The Coal Torpedo – The Confederacy’s Own Improvised Explosive Device
“Although the tiny charges were far too small to destroy an enemy vessel outright, a blast by one could potentially rupture a ship’s water boiler causing a catastrophic secondary explosion.” THE CONFEDERACY MAY well have lagged…
Cold Wars – Just How Freezing Was It On History’s Most Bone-Chilling Battlefields?
“Sub-zero temperatures, driving snow and winter storms didn’t stop some of history’s armies from soldiering on.” (Originally publishing on Jan. 10, 2014) THIS PAST WEEK, much of North America was in the grip of a…
Barbed Wire War – How One Farmer’s Innovation Changed The Battlefield
“One expert estimated that by 1918, at least a million miles of the stuff had been strung throughout Flanders alone – enough to circle the earth 40 times.” PERHAPS NOTHING IS MORE emblematic of warfare…
Unsinkable! – Meet Military History’s Luckiest Mariners
“By 8 a.m., the warship had turtled and Wykeham-Musgrave was in the drink yet again – his third plunge in fewer than 90 minutes.” Wenman Wykeham-Musgrave, a midshipman aboard HMS Aboukir at the outbreak of…
“We Have Ways of Making You Talk” — How One Nazi Used Kindness to Draw Secrets from POWs
“One German interrogator managed to draw crucial military secrets from more than 90 percent of Allied fliers he questioned. And he did so using some rather unconventional methods — namely kindness.” WHILE TALK RADIO hosts, political…
Technicolor Revolutionaries – The Red, White, Blue and Green Armies of the Russian Civil War
Most remember the Russian Civil War as a fight between the Bolsheviks or Red Army and the anti-communist White Russian forces. While it’s true that these two opposing factions represented the largest and most powerful…
