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FEATURED ARTICLE:
Important Weapons For Modern War
It seems that throughout history, modern and ancient, the greatest efforts expended by man have been directed towards the development of war weapons. Socialists will say it is actually because of the aggressive nature of man, who endeavored most of all to dominate his fellows as a matter of survival. If a man can command others he has a substantial buffer against outside pressures since he can marshal others to face the dangers before he himself has to.
Humanists will say, on the other hand, that it is in reaction to the aggression of people with greater means, the lesser ones trying to blunt, if not neutralize, the superiority of the enemy in say, number of weapons, via a superior weapon. This is the essence of Hitler’s vergeltungswaffen, the V1 and V2 rockets, and the Messerchmitt262, the first jetfighter ever to fly. Adolf Hitler sought to counter the Allied Powers’ superiority in weapons quantity and men through ‘miracle weapons’ or, more exactly, ‘vengeance weapons’.
But the landmark world war weapons are not the rockets, but the tanks. In both World War 1 and World War 2, the tank was the decisive weapon in many battles in various fronts: Africa, Europe, Russia and Poland. With tanks, much territory was captured or great damage inflicted on the enemy that for him retreat was the only option. The introduction of the first tanks in the Battle of the Somme caused so much consternation on the Germans they were forced to give up so much ground. Technology won the day for the Allies at the time.
So the tank became the building block of aggressive blitzkrieg warfare by Germany –along with air offensives--- in the panzer divisions of the next war. Tank formations enabled Heinz Guderian’s forces to penetrate very deeply into French territory in the first days of the conflict that they would have reached the English Channel had Hitler not stopped him. Hitler and his generals believed Guderian was exaggerating his successes, and ordered him to stop in his tracks. So the British Army was saved at Dunkirk.
But among the civil war weapons, perhaps the bayonet was the most important. Although it has been used before in many conflicts, it came to effective use during the American Civil War, when both sides fought hand-to-hand combat in substantive numbers with it. Since repeating rifles were at its initial development at the time, the primary close quarters infantry weapon was the bayonet, not the sword, a cavalry weapon. After the musket, the bayonet was the second most effective killing instrument at the time.
For the Middle Ages, the most notable of medieval weapons, though not for offense but for defense, is the knight’s armor. Wearing it, a knight can smite a hundred unprotected foot soldiers without suffering a scratch, fight a similarly-clad knight for a day without anyone winning if of equal expertise, and rest for the night as if nothing has happened, to fight the next day. He is much protected in his suit of armor that he can confident of surviving every battle, until the English long bow gave him his match.
But that is another weapon for further discussion.