Innovations of War: The Evolution of Tactical Military Weapons (2015)

No single piece of hardware dominates modern land warfare like the tank. Heavily armored, possessing devastating fire power, and highly mobile over broken terrain, it enables commanders to exploit even the smallest enemy weakness.

The machine gun was to be a major killer, but, at first, did not revolutionize the battlefield. Indeed, early use of the machine gun was limited. Some of the earliest firearms and attempts at higher rates of fire and some machine gun like traits existed as early as the 16th century. However, it would not be until the mid 19th century that successful machine gun designs came into existence.

Nothing could have been more fortuitous than the timing of the Civil War's coming. At least so far as the makers of weapons were concerned. For the men who had to use and suffer by those arms, of course, it was a different story. Because only now was the nation technologically ready for a civil war.

Many believe that it was the ominous sound of cannon fire that heralded the true end of the Middle Ages. The cannon certainly had a major impact in sieges and battles. Initially, they were prized for their ability to destroy stone walls, and thereby end sieges.

The Civil War is renowned for the introduction and employment of many new weapons, including rifled artillery, machine guns, and submarines. To this list should also be added railroads. The three most important, game changing technologies of the American Civil War were the railroad, the use of the telegraph, and the development of the mini-bullet and the rifled musket.

Although fleet or squadron operations continued an historic role, the daring of the individual still possessed the potential to destroy a Goliath. Stealth, deception, and hoax were employed alongside conventional military confrontation. On occasion, the Army's prerogatives became interchangeable with the Navy's. Soldiers attacked ships, sailors raided shore targets.

On the night of September 6th, 1776, a small group of men on the shore of New York Harbor silently lowered a most peculiar-looking craft named the American Turtle into the water. It carried an underwater bomb. The Turtle was not the first submarine craft, but it was the first used in war. A new age in warfare was about to be ushered in.

Imagine you're a third world dictator with delusions of grandeur. You've spent a good deal of your nation's gross national product on state of the art weaponry. You're thinking that might bring you increased access to shipping lanes or some useful natural resources. One morning you wake up, and see, floating offshore, in perfectly legal international waters a couple of American warships.

The longbow was the machine gun of the Middle Ages. Accurate, deadly, possessing a long range and rapid rate of fire. By the 16th century, firearms replaced bows as their potential was grasped. Edward Gibbon was to claim that gunpowder effected a new revolution in the art of war and the history of mankind, a bold but not overly fantastic claim. Gunpowder weaponry first developed in China.

Science and the military have not always been allies. One of science's fundamental principals is that great discoveries are meant to be shared. The military believes exactly the opposite. Traditionally, science and the military have cooperated only in wartime. Then, scientific knowledge becomes a closely held secret, and money and resources pour into research that might have military significance.

The first rockets were invented by the Chinese more than a thousand years ago. A byproduct of their invention of gunpowder, rockets were used to add extra flare to fireworks displays. It was inevitable that these far-reaching projectiles would eventually take on militaristic applications.

The beginning of the 20th century saw the pioneers of vertical flight resolving many of the problems that kept their crafts from getting off the ground.