Read more

weapons

Confederate Submarine H. L. Hunley

At the start of the American Civil War in April 1861, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed that he planned to blockade the Confederacy by stationing warships in waters off its shores. Read more

weapons

Weapons: WWII PT Boats

By William F. Floyd, Jr.

Late in the day on October 24, 1944, all of the available 39 patrol torpedo (PT) boats of the U.S. Read more