weapons
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
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
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
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
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
weapons
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
weapons
The battle at Kings Mountain in October 1780 was the only clash of the American Revolution in which the entire colonial force was armed with American long rifles. Read more
weapons
By the latter part of the 15th century, armor worn by knights in the field had reached its pinnacle. Read more
weapons
Early in 1945, in the Northern Appenine mountains of Italy, T/5 Harvey, a radioman with the 10th Mountain Division, is carrying his WW2 radio backpack, the ever-handy SCR-300, into combat for the first time. Read more
weapons
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
weapons
According to contemporary Soviet news sources, fighter Ace Alexander Pokryshkin was the most famous pilot in the Red Air Force during World War II. Read more
weapons
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
weapons
They said it couldn’t be done. Doubters chided Henry Ford for declaring that his Willow Run Bomber Plant could turn out a B-24 Liberator heavy bomber every hour. Read more
weapons
Vasily Emelianenko led a flight of Soviet Ilyushin IL-2 Shturmoviks, or “Storm Birds,” in late June 1942 against a German-held airfield near Artemovsk in eastern Ukraine, flying low up a deep ravine to avoid detection. Read more
weapons
A small party of about 40 German soldiers had infiltrated the Australian lines around the besieged town of Tobruk, Libya, during the night of April 13, 1941. Read more
weapons
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
weapons
Captain John E. Donovan, an electronic warfare officer, monitored the equipment in his F-100F Super Sabre fighter. It was December 22, 1965, and his plane was part of a strike mission searching out enemy antiaircraft sites. Read more
weapons
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
weapons
In 1778, the Rhode Island legislature passed a law that allowed black slaves to enter the war in order to gain their freedom. Read more
weapons
When it came to advanced military technology in World War II, arguably no one was better at it than Nazi Germany, whose scientists Adolf Hitler keep busy trying to invent the ultimate “super weapon” capable of defeating his enemies. Read more
