Category: Weapons and Technology
Fanciful Flattops — Three Amazing Aircraft Carriers that Might Have Changed History
“By 1940, the carrier, now christened the Graf Zeppelin, was still not yet ready for service — a shortage of anti-aircraft guns kept her in the shipyards.” EVEN BEFORE THE OUTBREAK of the Second World War,…
Two-Wheeled Warriors – A Brief History of Bicycles on the Battlefield
“Bike riding infantry could carry heavier loads father and faster than men on foot, and riders would still have the energy to charge into battle, even after hours of pedalling.” THE BICYCLE (as we know it…
Heavyweights — The Monster Super Tanks of World War Two
“Small, thinly armoured and under-gunned, the first tanks of World War Two were light-weights when compared to the lumbering beasts that would lurch off production lines within a few short years.” TO UNDERSTAND JUST how…
The First Dogfighters – How History’s Earliest Combat Pilots Improvised Aerial Warfare
“Many of the principles of air to air combat still in use today were improvised on the fly (literally) by pilots who were making it up as they went along.” THE WORLD’S MILITARIES were among…
The First Air Forces – A Century of Balloons at War
The great, great grand nephew of a U.S. Civil War-era military ballooning pioneer was on hand this week in Buffalo, New York to view a local museum’s working replica of his famous ancestor’s creation. According…
How Not To Be Seen – The Art, Science and History of Camouflage
THE UNITED STATES military is abandoning its recently-adopted pixelated camouflage uniforms, according to the army newspaper Stars and Stripes. The drab grey digital scheme, known as the Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP), will be discarded after only eight…
