Category: Weapons and Technology
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…
Big Shots – Amusettes, Jingals and Other Super-Sized Firearms
“Pioneered as far back as the late Middle Ages, amusettes, wall guns and rampart guns eventually found their way into the arsenals of most 18th Century European armies.” LARGER THAN A musket, but not large enough to…
Solar Power – The Strange History of ‘Weaponized Sunlight’
A 37-FLOOR London office tower made headlines last Wednesday after its curved, all-glass mirror design reflected (and then intensified) the afternoon sunlight enough to melt a number of vehicles parked on a street below….
