Category: Weapons and Technology
Back to the Drawing Board — The Stupidest Weapons Ever Invented
IN 1914, machines guns were anything but portable. Weapons like the Maxim, Vickers or Hotchkiss were cumbersome and bulky. And with a weight of about 50 lbs. (not counting ammunition), the weapons needed to…
The Bob Semple Tank – Meet New Zealand’s Strange Home-Grown Armoured Vehicle
“Prototypes of this curious tank were slapped together in the early 1940s amid growing panic in New Zealand over the threat of a Japanese invasion.” THE GERMANS named some of the their most powerful tanks after…
The Other ‘Silent Service’ – U.S. Navy Airships of WW2
“Despite their contributions to the Allied war effort, blimp crews fought in relative obscurity.” WHEN AMERICA suddenly found itself at war following the attack on Pearl Harbor, military planners in Washington realized they had neither…
Little Shots — Meet the Cold War’s Smallest Nukes
“In the event of a shooting war in Europe between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, allied commanders fully expected to use hundreds, even thousands, of the small 50-pound projectiles.” THE SOVIET TSAR Bomba is remembered as the…
The Last Gunfighters – History’s Final Piston-Engine Warplanes
“Despite the arrival of jets, propellor-driven fighter planes (most of them obsolete) continued to do battle in many of the world’s hotspots for another 25 years.” THE AGE OF the jet fighter officially began on July…
The ‘Tsar Bomba’ – The Day the Soviets Set Off the Biggest Nuke In History
“Throughout the 1950s, both Cold War superpowers were engaged in an explosive game of one-upmanship to see which country could develop the largest nuclear weapon. This new Russian warhead ended that contest in a blinding…
