1.
Heavy machine gun
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The heavy machine gun or HMG is a class of machine gun implying greater characteristics than medium machine guns. There are two generally recognized classes of weapons identified as heavy machine guns, the first is weapons from World War I identified as heavy due to the weight and encumberment of the weapons themselves. The term was used to refer to the generation of machine guns which came into widespread use in World War I. However, these came at the cost of being too cumbersome to move quickly. Thus, in sense, the heavy aspect of the weapon referred to the weapons bulk and ability to sustain fire. This class of weapons was best exemplified by the Maxim gun, invented by the American inventor Hiram Maxim, the Maxim was the most ubiquitous machine gun of World War I, variants of which were fielded simultaneously by three separate warring nations. The modern definition refers to a class of machine guns. In this sense, the aspect of the weapon refers to its superior power and range over light- and medium-caliber weapons. This class of machine gun came into use during World War II. A similar HMG capacity was later fielded by the Soviets in the form of Vasily Degtyaryovs DShK in 12. 7×108mm. In the late 19th century, Gatling guns and other externally powered types such as the Nordenfelt were often made in a variety of calibers, due to their multiple barrels, overheating was not so much of an issue, but they were also quite heavy. When Maxim developed his recoil-powered machine gun using a barrel, his first main design weighed a modest 26 pounds. A famous photo of Maxim showed him picking it up by its 15-pound tripod with one arm and it was similar to present-day medium machine guns, but it could not be fired for extended periods due to overheating. As a result, Maxim created a water cooling system to enable it to fire for extended periods. However, this added significant weight, as did the change to more powerful rifle cartridges, there were thus two main types of heavy, rapid-fire weapons, the manually powered, multiple-barrel machine guns and the single-barrel Maxim guns. By the end of the 19th century, many new designs such as the M1895 Colt–Browning, also, rather than the heavy water jacket, new designs introduced other types of barrel cooling, such as barrel replacement, metal fins, heat sinks or some combination of these. Machine guns diverged into heavier and lighter designs, the later model water-cooled Maxim guns and its derivatives the MG08 and the Vickers, as well as the American M1917 Browning machine gun, were all substantial weapons. The.303 Vickers, for example, weighed 33 lb and was mounted on a tripod that brought the weight to 50 lb
2.
Anti-materiel rifle
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An anti-materiel rifle is a rifle that is designed for use against military equipment, rather than against other combatants. The origins of the anti-materiel rifle go back to the First World War, while modern tanks and most other armored vehicles are too well protected to be affected by anti-materiel rifles, the guns are still effective for attacking unarmored or lightly armored vehicles. They can also be used against stationary enemy aircraft, missile launchers, radar equipment, small watercraft, communications equipment, crew served weapons and their value is in being able to precisely target and disable enemy assets from long range for a relatively low cost. Despite having been designed to be used against equipment, the rifles also proved useful in dispatching enemy personnel from superior range, including enemy snipers. This, however, requires that the enemy cannot use arms with similar effective range – which e. g. was the case during the War on Terror in Afghanistan, the latter theater is the site of the farthest scored hit with an AMR in combat. The offensive use of rifles or special application scoped rifles is termed hard target interdiction by the United States military. Anti-materiel rifles can also be used in roles, e. g. for safely destroying unexploded ordnance. In general, anti-materiel rifles are chambered for 12. 7×99mm NATO,12. 7×108mm Russian,14. 5×114mm Russian, the recoil produced by the employed cartridges dictates that these rifles are designed to be fired from the prone position. Bipods and monopods and muzzle brakes are used as accessories to employ these rifles as comfortably and accurately as possible, due to the considerable size and weight of anti-materiel rifles and other support equipment, sniper cells operating in 2- or 3-man or larger teams have become a necessity. This section lists some anti-materiel rifles, sorted by country where the weapon was originally designed and/or manufactured
3.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
4.
Winter War
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The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland in 1939–1940. It began with the Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, the League of Nations deemed the attack illegal and expelled the Soviet Union from the League on 14 December 1939. Finland refused and the USSR invaded the country, the Soviets possessed more than three times as many soldiers as the Finns, thirty times as many aircraft, and a hundred times as many tanks. The Red Army, however, had been crippled by Soviet leader Joseph Stalins Great Purge of 1937. With more than 30,000 of its officers executed or imprisoned, including most of those of the highest ranks, because of these factors, and high morale in the Finnish forces, Finland repelled Soviet attacks for several months, much longer than the Soviets expected. However, after reorganization and adoption of different tactics, the renewed Soviet offensive overcame Finnish defenses at the borders, hostilities ceased in March 1940 with the signing of the Moscow Peace Treaty. Finland ceded territory representing 11% of its area and 13% of its economy to the Soviet Union. Soviet losses were heavy, and the international reputation suffered. While the Soviet Union did not conquer all Finland, Soviet gains exceeded their pre-war demands and they gained substantial territory along Lake Ladoga, providing a buffer for Leningrad, and territory in northern Finland. Finland retained its sovereignty and enhanced its international reputation, the end of the war cancelled the Franco-British plan to send troops to Finland through northern Scandinavia. One of the goals of the projected Franco-British operation had been to take control of northern Swedens iron ore. For this reason it was also a factor in the launching of Operation Weserübung, Nazi Germanys invasion of Denmark. The poor performance of the Red Army encouraged Hitler to think that an attack on the Soviet Union would be successful, until the beginning of the 19th century, Finland constituted the eastern part of the Kingdom of Sweden. In 1809, to protect their capital, Saint Petersburg. While abortive because of Russias internal strife, these attempts ruined Russias relations with the Finns, the new Bolshevik Russian government was weak, and with the threat of civil war looming Soviet Russia recognized the new Finnish government just three weeks after the declaration of independence. Sovereignty was fully achieved in May 1918 after a civil war. Finland joined the League of Nations in 1920, from which it sought security guarantees, nevertheless, the government of Sweden carefully avoided committing itself to Finnish foreign policy. Another Finnish military policy was the top secret military cooperation between Finland and Estonia, the 1920s and early 1930s were a politically unstable time in Finland
5.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
6.
Korean War
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The Korean War began when North Korea invaded South Korea. The United Nations, with the United States as the principal force, China came to the aid of North Korea, and the Soviet Union gave some assistance. Korea was ruled by Japan from 1910 until the days of World War II. In August 1945, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, as a result of an agreement with the United States, U. S. forces subsequently moved into the south. By 1948, as a product of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, Korea was split into two regions, with separate governments, both governments claimed to be the legitimate government of all of Korea, and neither side accepted the border as permanent. The conflict escalated into open warfare when North Korean forces—supported by the Soviet Union, on that day, the United Nations Security Council recognized this North Korean act as invasion and called for an immediate ceasefire. On 27 June, the Security Council adopted S/RES/83, Complaint of aggression upon the Republic of Korea and decided the formation, twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force, with the United States providing 88% of the UNs military personnel. After the first two months of war, South Korean forces were on the point of defeat, forced back to the Pusan Perimeter, in September 1950, an amphibious UN counter-offensive was launched at Inchon, and cut off many North Korean troops. Those who escaped envelopment and capture were rapidly forced back north all the way to the border with China at the Yalu River, at this point, in October 1950, Chinese forces crossed the Yalu and entered the war. Chinese intervention triggered a retreat of UN forces which continued until mid-1951, after these reversals of fortune, which saw Seoul change hands four times, the last two years of fighting became a war of attrition, with the front line close to the 38th parallel. The war in the air, however, was never a stalemate, North Korea was subject to a massive bombing campaign. Jet fighters confronted each other in combat for the first time in history. The fighting ended on 27 July 1953, when an armistice was signed, the agreement created the Korean Demilitarized Zone to separate North and South Korea, and allowed the return of prisoners. However, no treaty has been signed, and the two Koreas are technically still at war. Periodic clashes, many of which are deadly, continue to the present, in the U. S. the war was initially described by President Harry S. Truman as a police action as it was an undeclared military action, conducted under the auspices of the United Nations. In South Korea, the war is referred to as 625 or the 6–2–5 Upheaval. In North Korea, the war is referred to as the Fatherland Liberation War or alternatively the Chosǒn War. In China, the war is called the War to Resist U. S
7.
Portuguese Colonial War
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The Portuguese regime was overthrown by a military coup in 1974, and the change in government brought the conflict to an end. The war was an ideological struggle in Lusophone Africa and surrounding nations. The prevalent Portuguese and international historical approach considers the Portuguese Colonial War as a conflict fought in three separate theaters of operations. However, some other approaches consider the existence of three conflicts, the Angolan War of Independence, the Guinea-Bissau War of Independence. Occasionally, the conflict that led to the 1961 Indian Annexation of Goa is also included. During the ensuing conflict, atrocities were committed by all forces involved, throughout the period Portugal faced increasing dissent, arms embargoes and other punitive sanctions imposed by the international community. The end of the war came with the Carnation Revolution military coup of April 1974 and this migration is regarded as one of the largest peaceful migrations in the worlds history. The former colonies faced severe problems after independence, devastating and violent civil wars followed in Angola and Mozambique, which lasted several decades, claimed millions of lives, and resulted in large numbers of displaced refugees. A level of order and economic development comparable to what had existed under Portuguese rule, including during the period of the Colonial War. Portugal had been the first modern European power to establish a colony in Africa when it captured Ceuta in 1415, when the Portuguese began trading on the west coast of Africa, in the 15th century, they concentrated their energies on Guinea and Angola. Hoping at first for gold, they found that slaves were the most valuable commodity available in the region for export. The Islamic Empire was already well-established in the African slave trade, but the Portuguese never established much more than a foothold in either place. In Guinea, rival Europeans grabbed much of the trade while local African rulers confined the Portuguese to the coast and these rulers then sent enslaved Africans to the Portuguese ports, or to forts in Africa from where they were exported. Thousands of kilometers down the coast, in Angola, the Portuguese found it harder to consolidate their early advantage against encroachments by Dutch, British. Nevertheless, the fortified Portuguese towns of Luanda and Benguela remained almost continuously in Portuguese hands, as in Guinea, the slave trade became the basis of the local economy in Angola. More than a million men, women and children were shipped from Angola across the Atlantic, in this region, unlike Guinea, the trade remained largely in Portuguese hands. Nearly all the slaves were destined for Brazil and these sertanejos lived alongside Swahili traders and even obtained employment among Shona kings as interpreters and political advisers. One such sertanejo managed to travel through almost all the Shona kingdoms, including the Mutapa Empires metropolitan district, the Portuguese finally entered into direct relations with the Mwenemutapa in the 1560s
8.
Vietnam War
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It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and the government of South Vietnam. The war is considered a Cold War-era proxy war. As the war continued, the actions of the Viet Cong decreased as the role. U. S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery, in the course of the war, the U. S. conducted a large-scale strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam. The North Vietnamese government and the Viet Cong were fighting to reunify Vietnam and they viewed the conflict as a colonial war and a continuation of the First Indochina War against forces from France and later on the United States. The U. S. government viewed its involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam and this was part the domino theory of a wider containment policy, with the stated aim of stopping the spread of communism. Beginning in 1950, American military advisors arrived in what was then French Indochina, U. S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with troop levels tripling in 1961 and again in 1962. Regular U. S. combat units were deployed beginning in 1965, despite the Paris Peace Accord, which was signed by all parties in January 1973, the fighting continued. In the U. S. and the Western world, a large anti-Vietnam War movement developed as part of a larger counterculture, the war changed the dynamics between the Eastern and Western Blocs, and altered North–South relations. Direct U. S. military involvement ended on 15 August 1973, the capture of Saigon by the North Vietnamese Army in April 1975 marked the end of the war, and North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year. The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities, estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed vary from 966,000 to 3.8 million. Some 240, 000–300,000 Cambodians,20, 000–62,000 Laotians, and 58,220 U. S. service members died in the conflict. Various names have applied to the conflict. Vietnam War is the most commonly used name in English and it has also been called the Second Indochina War and the Vietnam Conflict. As there have been several conflicts in Indochina, this conflict is known by the names of its primary protagonists to distinguish it from others. In Vietnamese, the war is known as Kháng chiến chống Mỹ. It is also called Chiến tranh Việt Nam, France began its conquest of Indochina in the late 1850s, and completed pacification by 1893. The 1884 Treaty of Huế formed the basis for French colonial rule in Vietnam for the seven decades
9.
Cambodian Civil War
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The struggle was complicated by the influence and actions of the allies of the two warring sides. The Cambodian coup of 18 March 1970 put a pro-American, anti-North Vietnamese government in power, the North Vietnamese Army was now threatened by a newly unfriendly Cambodian government. The North Vietnamese turned over some of their conquests and provided assistance to the Khmer Rouge. The Cambodian government hastened to expand its army to combat the North Vietnamese, the U. S. was motivated by the desire to buy time for its withdrawal from Southeast Asia, to protect its ally in South Vietnam, and to prevent the spread of communism to Cambodia. American and both South and North Vietnamese forces directly participated in the fighting, the U. S. assisted the central government with massive U. S. aerial bombing campaigns and direct material and financial aid. After five years of fighting, the Republican government was defeated on 17 April 1975 when the victorious Khmer Rouge proclaimed the establishment of Democratic Kampuchea. The Cambodian civil war led to the Cambodian Genocide, one of the bloodiest in history, during the early-to-mid-1960s, Prince Norodom Sihanouks policies had protected his nation from the turmoil that engulfed Laos and South Vietnam. On 3 May 1965, Sihanouk broke diplomatic relations with the U. S. ended the flow of American aid, and turned to the PRC, by the late 1960s, Sihanouks delicate domestic and foreign policy balancing act was beginning to go awry. He had also agreed to allow the use of the port of Sihanoukville by communist-flagged vessels delivering supplies and these concessions made questionable Cambodias neutrality, which had been guaranteed by the Geneva Conference of 1954. Sihanouk was convinced that the PRC, not the U. S, on 11 September, Cambodia held its first open election. Through manipulation and harassment the conservatives won 75 percent of the seats in the National Assembly, the prince then found himself in a political dilemma. One of Lon Nols first priorities was to fix the economy by halting the illegal sale of rice to the communists. Soldiers were dispatched to the areas to forcibly collect the harvests at gunpoint. On 11 March 1967, while Sihanouk was out of the country in France, a rebellion broke out in the area around Samlaut in Battambang, with the probable encouragement of local communist cadres, the insurrection quickly spread throughout the whole region. Lon Nol, acting in the absence, responded by declaring martial law. Hundreds of peasants were killed and whole villages were laid waste during the repression, simultaneously, Sihanouk ordered the arrest of Chinese middlemen involved in the illegal rice trade, thereby raising government revenues and placating the conservatives. Lon Nol was forced to resign, and, in a typical move, the immediate crisis had passed, but it engendered two tragic consequences. First, it drove thousands of new recruits into the arms of the maquis of the Cambodian Communist Party
People's Republic of China: 12.7mm Type 54.