1.
Warsaw Pact
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The Warsaw Pact was the military complement to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, the regional economic organization for the communist states of Central and Eastern Europe. While the Warsaw Pact was established as a balance of power or counterweight to NATO, instead, the conflict was fought on an ideological basis and in proxy wars. Both NATO and the Warsaw Pact led to the expansion of military forces and its largest military engagement was the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, which, in part, resulted in Albania withdrawing from the pact less than a month later. The Pact began to unravel in its entirety with the spread of the Revolutions of 1989 through the Eastern Bloc, beginning with the Solidarity movement in Poland, East Germany and Poland withdrew from the Pact in 1990. On 25 February 1991, the Pact was declared at an end at a meeting of defence, the USSR itself was dissolved in December 1991, although most of the former Soviet republics formed the Collective Security Treaty Organization shortly thereafter. Throughout the following 20 years, the seven Warsaw Pact countries outside the USSR each joined NATO, in the Western Bloc, the Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance is often called the Warsaw Pact military alliance—abbreviated WAPA, Warpac, and WP. Therefore, although ostensibly an international collective security alliance, the USSR dominated the Warsaw Treaty armed forces, the strategy behind the formation of the Warsaw Pact was driven by the desire of the Soviet Union to dominate Central and Eastern Europe. The Soviets wanted to keep their part of Europe theirs and not let the Americans take it from them and this policy was driven by ideological and geostrategic reasons. Ideologically, the Soviet Union arrogated the right to define socialism and communism, geostrategic principles also drove the Soviet Union to prevent invasion of its territory by Western European powers. Before the creation of the Warsaw Pact, Czechoslovak leadership, fearful of a rearmed Germany, sought to create a security pact with East Germany and these states protested strongly against the re-militarization of West Germany. The Warsaw Pact was primarily put in place as a consequence of the rearming of West Germany inside NATO, Soviet leaders, like many European countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain, feared Germany being once again a military power and a direct threat. The terrible consequences of German militarism remained a fresh memory among the Soviets, previously, in March 1954, the USSR, fearing the restoration of German militarism in West Germany, requested admission to NATO. The Soviet request to join NATO arose in the aftermath of the Berlin Conference of January–February 1954. James Dunn, who met in Paris with Eden, Adenauer and Robert Schuman, affirmed that the object should be to avoid discussion with the Russians, according to John Gaddis there was little inclination in Western capitals to explore this offer from USSR. But Eden, Dulles and Bidault opposed the proposal, the Soviets then decided to make a new proposal to the governments of the USA, UK and France to accept the participation of the USA in the proposed General European Agreement. Again all proposals, including the request to join NATO, were rejected by the UK, US, emblematic was the position of British General Hastings Ismay, supporter of NATO expansion, who said that NATO must grow until the whole free world gets under one umbrella. He opposed the request to join NATO made by the USSR in 1954 saying that the Soviet request to join NATO is like an unrepentant burglar requesting to join the police force, in April 1954 Adenauer made his first visit to the USA meeting Nixon, Eisenhower and Dulles. Ratification of EDC was delaying but the US representatives made it clear to Adenauer that EDC would have to become a part of NATO, memories of the Nazi occupation were still strong, and the rearmament of Germany was feared by France too
2.
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
3.
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
4.
Uralmash
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Uralmash is a heavy machine production facility of the Russian engineering corporation OMZ. The facility is located in Yekaterinburg, Russia and is reported to employ around 16,500 people, the surrounding residential area where workers live is also called Uralmash. Uralmash is an abbreviation of Уральский Машиностроительный Завод, Ural’s’kiy Mashinostroitelnyy Zavod, the Ural Heavy Machine Building Plant began operations in 1933 in compliance with the plans of the Government of the USSR for the industrialization of the country. During the pre-World War II period, Uralmash manufactured its products for the mining and metallurgical industries located in the Urals, the majority of these products were produced from individual designs. At the same time the plant began to develop military equipment, during World War II large-scale production of armoured materiel was organized at the plant. At first the plant manufactured armoured tank hulls, later expanding to production of T-34 tanks and the SU-122, SU-85, the self-propelled gun mounts built at Uralmash demonstrated their effectiveness on the battlefield as a successful combination of maneuverability of T-34 tanks and huge firepower of ordnance pieces. After World War II, the state made large investments in the reconstruction and expansion of the Uralmash plant and this modernisation favoured both increased output and the production of new machines and equipment—shovels, drilling rigs, crushers and mills. In the 1950s the state began efforts to equip the aviation, Uralmash, in response to this new demand, created a range of this type of equipment. In 1949 the plant produced the first dragline excavator, in 1960s the plant designed and manufactured draglines with booms 90–100 m long. Now more than 200 walking draglines are in operation at mines in Siberia, one third of the total coal amount produced by the open casting is mined with the help of draglines. The drilling rigs manufactured by Uralmash were of importance in the development of oil and gas regions of the USSR. The extra deep drilling rigs designed and manufactured at the plant made it possible to reach the depth of 13 km, in addition to land-based rigs, Uralmash also designs off-shore drilling equipment. For at least part of the late 1980s and early 1990s, the plant was controlled, at least in part, by the Uralmash gang, a racketeering organization. In accordance with Russian Federation law, Uralmash was transformed in December 1992 into a joint stock company under the name The Ural Heavy Machine Building Plant. In 1996 Uralmash it became part of OMZ, one of Russias largest engineering corporations, founded, in 2005, Gazprom purchased controlling stake in OMZ and Uralmash. In February 2007 OMZ and Metalloinvest agreed to create a manufacturing complex. OMZ contributed its holdings in Uralmash to the joint venture while Metalloinvest contributed its holdings in ORMETO-YuUMZ, the first director of Uralmash was A. P. Bannikov. Oleg Danchenk served as General Director since 2009, danchenko and First Deputy and Director-General of Uralmash-Engineering Boris Belman resigned their positions at the company in March 2016
5.
Gun barrel
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A gun barrel is a part of firearms and artillery pieces. The hollow interior of the barrel is called the bore, a gun barrel must be able to hold in the expanding gas produced by the propellants to ensure that optimum muzzle velocity is attained by the projectile as it is being pushed out by the expanding gas. Modern small arms barrels are made of known and tested to withstand the pressures involved. Artillery pieces are made by various techniques providing reliably sufficient strength, early firearms were muzzle-loading, with powder, and then shot loaded from the muzzle, capable of only a low rate of fire. During the 19th century effective mechanical locks were invented that sealed a breech-loading weapon against the escape of propellant gases, the early Chinese, the inventors of gunpowder, used bamboo, a naturally tubular stalk, as the first barrels in gunpowder projectile weapons. Early European guns were made of iron, usually with several strengthening bands of the metal wrapped around circular wrought iron rings. The Chinese were the first to master cast-iron cannon barrels, early cannon barrels were very thick for their caliber. Bore evacuator Bore snake Cannon Muzzle Polygonal rifling Rifling Slug barrel Smoothbore
6.
Shell (projectile)
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A shell is a payload-carrying projectile that, as opposed to shot, contains an explosive or other filling, though modern usage sometimes includes large solid projectiles properly termed shot. Solid shot may contain a pyrotechnic compound if a tracer or spotting charge is used, originally, it was called a bombshell, but shell has come to be unambiguous in a military context. Words cognate with grenade are still used for an artillery or mortar projectile in some European languages, shells are usually large-calibre projectiles fired by artillery, combat vehicles, and warships. Shells usually have the shape of a cylinder topped by a nose for good aerodynamic performance, possibly with a tapering base. Solid cannonballs did not need a fuse, but hollow munitions filled with something such as gunpowder to fragment the ball, needed a fuse, percussion fuses with a spherical projectile presented a challenge because there was no way of ensuring that the impact mechanism hit the target. Therefore, shells needed a fuse that was ignited before or during firing. The earliest record of shells being used in combat was by the Republic of Venice at Jadra in 1376, shells with fuses were used at the 1421 siege of St Boniface in Corsica. These were two hollowed hemispheres of stone or bronze held together by an iron hoop, as described in their book, these hollow, gunpowder-packed shells were made of cast iron. At least since the 16th Century grenades made of ceramics or glass were in use in Central Europe, a hoard of several hundred ceramic greandes were discovered during building works in front of a bastion of the Bavarian City of Ingolstadt, Germany dated to the 17th Century. Lots of the grenades obtained their orignal blackpowder loads and igniters, most probably the grenades were intentionally dumped the moat of the bastion before the year 1723. Early powder burning fuses had to be loaded fuse down to be ignited by firing or a portfire put down the barrel to light the fuse, other shells were wrapped in bitumen cloth, which would ignite during the firing and in turn ignite a powder fuse. Nevertheless, shells came into use in the 16th Century. By the 18th Century, it was known that the fuse towards the muzzle could be lit by the flash through the windage between the shell and the barrel, the use of exploding shells from field artillery became relatively commonplace from early in the 19th century. Until the mid 19th century, shells remained as simple exploding spheres that used gunpowder and they were usually made of cast iron, but bronze, lead, brass and even glass shell casings were experimented with. The word bomb encompassed them at the time, as heard in the lyrics of The Star-Spangled Banner, typically, the thickness of the metal body was about a sixth of their diameter and they were about two thirds the weight of solid shot of the same calibre. To ensure that shells were loaded with their fuses towards the muzzle, in 1819, a committee of British artillery officers recognised that they were essential stores and in 1830 Britain standardised sabot thickness as a half inch. The sabot was also intended to reduce jamming during loading, despite the use of exploding shell, the use of smoothbore cannons, firing spherical projectiles of shot, remained the dominant artillery method until the 1850s. By the late 18th century, artillery could use canister shot to defend itself from infantry or cavalry attack and this involved loading a tin or canvas container filled with small iron or lead balls instead of the usual cannonball
7.
Caliber
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In guns, particularly firearms, caliber or calibre is the approximate internal diameter of the barrel, or the diameter of the projectile it fires, in hundredths or sometimes thousandths of an inch. For example, a 45 caliber firearm has a diameter of.45 of an inch. Barrel diameters can also be expressed using metric dimensions, as in 9mm pistol, when the barrel diameter is given in inches, the abbreviation cal can be used. Good performance requires a bullet to closely match the diameter of a barrel to ensure a good seal. While modern cartridges and cartridge firearms are referred to by the cartridge name. Firearm calibers outside the range of 17 to 50 exist, but are rarely encountered. Larger calibers, such as.577.585.600.700, the.950 JDJ is the only known cartridge beyond 79 caliber used in a rifle. Referring to artillery, caliber is used to describe the length as multiples of the bore diameter. A 5-inch 50 calibre gun has a diameter of 5 in. The main guns of the USS Missouri are 1650 caliber, makers of early cartridge arms had to invent methods of naming the cartridges, since no established convention existed then. One of the early established cartridge arms was the Spencer repeating rifle, later various derivatives were created using the same basic cartridge, but with smaller-diameter bullets, these were named by the cartridge diameter at the base and mouth. The original No.56 became the. 56-56, and the smaller versions. 56-52. 56-50, the. 56-52, the most common of the new calibers, used a 50-cal bullet. Optionally, the weight in grains was designated, e. g. 45-70-405. Variations on these methods persist today, with new cartridges such as the.204 Ruger, metric diameters for small arms refer to cartridge dimensions and are expressed with an × between the bore diameter and the length of the cartridge case, for example,7. 62×51 NATO. This indicates that the diameter is 7. 62mm, loaded in a case 51mm long. Similarly, the 6. 5×55 Swedish cartridge has a diameter of 6.5 mm. An exception to rule is the proprietary cartridge used by U. S. maker Lazzeroni. The following table lists commonly used calibers where both metric and imperial are used as equivalents
8.
Breech-loading weapon
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A breech-loading gun is a firearm in which the cartridge or shell is inserted or loaded into a chamber integral to the rear portion of a barrel. Modern mass production firearms are breech-loading, early firearms, on the other hand, were almost entirely muzzle-loading. In field artillery, breech loading allows the crew to reload the gun without exposing themselves to fire or repositioning the piece. The main challenge for developers of breech-loading firearms was sealing the breech and this was eventually solved for smaller firearms by the development of the self-contained metallic cartridge. For firearms too large to use cartridges, the problem was solved by the development of the interrupted screw, breech-loading swivel guns were invented in the 14th century. The breech-loading swivel gun had a rate of fire, and was especially effective in anti-personnel roles. Breech-loading firearms are known from the 16th century, Henry VIII possessed one, which he apparently used as a hunting gun to shoot birds. More breech-loading firearms were made in the early 18th century, one such gun known to have belonged to Philip V of Spain, and was manufactured circa 1715, probably in Madrid. It came with a ready-to load reusable cartridge, patrick Ferguson, a British Army officer, developed in 1772 the Ferguson rifle, a breech-loading flintlock firearm. Later on into the century there were attempts in Europe at an effective breech-loader. There were concentrated attempts at improved cartridges and methods of ignition, the cartridge was loaded through the breech and fired with a needle. The needle-activated central-fire breech-loading gun would become a feature of firearms thereafter. The corresponding firearm was also developed by Pauly, Pauly made an improved version, which was protected by a patent on 29 September 1812. In 1846 another Paris Frenchman, Benjamin Houllier, patented the first fully metallic cartridge containing powder in a metallic shell, Houllier commercialised his weapons in association with the gunsmiths Blanchard or Charles Robert. In English-speaking countries the Flobert cartridge corresponds to the.22 BB, the first centrefire cartridge was introduced in 1855 by Pottet, with both Berdan and Boxer priming. The Dreyse Zündnadelgewehr or Dreyse needle gun, was a single-shot breech-loading rifle using a rotating bolt to seal the breech and it was so called because of its. 5-inch needle-like firing pin, which passed through a paper cartridge case to impact a percussion cap at the bullet base. It began development in the 1830s under von Dreyse and eventually a version of it was adopted by Prussia in the late 1840s. The paper cartridge and the gun had numerous deficiencies, specifically, however, the rifle was used to great success in the Prussian army in the Austro-Prussian war of 1866
9.
Interrupted screw
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An interrupted screw or interrupted thread is a mechanical device typically used in the breech of artillery guns. It is believed to have invented in 1845. It is a screw that has a section of thread along its axis removed, the screw is mated with a partially threaded hole at the rear of the weapons chamber, where the screw has threads the hole has none, and vice versa. The screw can thus be smoothly inserted all the way into the gun, an earlier method was the use of a wedge to block the rear of the gun. Sealing was further improved with the de Bange obturator in 1872, the major weakness of the original designs was that only half of the circumference of the breechblock could be threaded, hence a fairly long breechblock was still required to achieve a secure lock. Axel Welin solved this problem with his stepped interrupted screw design and this design has threads of the block and breech cut in steps of successively larger radius. This is the design still in use with bagged charge artillery. Rifled breech loader Welin breech block Interrupted screw breech mechanisms Navweaps. com Interrupted threads used on naval guns
10.
Recoil
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Recoil is the backward movement of a gun when it is discharged. To apply this counter-recoiling force, modern mounted guns may employ recoil buffering comprising springs and hydraulic recoil mechanisms, early cannons used systems of ropes along with rolling or sliding friction to provide forces to slow the recoiling cannon to a stop. Recoil buffering allows the maximum counter-recoil force to be lowered so that strength limitations of the gun mount are not exceeded, however, the same pressures acting on the base of the projectile are acting on the rear face of the gun chamber, accelerating the gun rearward during firing. This results in the required counter-recoiling force being proportionally lower, modern cannons also employ muzzle brakes very effectively to redirect some of the propellant gasses rearward after projectile exit. This provides a force to the barrel, allowing the buffering system. The same physics affecting recoil in mounted guns and cannons applies to hand-held guns, hands, arms and shoulders have considerable strength and elasticity for this purpose, up to certain practical limits. For this reason, establishing recoil safety standards for small arms remains challenging, a change in momentum of a mass requires a force, according to Newtons first law, known as the law of inertia, inertia simply being another term for mass. That force, applied to a mass, creates an acceleration, according to Newtons second law, the law of momentum -- changing the velocity of the mass changes its momentum. It is important to understand at this point that velocity is not simply speed, velocity is the speed of a mass in a particular direction. In a very technical sense, speed is a scalar, a magnitude, in summation, the total momentum of the system equals zero, surprisingly just as it did before the trigger was pulled. There are two conservation laws at work when a gun is fired, conservation of momentum and conservation of energy, recoil is explained by the law of conservation of momentum, and so it is easier to discuss it separately from energy. The nature of the process is determined by the force of the expanding gases in the barrel upon the gun. It is also determined by the force applied to the gun. The recoil force only acts during the time that the ejecta are still in the barrel of the gun, except for the case of zero-recoil, the counter-recoil force is smaller than the recoil force but lasts for a longer time. Since the recoil force and the force are not matched. In the zero-recoil case, the two forces are matched and the gun will not move when fired. In most cases, a gun is very close to a free-recoil condition, an example of near zero-recoil would be a gun securely clamped to a massive or well-anchored table, or supported from behind by a massive wall. For example, placing the butt of a large caliber gun directly against a wall, the recoil of a firearm, whether large or small, is a result of the law of conservation of momentum
11.
Gun laying
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Gun laying is the process of aiming an artillery piece, such as a gun, howitzer or mortar on land, or at sea, against surface or air targets. It may be laying for direct fire, where the gun is aimed similarly to a rifle, or indirect fire, the term includes automated aiming using, for example, radar-derived target data and computer-controlled guns. Gun laying means moving the axis of the bore of the barrel in two planes, horizontal and vertical. A gun is traversed – rotated in a horizontal plane – to align it with the target, Gun laying is a set of actions to align the axis of a gun barrel so that it points in the required direction. This alignment is in the horizontal and vertical planes, Gun laying may be for direct fire, where the layer sees the target, or indirect fire, where the target may not be visible from the gun. Gun laying has sometimes called training the gun. Laying in the vertical plane uses data derived from trials or empirical experience, for any given gun and projectile types, it reflects the distance to the target and the size of the propellant charge. It also incorporates any differences in height between gun and target, with indirect fire, it may allow for other variables as well. With indirect fire the horizontal angle is relative to something, typically the guns aiming point, depending on the gun mount, there is usually a choice of two trajectories. The dividing angle between the trajectories is about 45 degrees, it varies due to gun dependent factors. Below 45 degrees the trajectory is called low angle, above is high angle, the differences are that low angle fire has a shorter time of flight, a lower vertex and flatter angle of descent. All guns have carriages or mountings that support the barrel assembly, early guns could only be traversed by moving their entire carriage or mounting, and this lasted with heavy artillery into World War II. Mountings could be fitted into traversing turrets on ships, coast defences or tanks, from circa 1900 field artillery carriages provided traverse without moving the wheels and trail. The carriage, or mounting, also enabled the barrel to be set at the elevation angle. With some gun mounts it is possible to depress the gun, some guns require a near-horizontal elevation for loading. An essential capability for any elevation mechanism is to prevent the weight of the barrel forcing its heavier end downward and this is greatly helped by having trunnions at the centre of gravity, although a counterbalance mechanism can be used. It also means the elevation gear has to be enough to resist considerable downward pressure. However, mortars, where the forces were transferred directly into the ground
12.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
13.
Howitzer
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In the taxonomies of artillery pieces used by European armies in the 17th to 20th centuries, the howitzer stood between the gun and the mortar. Howitzers, like other artillery equipment, are organized in groups called batteries. The English word howitzer comes from the Czech word houfnice, from houf, crowd, haufen, sometimes in the compound Gewalthaufen, also designated a pike square formation in German. This is particularly true in the forces of the United States. Because of this practice, the howitzer is used in some armies as a generic term for any kind of artillery piece that is designed to attack targets using indirect fire. Thus, artillery pieces that bear resemblance to howitzers of earlier eras are now described as howitzers. Most other armies in the reserve the word howitzer for guns with barrel lengths 15 to 25 times their caliber. The British had a method of nomenclature. In the 18th century, they adopted projectile weight for guns replacing the old naming system of culverin, saker, mortars had been categorized by calibre in inches in the 17th century and this was inherited by howitzers. The modern howitzers were invented in Sweden towards the end of the 17th century, originally intended for use in siege warfare, they were particularly useful for delivering cast-iron shells filled with gunpowder or incendiary materials into the interior of fortifications. In the middle of the 18th century, a number of European armies began to introduce howitzers that were enough to accompany armies in the field. Though usually fired at the high angles of fire used by contemporary siege howitzers. Rather, as the guns of the day were usually restricted to inert projectiles. Many, for the sake of simplicity and rapidity of fire, the Abus gun was an early form of howitzer in the Ottoman Empire. In 1758 the Russian Empire introduced a type of howitzer, with a conical chamber, called a licorne. The most famous of these gun-howitzers was the Napoleon 12-pounder, a weapon of French design that saw service in the American Civil War. The longest-serving artillery piece of the 19th century was the mountain howitzer, in 1859, the armies of Europe began to rearm field batteries with rifled field guns. These new field pieces used cylindrical projectiles that, while smaller in caliber than the spherical shells of smoothbore field howitzers, moreover, their greater range let them create many of the same effects that previously required the sharply curved trajectories of smoothbore field howitzers
14.
122 mm howitzer M1938 (M-30)
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The 122 mm howitzer M1938 was a Soviet 121.92 mm howitzer. The weapon was developed by the bureau of Motovilikha Plants, headed by F. F. Petrov, in the late 1930s. The M-30 saw action in World War II, mainly as an artillery piece of the Red Army. Captured guns were employed later in the conflict by the German Wehrmacht. Post World War II the M-30 saw combat in numerous conflicts of the mid- to late twentieth century in service of other countries armies, notably in the Middle East. In 1930 Red Army authorities started to look for a new divisional-level howitzer to replace the pre-World War I122 mm howitzer M1909 and 122 mm howitzer M1910, the first attempt to develop a new howitzer was made by the KB-2 design bureau under the supervision of German engineers. The design, known as Lubok, reached trials in 1932 and it had a 23 caliber barrel, a maximum elevation of 50°, traverse of 7°, and a combat and travelling weight of 2,250 and 2,800 kg respectively. Like its predecessors, Lubok had a fixed trail carriage and although it was equipped with suspension, its wheels lacked tires, nevertheless, it was undoubtfully superior to the M1910/30 which remained in production until 1941. However, after eight pieces were built in 1934-1935, production was stopped for unclear reasons, in the mid-1930s, the Main Artillery Directorate considered a switch to 105 mm guns as used by some other armies. A smaller shell meant that the gun could be lighter and consequently more mobile, on the other hand, a 105 mm gun would also be less powerful. Moreover, there was no Russian or Soviet experience with 105 mm ammunition, finally in 1937 the RKKA Head of General Staff I. I. Egorov supported retaining 122 mm ammunition, consequently, three howitzers were trialled in 1938–1939. The design bureau of UZTM, which was ordered by GAU to design the new howitzer, similar projects were privately undertaken by the design bureaus of Motovilikha Plants, headed by F. F. Petrov, and by the No.92 plant under V. G. Grabin. The U-2 reached trials on 5 February 1939 and was rejected because of insufficient carriage strength, the F-25 project was closed by GAU on 23 March 1939 as GAU considered it redundant to the M-30 which had reached trials earlier. The latter, after being returned several times for revision, was adopted in September 1939 as the 122 mm divisional howitzer M1938. Its GAU index number was 52-G-463, Shirokorad, a well-known author of books detailing the history of the Soviet artillery, has claimed that the F-25 could have been developed into a better gun than the M-30. Grabins design was about 400 kg lighter, had a traverse and had better ground clearance — all this was achieved, according to Shirokorad. Considering how long it took to finish the development of the M-30, there is no official document explaining the advantages the M-30 had over the F-25
15.
152 mm howitzer M1938 (M-10)
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152-mm howitzer M1938 was a Soviet 152.4 mm howitzer of World War II era. It was developed in 1937–1938 at the Motovilikha Mechanical Plant by a team headed by F. F. Petrov. Although production of the gun was stopped in 1941, it saw combat with the Red Army until the end of World War II, captured pieces were used by Wehrmacht and the Finnish Army. The latter kept the M-10 in service until 2000, in a tank-mounted variant, M-10T, the gun was mounted on the KV-2 heavy tank. By the early 1930s the Red Army started to look for a replacement for the 152-mm howitzer M1909 and those pieces, developed before World War I, had unsprung fixed trail carriages and short barrels, which meant poor mobility, insufficient elevation and traverse angles and short range. It was clear that a new design was needed. However, at that time Soviets had little experience in developing modern artillery pieces, Soviets initially tried to solve that problem through a collaboration with Germany. From its part, Germany, constrained by the limitations of the Treaty of Versailles, among other weapons supplied by Germans was a heavy howitzer, designated in the USSR 152-mm howitzer M1931. Soon the Motovilikha Mechanical Plant was entrusted with the production of NG, however, only eight pieces were completed in 1932–1934, and then the production was stopped. The design proved to be too complicated for the Soviet industry of the early 1930s and was considered somewhat heavy, but these early failures it gave Soviet developers some valuable experience. In 1937, F. F. Petrov and his team at the Motovilikha Ordnance Plant started work on a new design. Technical papers were submitted to the Artillery Directorate on 1 August 1937, ground trials featured two pieces, No.302 and No.303. The No.303 was found to be superior, the trials also revealed numerous defects in the gun construction, the howitzer suffered from insufficient upper carriage strength, leaks in recoil buffer, unreliable suspension etc. For army tests early in 1939 an improved design with lengthened barrel was presented, another series of army tests followed, from 22 December 1939 to 10 January 1940, but even before it started—on 29 September 1939—the gun was adopted as 152 mm divisional howitzer model 1938. Later the word divisional was removed from the designation, the M-10 entered production at the Plant No.172 in 1939. Until the end of the four pieces were manufactured,685 more in 1940 and 833 in 1941. About 340 barrels for KV-2 heavy tanks were also built, soon after the outbreak of the war mass production of the gun was stopped. The following reasons are typically cited, later in the war corps artillery employed the 152-mm howitzer M1943 with the same ballistics
16.
Ammunition
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Ammunition is the general term used for the material fired, scattered, dropped or detonated from any weapon. The term ammunition can be traced back to the mid 17th century, broadly speaking, ammunition refers to both expendable weapons and the component parts of other weapons that create the effect on a target. Nearly all weapons will require some form of ammunition to operate, the word comes from the French la munition, which refers to the material used for war. The terms ammunition and munitions are used interchangeably, although the term munition now usually refers to both the actual weapons system alongside the ammunition required to operate it. The purpose of ammunition is to project a force against a target to have an effect. The most iconic example of ammunition is the cartridge, which all components required to deliver the weapon effect in a single package. Ammunition comes in a range of sizes and types and is often designed to work only in specific weapons systems. However, there are internationally recognized standards for certain types that enable their use across different weapons. There are also types of ammunition that are designed to have a specialized effect on a target, such as armor-piercing shells and tracer ammunition. Ammunition is commonly colored in a manner to assist in the identification. A round is a cartridge containing a projectile, propellant, primer. A shell is a form of ammunition that is fired by a large cannon or artillery piece. Before the mid-19th century, these shells were made of solid materials. However, since that time, they are often filled with high-explosives. A shot refers to a release of a weapons system. This may involve firing just one round or piece of ammunition, a dud refers to loaded ammunition that fails to function as intended, typically failing to detonate on landing. However, it can refer to ammunition that fails to fire inside the weapon, known as a misfire, or when the ammunition only partially functions. Dud ammunition, which is classified as an ordnance, is regarded as highly dangerous
17.
Firepower
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Firepower is the military capability to direct force at an enemy. Firepower involves the whole range of potential weapons, through the ages firepower has come to mean offensive power applied from a distance, thus involving ranged weapons as opposed to one-on-one close-quarters combat. Firepower is thus something employed to keep enemy forces at a range where they can be defeated in detail or sapped of the will to continue, in the field of naval artillery, the weight of a broadside was long used as a figure of merit of a warships firepower. The earliest forms of warfare that might be called firepower were the slingers of ancient armies, firepower was later used to dramatic effect in a similar fashion during the Battle of Agincourt. Such improvements made close order formation useless for middle to late 19th century infantry, military uniforms changed from gaudy to drab, making soldiers less visible to the increasing firepower. At sea, improved naval artillery ended the use of prize crews, the use of firepower in achieving military objectives became one of several conflicting schools of military thought, or doctrines. The Battle of Vimy Ridge used massed artillery to help win an Allied victory, operation Desert Storm also relied on massed firepower as did the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, but firepower was integrated with advances in small-unit training. Small arms, such as the M249 SAW, have been employed on a level to provide an overwhelming volume of fire in relatively close quarters situations. The idea is that a volume of accurate suppressive fire will immobilize the enemy. These weapons are useful in situations where a unit is outnumbered and needs to respond immediately with fire superiority, fire-Power, The British Army Weapons and Theories of War, 1904-1945
18.
Red Army
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The Workers and Peasants Red Army was the army and the air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and after 1922 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The army was established immediately after the 1917 October Revolution, the Bolsheviks raised an army to oppose the military confederations of their adversaries during the Russian Civil War. The Red Army is credited as being the land force in the Allied victory in the European theatre of World War II. During operations on the Eastern Front, it fought 75%–80% of the German land forces deployed in the war, inflicting the vast majority of all German losses and ultimately capturing the German capital. In September 1917, Vladimir Lenin wrote, There is only one way to prevent the restoration of the police, at the time, the Imperial Russian Army had started to collapse. The Tsarist general Nikolay Dukhonin estimated that there had been 2 million deserters,1.8 million dead,5 million wounded and 2 million prisoners and he estimated the remaining troops as numbering 10 million. Therefore, the Council of Peoples Commissars decided to form the Red Army on 28 January 1918 and they envisioned a body formed from the class-conscious and best elements of the working classes. All citizens of the Russian republic aged 18 or older were eligible, in the event of an entire unit wanting to join the Red Army, a collective guarantee and the affirmative vote of all its members would be necessary. Because the Red Army was composed mainly of peasants, the families of those who served were guaranteed rations, some peasants who remained at home yearned to join the Army, men, along with some women, flooded the recruitment centres. If they were turned away they would collect scrap metal and prepare care-packages, in some cases the money they earned would go towards tanks for the Army. Nikolai Krylenko was the supreme commander-in-chief, with Aleksandr Myasnikyan as deputy, Nikolai Podvoisky became the commissar for war, Pavel Dybenko, commissar for the fleet. Proshyan, Samoisky, Steinberg were also specified as peoples commissars as well as Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich from the Bureau of Commissars, at a joint meeting of Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, held on 22 February 1918, Krylenko remarked, We have no army. The Red Guard units are brushed aside like flies and we have no power to stay the enemy, only an immediate signing of the peace treaty will save us from destruction. This provoked the insurrection of General Alexey Maximovich Kaledins Volunteer Army in the River Don region, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk aggravated Russian internal politics. The situation encouraged direct Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, a series of engagements resulted, involving, amongst others, the Czechoslovak Legion, the Polish 5th Rifle Division, and the pro-Bolshevik Red Latvian Riflemen. The Whites defeated the Red Army on each front, Leon Trotsky reformed and counterattacked, the Red Army repelled Admiral Kolchaks army in June, and the armies of General Denikin and General Yudenich in October. By mid-November the White armies were all almost completely exhausted, in January 1920, Budennys First Cavalry Army entered Rostov-on-Don. 1919 to 1923 At the wars start, the Red Army consisted of 299 infantry regiments, Civil war intensified after Lenin dissolved the Russian Constituent Assembly and the Soviet government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, removing Russia from the Great War
19.
Post-Soviet states
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On March 11,1990, Lithuania was the first to declare its independence, with Estonia and Latvia following suit in August 1991. All three Baltic states claimed continuity from the states that existed prior to their annexation by the Soviet Union in 1944 and were admitted to the United Nations on 17 September 1991. The remaining 12 republics all subsequently seceded,12 of the 15 states, excluding the Baltic states, initially formed the CIS and most joined CSTO, while the Baltic states focused on European Union and NATO membership. The 15 post-Soviet states are divided into the following five groupings. Each of these regions has its own set of traits, owing not only to geographic and cultural factors. In addition, there are a number of de facto independent, the dissolution of the Soviet Union took place as a result and against the backdrop of general economic stagnation, even regression. In all, the process triggered severe economic declines, with Gross Domestic Product dropping by more than 40% overall between 1990 and 1995. This decline in GDP was much more intense than the 27% decline that the United States suffered in the wake of the Great Depression between 1930 and 1934. The economic shocks associated with wholesale privatization resulted in the deaths of roughly 1 million working age individuals throughout the former Soviet bloc in the 1990s, by 2007,10 of the 15 post-Soviet states had recovered and reached GDP greater than what they had in 1991. Only Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan had GDP significantly below the 1991 level, the recovery in Russia was marginal, with GDP in 2006-2007 just nudging above the 1991 level. Combined with the aftershocks of the 1998 economic crisis it led to a return of more interventionist economic policies by Vladimir Putins administration. Change in Gross Domestic Product in constant prices, 1991-2015 *Economy of most Soviet republics started to decline in 1989-1990, **The year when GDP decline switched to GDP growth. List of the present Gross domestic product, The post-Soviet states listed according to their Human Development Index scores, only organizations that are mainly composed of post-Soviet states are listed in this section, organizations with wider memberships are not discussed. The 15 post-Soviet states are divided in their participation to the blocs, Belarus, Russia. It was conceived as an organization to the USSR. It currently consists of nine of the 15 former Soviet republics, with one participating state, Georgia withdrew from the CIS in August 2008. The sole exception to the above has been their recent membership in the Community of Democratic Choice, the Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan are members of the CIS and participate in several regional organizations that have Russia as a primary mover. Such organizations are the Eurasian Economic Community, Collective Security Treaty Organization, the last two groups only became distinct once Uzbekistan withdrew from GUAM and sought membership in EurAsEc and CSTO
20.
152 mm howitzer-gun M1937 (ML-20)
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The 152 mm howitzer-gun M1937, was a Soviet heavy gun-howitzer. It was in production from 1937 to 1946, the ML-20 saw action in World War II, mainly as a corps / army level artillery piece of the Soviet Army. Captured guns were employed by Wehrmacht and the Finnish Army, post World War II, the ML-20 saw combat in numerous conflicts during the mid to late twentieth century. The ML-20 was officially classified as howitzer-gun, i. e. an artillery system which combines characteristics of a howitzer and of a gun and this universality was achieved by wide range of elevation angles and by using separate loading with 13 different propellant loads. The gun was fitted with telescopic sight for direct fire and panoramic sight for an indirect one. For ballistic calculations and meteorological corrections a special device was developed. The device, called meteoballistic summator, consisted of a slide rule. After World War II similar devices were introduced for other types of guns, the barrel was either monobloc or built-up. Some sources indicate that a third type - with loose liner - also existed, to soften recoil, a large slotted muzzle brake was fitted. The breechblock was of interrupted screw type, with forced extraction of cartridge during opening, a safety lock prevented opening of the breechblock before the shot, if there was a need to remove a shell, the lock had to be disabled. To assist loading when the barrel was set to high elevation angle, the gun was fired by pulling a trigger cord. The recoil system consisted of a buffer and hydropneumatic recuperator. Each held 22 litres of liquid, pressure in the recuperator reached 45 atm. The carriage was of split trail type, with shield and balancing mechanism, leaf spring suspension, during transportation the barrel was usually retracted. The gun could also be towed with the barrel in its normal position, the gun could be set up for combat in 8–10 minutes. The carriage, designated 52-L-504A, was used in the 122-mm gun model 1931/37. Among other artillery pieces the Red Army inherited from the Imperial Russian Army a 152-mm siege gun M1910, the gun was modernized twice in 1930s, resulting in the 152-mm gun M1910/30 and the 152-mm gun M1910/34. However, its mobility, maximum elevation and speed of traverse still needed improvement, in 1935-36 the No.172 Plant in Motovilikha tried to continue the modernization works, but the Main Artillery Directorate insisted on more significant upgrade
21.
Muzzle brake
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A muzzle brake or recoil compensator is a device connected to the muzzle of a firearm or cannon that redirects propellant gases to counter recoil and unwanted rising of the barrel during rapid fire. They have been used in forms for rifles and pistols to help control recoil. They are used on pistols for practical pistol competitions, and are usually called compensators in this context, the interchangeable terms muzzle rise, muzzle flip, or muzzle climb refer to the tendency of a handheld firearms front end to rise after firing. Firearms with less height from the line to the barrel centerline tend to experience less muzzle rise. The muzzle rises primarily because, for most firearms, the centerline of the barrel is above the center of contact between the shooter and the grip and stock. The reactive forces from the bullet and propellant gases exiting the muzzle act directly down the centerline of the barrel. If that line of force is above the center of the points, this creates a moment or torque rotational force that makes the firearm rotate. The M1946 Sieg automatic rifle had a muzzle brake that made the rifle climb downward. Muzzle brakes are simple in concept, such as the one employed on the 90 mm M3 gun used on the M47 Patton tank and this consists of a small length of tubing mounted at right angles to the end of the barrel. Brakes most often utilize slots, vents, holes, baffles, the strategy of a muzzle brake is to redirect and control the burst of combustion gases that follows the departure of a projectile. All muzzle brake designs share a basic principle, they partially divert combustion gases at a sideways angle. The momentum of the diverted gases thus does not add to the recoil, the angle toward which the gases are directed will fundamentally affect how the brake behaves. If gases are directed upward, they exert a downward force. Construction of a brake or compensator can be as simple as a diagonal cut at the muzzle end of the barrel to direct some of the escaping gas upward. On the AKM assault rifle, the brake also angles slightly to the right to counteract the movement of the rifle under recoil. Another simple method is porting, where holes or slots are machined into the barrel near the muzzle to allow the gas to escape, more advanced designs use baffles and expansion chambers to slow escaping gases. This is the principle behind a linear compensator. Ports are often added to the chambers, producing the long
22.
Council of People's Commissars
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The Council of Peoples Commissars was a government institution formed shortly after the October Revolution in 1917. Created in the Russian Republic, the council laid foundations in restructuring the country to form the Soviet Union and it evolved to become the highest government authority of executive power in the government of the Soviet Union. The chairman of council was thus the head of government. The constitution enabled the Sovnarkom to issue decrees carrying the force of law when the Congress was not in session. The Congress then routinely approved these decrees at its next session, when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was established in December 1922, the USSR Sovnarkom was modelled on the RSFSR Sovnarkom. It was transformed in 1946 into the Council of Ministers, the first council elected by the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets was composed as follows. Upon the creation of the USSR in 1922, the Unions government was modelled after the first Sovnarkom, the Soviet republics retained their own governments which dealt with domestic matters. In 1946, the Sovnarkoms were transformed into the Council of Ministers at both all-Union and Union Republic level
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Dmitry Ustinov
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Dmitriy Feodorovich Ustinov was Minister of Defence of the Soviet Union from 1976 until his death. Dimitry Feodorovich Ustinov was born in a family in Samara. During the civil war, when hunger became intolerable, his father went to Samarkand. Shortly after that, in 1922, his father died, in 1923, he and his mother, Yevrosinya Martinovna, moved to the city of Makarev where he worked as a fitter in a paper mill. Shortly after that, in 1925, his mother died, Ustinov joined the communist party in 1927. In 1929, he started training at the Faculty of Mechanics in the Polytechnic Institute of Ivanovo-Voznesensk, afterward, Ustinov was transferred to the Moscow Bauman Higher Technical School. Then, in March 1932, he entered the Institute of Military Mechanical Engineering in Leningrad from where he graduated in 1934, afterward, he worked as a construction engineer at the Leningrad artillery Marine Research Institute. In 1937, he was transferred to the Bolshevik Arms Factory as an engineer and he later became the director of the Factory. At the time of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, in June 1941, from this position, he supervised the massive evacuation of the defence industry from the besieged city of Leningrad to east of the Ural Mountains. Over 80 military industries were evacuated that together employed over six hundred workers, technicians. Stalin later rewarded Ustinov, whom he called the Red-head, with the Soviet Unions highest civilian honour, Hero of Socialist Labour. After the war was over, Ustinov played a role in requisitioning the German missile programme, developed during World War II, as an impetus to the Soviet missile. In 1952, Ustinov became a member of the Central Committee, in 1957, he was appointed as a Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union and became chairman of the Military-Industrial Commission. Leonid Brezhnev took power after the ousting of Khrushchev, and Ustinov returned to the defense industry, in 1965, Brezhnev made Ustinov a candidate member of the Politburo and secretary of the Central Committee with oversight of the military, the defense industry, and certain security organs. He was also placed in charge of developing the Soviet Unions strategic bomber force, Ustinov was known in the defense industry as Uncle Mitya. He was also Chelomeis stolid personal adversary and he issued a directive, in February 1970, that ordered the Chelomei design bureau to combine its Almaz space station with Sergei Korolyovs design bureau, headed by Vasili Mishin. This order was designed as an impetus towards the development of the Salyut space station, Ustinov gained power in the bureaucracy as he rose in the defense industry. In 1976, after Andrei Grechko died on April 26, Ustinov became the Defense Minister and was promoted to General of the Army on April 29
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Yekaterinburg
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At the 2010 Census, it had a population of 1,349,772. Yekaterinburg is the industrial and cultural centre of the Ural Federal District. Between 1924 and 1991, the city was named Sverdlovsk after the Communist party leader Yakov Sverdlov, Vasily Tatishchev and Georg Wilhelm de Gennin founded Yekaterinburg in 1723 and named it after the wife of Tsar Peter the Great, Yekaterina, who later became empress regnant Catherine I. The official date of the foundation is November 18,1723. It was granted town status in 1796, the city was one of Russias first industrial cities, prompted at the start of the eighteenth century by decrees from the Tsar requiring the development in Yekaterinburg of metal-working businesses. The city was built, with use of iron, to a regular square plan with iron works. These were surrounded by fortified walls, so that Yekaterinburg was at the time both a manufacturing centre and a fortress at the frontier between Europe and Asia. It therefore found itself at the heart of Russias strategy for development of the entire Ural region. With the growth in trade and the administrative importance, the ironworks became less critical. Small manufacturing and trading businesses proliferated, following the October Revolution, the family of deposed Tsar Nicholas II were sent to internal exile in Yekaterinburg where they were imprisoned in the Ipatiev House in the city. Other members of the Romanov family were killed at Alapayevsk later the same day, on July 16,1918, the Czechoslovak legions were closing on Yekaterinburg. The Bolsheviks executed the deposed imperial family, believing that the Czechoslovaks were on a mission to rescue them, the Legions arrived less than a week later and captured the city. In 1977, the Ipatiev House was demolished by order of Boris Yeltsin, Yeltsin later became the first President of Russia and represented the people at the funeral of the former Tsar in 1998. On August 24,2007, the BBC reported that Russian archaeologists had found the remains of two children of Russias last Tsar, the discoveries in 2007 are thought to be those of Tsarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria. Archaeologist Sergei Pogorelov said bullets found at the site indicate the children had been shot. He told Russian television the newly unearthed bones belonged to two people, a young male aged roughly 10–13 and a young woman about 18–23. The Tsars remains were given a funeral in July 1998. During the 1930s, Yekaterinburg was one of several developed by the Soviet government as a centre of heavy industry
25.
Breech block
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A breechblock is the part of the firearm action that closes the breech of a weapon at the moment of firing. A way of closing the breech or chamber is an part of any breech-loading weapon or firearm. A breechblock is a component and is not a feature of the break-action. A breechblock must close against the breech for firing but be able to be retracted for loading or unloading or to remove a spent cartridge. This article primarily addresses the matter of design, as opposed to the action. Usually referred to as a rather than a breechblock, a rotating bolt is perhaps the most common variant. It is so called, because its operation is similar to a pad bolt or barrel bolt, the bolt slides in the receiver along the axis of the barrel and is rotated in the same axis to lock or unlock it against a closed breech. It is the basis for the action, in which the bolt is rotated and retracted by an handle attached to the bolt. In some designs, handle rotates to lock against a shoulder in the receiver or body of the firearm and this type of locking is usually reserved for low-pressure applications such as the.22 cal rimfire series. More often, the bolt locks closed with two or more lugs that operate like a bayonet mount, multiple lugs permit a smaller degree of rotation to lock and unlock the breech. Most types are front-locking and have the lugs mounted near the breech face, a notable exception is the rear-locking system used in the Lee–Enfield. Rotating bolts can be adapted to automatic or semi-automatic designs and lever or pump actions, in these cases, the bolt is held by a bolt carrier. With the breech locked, an initial movement of the bolt carrier causes the bolt to rotate. Similarly, when closing the breech, the forward movement of the carrier causes the bolt to rotate. This action is achieved by a slot cut in the carrier that engages a pin through the bolt perpendicular to the axis of the barrel. It is a type of linear cam, straight-pull bolt-action firearms do not require the operator to rotate the cocking handle to cycle the action. Some may use a bolt but other locking mechanisms can be employed. The breechblock in a sliding block slides across the face if the breech to close it, the sliding action is perpendicular to the axis of the barrel
26.
Hydraulics
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Hydraulics is a technology and applied science using engineering, chemistry, and other sciences involving the mechanical properties and use of liquids or fluids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the version of pneumatics. Fluid mechanics provides the foundation for hydraulics, which focuses on the applied engineering using the properties of fluids. In fluid power, hydraulics are used for the generation, control, hydraulic topics range through some parts of science and most of engineering modules, and cover concepts such as pipe flow, dam design, fluidics and fluid control circuitry, pumps. The principles of hydraulics are in use naturally in the body within the heart. Free surface hydraulics is the branch of hydraulics dealing with surface flow, such as occurring in rivers, canals, lakes, estuaries. Its sub-field open channel flow studies the flow in open channels, the word hydraulics originates from the Greek word ὑδραυλικός which in turn originates from ὕδωρ and αὐλός. Early uses of water power date back to Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, other early examples of water power include the Qanat system in ancient Persia and the Turpan water system in ancient Central Asia. The Greeks constructed sophisticated water and hydraulic power systems, an example is the construction by Eupalinos, under a public contract, of a watering channel for Samos, the Tunnel of Eupalinos. An early example of the usage of hydraulic wheel, probably the earliest in Europe, is the Perachora wheel, notable is the construction of the first hydraulic automata by Ctesibius and Hero of Alexandria. Hero describes a number of working machines using hydraulic power, such as the force pump, in ancient China there was Sunshu Ao, Ximen Bao, Du Shi, Zhang Heng, and Ma Jun, while medieval China had Su Song and Shen Kuo. Du Shi employed a waterwheel to power the bellows of a blast furnace producing cast iron, Zhang Heng was the first to employ hydraulics to provide motive power in rotating an armillary sphere for astronomical observation. In ancient Sri Lanka, hydraulics were used in the ancient kingdoms of Anuradhapura. The discovery of the principle of the tower, or valve pit. By the first century AD, several irrigation works had been completed. The coral on the rock at the site includes cisterns for collecting water. They were among the first to use of the siphon to carry water across valleys. They used lead widely in plumbing systems for domestic and public supply, hydraulic mining was used in the gold-fields of northern Spain, which was conquered by Augustus in 25 BC
27.
Trail
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A trail is usually a path, track or unpaved lane or road, though the term is also applied, in North America, to routes along rivers, and sometimes to highways. In the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland path or footpath is the term for a walking trail. There are also unpaved trails used by dirt bikes and other off-road vehicles, in some places, like the Alps, trails are used for moving cattle and other livestock. In the US, the term was used for a route into or through wild territory used by emigrants. In Australia, the track can be used interchangeably with trail. Walkway is used similarly in St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada, in the United Kingdom, the term trail is in common usage. Longer distance walking routes, and government-promoted long distance paths, collectively known as National Trails, are frequently called ways, as in the Pennine Way. Generally the term footpath is preferred for pedestrian routes, including long distance trails, track is used for wider paths, often used for hiking. The terms bridleway, byway, restricted byway are all recognised legal terms, the increased popularity of mountain biking has led to a proliferation of mountain bike trails in many countries. Often these will be grouped to form complexes, known as trail centers. A particularly unusual use of the term is in the Canadian province of Alberta, Shared use may be achieved by sharing a trail easement, but within it maintaining segregated and sometimes also separated trail treads. This is common in rail trails, Shared use may also refer to alternate day arrangements, whereby two uses are segregated by being permitted on alternate days. The Trans Canada Trail can be used by hikers, walkers, cyclists, horseback riders, the network makes use of towpaths on river banks and disused railway or vicinal tramway lines. Old railway lines have been leased by the Walloon Government for 99 years using emphyteutic lease contracts, where necessary, new paths are created to link parts of the network. Thus the right to cycle exists even though it may be difficult to exercise on occasion, Cyclists using a bridleway are obliged to give way to other users on foot or horseback. The seawall in Stanley Park, Vancouver, Canada is popular for walking, running, cycling, there are two paths, one for skaters and cyclists and the other for pedestrians. The lane for cyclists and skaters goes one-way in a counterclockwise loop, foreshoreway is a term used in Australia for a type of greenway that provides a public right-of-way along the edge of the sea open to both walkers and cyclists. A forest road is a type of access road, built mainly for the forest industry
28.
Limbers and caissons
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A limber is a two-wheeled cart designed to support the trail of an artillery piece, or the stock of a field carriage such as a caisson or traveling forge, allowing it to be towed. A caisson is a cart designed to carry artillery ammunition. The British term was ammunition wagon, Caissons are used to bear the casket of the deceased in some state and military funerals in certain Western cultures, including the United States. As artillery pieces developed trunnions and were placed on carriages featuring two wheels and a trail, a limber was devised and this was a simple cart with a pintle. When the piece was to be towed, it was raised over the limber and then lowered, horses or other draft animals were harnessed in single file to haul the limber. There was no provision for carrying ammunition on the limber, the British developed a new system of carriages, which was adopted by the French, then copied from the French by the United States. During the American Civil War, U. S. Army equipment was identical to Confederate Army equipment, essentially identical to French equipment, and similar to that of other nations. The field artillery limber assumed its archetypal form – two wheels, an ammunition chest, a hook at the rear, and a central pole with horses harnessed on either side. The artillery piece had a ring at the end of the trail. To move the piece, the lunette was dropped over the pintle hook, the connection was secured by inserting a pintle hook key into the pintle. The quantity of ammunition in the chest, which could be detached from the limber, an ammunition chest for the M1857 light 12-pounder gun carried 28 rounds. The cover of the ammunition chest was made of copper to prevent stray embers from setting the chest on fire. Six horses were the team for a field piece, with four being considered the minimum team. Horses were harnessed in pairs on either side of the limber pole, a driver rode on each left-hand horse and held reins for both the horse he rode and the horse to his right. In addition to hauling the artillery piece, the limber also hauled the caisson, there was one caisson for each artillery piece in a battery. The exception to this rule would be in horse-artillery batteries, where the cannoneers rode saddle horses, while firing the piece, if possible, the crew kept the two ammunition chests on the caisson full, preferably supplying the gun from the third ammunition chest on the caissons limber. When the ammunition from the ammunition chest on the limber was exhausted, the pieces limber. The empty ammunition chest was removed, and then the middle chest on the caisson was moved forward onto the limber, a fully loaded ammunition chest for a Napoleon 12-pounder weighed 650 pounds, so the chest was dragged and pushed, rather than lifted, into place
29.
Cobblestone
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Cobblestone is a natural building material based on cobble-sized stones, and is used for pavement roads, streets, and buildings. In England, it was commonplace since ancient times for flat stones with a narrow edge to be set on edge to provide an even paved surface. This was known as a surface and was common all over Britain. Pitched surfaces predate the use of regularly-sized granite setts by more than a thousand years, such pitched paving is quite distinct from that formed from rounded stones, although both forms are commonly referred to as cobbled surfaces. Most surviving genuinely old cobbled areas are in reality pitched surfaces, a cobbled area is known as a causey, cassay or cassie in Scots. Cobblestones are typically set in sand or similar material, or are bound together with mortar. Paving with cobblestones allows a road to be used all year long. It prevents the build-up of ruts often found in dirt roads and it has the additional advantage of not getting muddy in wet weather or dusty in dry weather. Shod horses are able to get better traction on stone cobbles, pitches or setts than tarmac/asphalt. In England, the custom was to strew the cobbles outside the house of a sick or dying person with straw to dampen the sound, cobblestones set in sand have the environmental advantage of being permeable paving, and of moving rather than cracking with movements in the ground. Cobblestones were largely replaced by quarried granite setts in the nineteenth century, the word cobblestone is often wrongly used to describe such treatment. Setts were relatively even and roughly rectangular stones that were laid in regular patterns, cobblestoned and setted streets gradually gave way to macadam roads, and later to tarmac, and finally to asphalt concrete at the beginning of the 20th century. However, cobblestones are often retained in areas, even for streets with modern vehicular traffic. Many older villages and cities in Europe are still paved with cobblestones or pitched, in recent decades, cobblestones have become a popular material for paving newly pedestrianised streets in Europe. In this case, the nature of the surface is an advantage as pedestrians can hear approaching vehicles. The visual cues of the cobblestones also clarify that the area is more than just a normal street, the use of cobblestones/setts is also considered to be a more upmarket roadway solution, having been described as unique and artistic compared to the normal asphalt road environment. In some places such as Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, as late as the 1990s some busy intersections still showed cobblestones through worn down sections of pavement. In Toronto streets using setts were used by routes and disappeared by the 1980s
30.
Nazi Germany
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Nazi Germany is the common English name for the period in German history from 1933 to 1945, when Germany was governed by a dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Under Hitlers rule, Germany was transformed into a fascist state in which the Nazi Party took totalitarian control over all aspects of life. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich from 1933 to 1943, the period is also known under the names the Third Reich and the National Socialist Period. The Nazi regime came to an end after the Allied Powers defeated Germany in May 1945, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933. The Nazi Party then began to eliminate all opposition and consolidate its power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator of Germany by merging the powers and offices of the Chancellery, a national referendum held 19 August 1934 confirmed Hitler as sole Führer of Germany. All power was centralised in Hitlers person, and his word became above all laws, the government was not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of factions struggling for power and Hitlers favour. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending, extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of Autobahnen. The return to economic stability boosted the regimes popularity, racism, especially antisemitism, was a central feature of the regime. The Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be the purest branch of the Aryan race, millions of Jews and other peoples deemed undesirable by the state were murdered in the Holocaust. Opposition to Hitlers rule was ruthlessly suppressed, members of the liberal, socialist, and communist opposition were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. The Christian churches were also oppressed, with many leaders imprisoned, education focused on racial biology, population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed, recreation and tourism were organised via the Strength Through Joy program, and the 1936 Summer Olympics showcased the Third Reich on the international stage. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels made effective use of film, mass rallies, the government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. Beginning in the late 1930s, Nazi Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands and it seized Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939. Hitler made a pact with Joseph Stalin and invaded Poland in September 1939. In alliance with Italy and smaller Axis powers, Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940, reichskommissariats took control of conquered areas, and a German administration was established in what was left of Poland. Jews and others deemed undesirable were imprisoned, murdered in Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the tide gradually turned against the Nazis, who suffered major military defeats in 1943
31.
15 cm sFH 18
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It was based on the earlier, First World War-era design of the 15 cm sFH13, and while improved over that weapon, it was generally outdated compared to the weapons it faced. It was, however, the first artillery weapon equipped with rocket-assisted ammunition to increase range, the sFH18 was also used in the self-propelled artillery piece schwere Panzerhaubitze 18/1. The sFH18 was one of Germanys three main 15 cm calibre weapons, the others being the 15 cm Kanone 18, a heavy gun, and the 15 cm sIG33. Development work on the sFH18 began in 1926 and was ready by 1933, the model year was an attempt at camouflage. The gun originated with a contest between Rheinmetall and Krupp, both of whom entered several designs that were all considered unsatisfactory for one reason or another. In the end the army decided the solution was to combine the best features of both designs, using the Rheinmetall gun on a Krupp carriage, the carriage was a relatively standard split-trail design with box legs. Spades were carried on the sides of the legs that could be mounted onto the ends for added stability, the carriage also saw use on the 10 cm schwere Kanone 18 gun. As the howitzer was designed for towing, it used an unsprung axle. A two-wheel bogie was introduced to allow it to be towed, the gun was officially introduced into service on 23 May 1935, and by the outbreak of war the Wehrmacht had about 1,353 of these guns in service. Production continued throughout the war, reaching a peak of 2,295 guns in 1944, in 1944, the howitzer cost 40,400 RM,9 months and 5,500 man-hours to make. Several other versions of the basic 15 cm were produced, however this version was even heavier than the sFH18 and was found to be too difficult to use in the field. Some of these barrels were fitted to existing sFH18 carriages. A further modification was the FH 18/43, which changed to a breech that allowed for the use of bagged charges instead of requiring the gunners to first put the charges into shells. Two further attempts to introduce a newer 15 cm piece followed, the first field combat for the 15 cm sFH18 was with the Chinese National Revolutionary Army in the Second Sino-Japanese War. It is interesting that some pieces of sFH18 in China were designed specially with a 32/L barrel. The maximum range was increased to 15 km, but most of the sFH18 in China were lost to attrition. Only two pieces can be seen in the museums today and this led to numerous efforts to introduce new guns with even better performance than the ML-20, while various experiments were also carried out on the sFH18 to improve its range. These led to the 15 cm sFH 18M version with a removable barrel liner, the 18M increased range to 15,100 metres, but it was found that the liners suffered increased wear and the recoil system could not handle the increased loads in spite of the brake
32.
M114 howitzer
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The M114155 mm howitzer was a towed howitzer developed and used by the United States Army. It was first produced in 1942 as an artillery piece under the designation of 155 mm Howitzer M1. It saw service with the US Army during World War II, the Korean War, in some countries, the M114 still remains in service. So development began anew with a designed to be used for either the 155 mm howitzer or the 4. 7-inch gun. This was completed by 15 May 1941 when the Howitzer M1 on the Carriage M1 was standardized, the howitzer itself differed from the older model by a lengthened barrel of 20 calibers and a new breech mechanism. Uniquely it was the sole slow-cone interrupted screw mechanism to enter service after 1920 and this meant that two separate movements were necessary to open the breech, versus the single movement of the steep cone mechanism that simultaneously rotated and withdrew the breech. The M1A1 was redesignated as the M114A1 in 1962, the carriage was also used by the 4.5 inch Gun M-1. It went through a number of changes over time. The original Warner electric brakes were replaced by Westinghouse air brakes on the M1A1, both the M1 and M1A1 carriages used a mid-axle firing pedestal that was extended by a ratchet mechanism. The M1A2 replaced the ratchet with a system and also modified the traveling lock. The T-9 and T-10 carriages were projects using low-grade steel alloys that were canceled when no longer needed. The T-16 was a carriage using high-grade steel that was estimated to save some 1,200 lb, work began in July 1945 and continued after the war. A mid-1960s variant was the 155mm XM123 & M123A1 auxiliary-propelled howitzers, the extra weight on the left trail displaced the howitzer after each round was fired requiring it to be realigned and the project was abandoned. The concept was copied from the Soviet 85mm SD-44 auxiliary-propelled antitank gun developed in 1954, the non howitzer was experimentally mounted on a lengthened chassis of the M5 light tank. The resulting vehicle received the designation 155 mm Howitzer Motor Carriage T64, a single prototype was built before the T64 project was abandoned in favor of T64E1, based on the M24 Chaffee light tank chassis. This was eventually adopted as the M41 Howitzer Motor Carriage and saw action in the Korean War, towards the end of the Korean War the US Army replaced the M41 self-propelled howitzer with the M44 self-propelled howitzer. The gun fired separate loading, bagged charge ammunition, with up to seven different propelling charges, muzzle velocity, range and penetration in the tables below are for maximum charge in form of complete M4A1 propelling charge. Afghanistan Argentina Tunisia Bosnia and Herzegovina Brazil Cameroon Chile Ecuador Iran South Korea Lebanon Morocco Pakistan,144 in service with the Pakistan Army. S
33.
Gio. Ansaldo & C.
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Ansaldo was one of Italys oldest and most important engineering companies, existing for 140 years from 1853 to 1993. The company was founded in 1853 as Gio, S. A. S. by renowned players in the Genoese business world, such as Giovanni Ansaldo, Raffaele Rubattino, Giacomo Filippo Penco and Carlo Bombrini. In 1904, Ansaldo was bought by Ferdinando Maria Perrone who, along with his sons Mario and Pio, over the next twenty years, he aimed at making Ansaldo fully independent both in the ironworks and weapon-making areas, thanks to strong vertical integration. The onset of World War I was of potential benefit to the company. Ansaldo advocated for Italian entry into the war, both directly and by funding political groups supported the war, such as Benito Mussolinis proto-Fascist movement. The efforts paid off when Italy entered the war, in 1914 the company was worth 30 million lire, but its market value grew to 500 million in 1918. When the company issued shares in the summer of 1918 worth 400 million lire Ansaldo employed 80,000 workers, had dozens of factories and controlled companies such as A. Cerpelli & C. Banca industriale Italiana, Cantieri Officine Savoia, Dynamit Nobel, Gio. Fossati & C. Lloyd Italico, Nazionale di Navigazione, Pomilio, Società Idroelettrica Negri, and Transatlantica Italiana. War contracts indeed led to a significant growth, Ansaldo had 22,000 employees in 1939, after the end of World War II, conversion to peacetime production again caused problems for the company. From that year, Finmeccanica further engaged Ansaldo within its activities, in 1993, Ansaldo ceased to exist as an independent entity, having been completely absorbed by Finmeccanica. Some companies controlled by Finmeccanica still bear the Ansaldo family name, Ansaldo Energia, involved in building power plants. Ansaldo Caldaie, involved in building fired Steam Generators, Ansaldo Fuel Cells, founded in 1993 as a spin-off of the former, devoted to fuel cells. A train-building company born from the merger of Ansaldo Trasporti and Breda Ferroviaria, former Finmeccanica Company, sold to the Japanese Nidec Group, in 2012 Nidec acquired Ansaldo Sistemi Industriali SpA. and becomes Nidec ASI S. p. A. Nidec ASI is a manufacturer of motors, their products are found in electrical engineering, electric motors and generators, control systems. Nidec ASI is headquartered in Milan and has different subsidiaries in Italy in Genoa, Montebello Vicentino, Monfalcone and abroad in China, France, Germany, Romania, Russia, Japan, three-seat versions were also built for reconnaissance use
34.
Schneider Electric
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Schneider Electric SE is a French multinational corporation that specialises in energy management and automation solutions, spanning hardware, software, and services. Native of France, the company is headquartered in Rueil-Malmaison and is based at the World Trade Center of Grenoble with offices throughout the world. A Fortune Global 500 company, Schneider Electric is publicly traded on the Euronext Exchange and is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index, in FY2016, the company posted revenues of about €25 billion. Schneider Electric is the parent company of Square D, Pelco, APC, as of 2016, the company has 20,000 patents either active or in application worldwide, the company has over 160,000 employees in approximately 100 countries worldwide. Schneider Electric has had its office in the Trianon site in Rueil-Malmaison. The roots of this company are in the iron, steel,1975, The Schneider Group acquires an interest in Merlin Gerin, one of the top manufacturers of electrical distribution equipment in France. 1999, Schneider Group acquires Lexel, one of Europes largest suppliers of installation systems, in May 1999, the Schneider Group is renamed Schneider Electric to clearly identify its expertise in, and focus on, the electrical field. This strategy led Schneider Electric to conduct a number of acquisitions both in mature countries and in new economies, targeting companies offering complementary products and solutions. MAVERICK Technologies, strategic alliance company Creusot steam hammer Official website
35.
Corps
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A corps is a military unit usually consisting of several divisions. Some military service branches are also called corps, such as the Military Police Corps, Royal Logistic Corps, Quartermaster Corps, a few civilian organizations use the name corps to imply a similar service level, such as the Peace Corps. In many armies, a corps is a formation composed of two or more divisions, and typically commanded by a lieutenant general. During World War I and World War II, due to the scale of combat. In Western armies with numbered corps, the number is indicated in Roman numerals. II Corps was also formed, with Militia units, to defend south-eastern Australia, sub-corps formations controlled Allied land forces in the remainder of Australia. I Corps headquarters was assigned control of the New Guinea campaign. In early 1945, when I Corps was assigned the task of re-taking Borneo, the Canadian Corps consisted of four Canadian divisions. After the Armistice, the peacetime Canadian militia was organized into corps and divisions. Early in the Second World War, Canadas contribution to the British-French forces fighting the Germans was limited to a single division, after the fall of France in June 1940, a second division moved to England, coming under command of a Canadian corps headquarters. This corps was renamed I Canadian Corps as a corps headquarters was established in the UK. I Canadian Corps eventually fought in Italy, II Canadian Corps in NW Europe, after the formations were disbanded after VE Day, Canada has never subsequently organized a Corps headquarters. The Chinese Republic had 133 Corps during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Corps became the basic tactical unit of the NRA having strength nearly equivalent to an allied Division. The French Army under Napoleon used corps-sized formations as the first formal combined-arms groupings of divisions with reasonably stable manning, Napoleon first used the Corps dArmée in 1805. The use of the Corps dArmée was an innovation that provided Napoleon with a significant battlefield advantage in the early phases of the Napoleonic Wars. The Corps was designed to be an independent military group containing cavalry, artillery and infantry and this allowed Napoleon to mass the bulk of his forces to effect a penetration into a weak section of enemy lines without risking his own communications or flank. This innovation stimulated other European powers to adopt similar military structures, the Corps has remained an echelon of French Army organization to the modern day. As fixed military formation already in peace-time it was used almost in all European armies after Battle of Ulm in 1805, in Prussia it was introduced by Order of His Majesty from November 5,1816, in order to strengthen the readiness to war
36.
Regiment
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A regiment is a military unit. Their role and size varies markedly, depending on the country, in Medieval Europe, the term regiment denoted any large body of front-line soldiers, recruited or conscripted in one geographical area, by a leader who was often also the feudal lord of the soldiers. By the 17th century, a regiment was usually about a thousand personnel. In many armies, the first role has been assumed by independent battalions, battlegroups, task forces, brigades and other, similarly-sized operational units. By the beginning of the 18th century, regiments in most European continental armies had evolved into permanent units with distinctive titles and uniforms, when at full strength, an infantry regiment normally comprised two field battalions of about 800 men each or 8–10 companies. In some armies, an independent regiment with fewer companies was labelled a demi-regiment, a cavalry regiment numbered 600 to 900 troopers, making up a single entity. With the widespread adoption of conscription in European armies during the nineteenth century, the regimental system underwent modification. Prior to World War I, a regiment in the French, German, Russian. As far as possible, the battalions would be garrisoned in the same military district, so that the regiment could be mobilized. A cavalry regiment by contrast made up an entity of up to 1,000 troopers. Usually, the regiment is responsible for recruiting and administering all of a military career. Depending upon the country, regiments can be either combat units or administrative units or both and this is often contrasted to the continental system adopted by many armies. Generally, divisions are garrisoned together and share the same installations, thus, in divisional administration, soldiers and officers are transferred in and out of divisions as required. Some regiments recruited from specific areas, and usually incorporated the place name into the regimental name. In other cases, regiments would recruit from an age group within a nation. In other cases, new regiments were raised for new functions within an army, e. g. the Fusiliers, the Parachute Regiment, a key aspect of the regimental system is that the regiment or battalion is the fundamental tactical building block. This flows historically from the period, when battalions were widely dispersed and virtually autonomous. For example, a regiment might include different types of battalions of different origins, within the regimental system, soldiers, and usually officers, are always posted to a tactical unit of their own regiment whenever posted to field duty
37.
122 mm gun M1931/37 (A-19)
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122 mm corps gun M1931/37 was a Soviet field gun developed in late 1930s by combining the barrel of the 122 mm gun M1931 and the carriage of the 152 mm howitzer-gun M1937. The gun was in production from 1939 until 1946 and it saw action in World War II and remained in service for a long time after the end of the war. Vehicle-mounted variants of the gun were fitted to the IS-2 and 3 tanks, in 1936 the Red Army adopted the 122 mm gun M1931, also known as A-19. Unlike earlier ordnance pieces used by the Red Army, it had split trail carriage with suspension, the carriage of M1931 had a number of shortcomings though. The elevation mechanism was slow and unreliable, solid-tired wheels hindered mobility to some extent, soon after the M1931, the Red Army received another artillery piece in form of the 152 mm howitzer-gun M1937, developed at the No.172 Plant, under F. F. Petrov. This led to an upgrade of the M1931, handled also by Petrovs design bureau, the barrel of the M1931 was placed on the carriage of a ML-20. The improved gun successfully underwent trials in September–October 1938 and on 29 April 1939 was adopted as 122 mm corps gun M1931/37, unusually, the new variant, like the old one, was referred to as A-19. The M1931/37 was manufactured by the Barrikady Plant in Stalingrad, No.172 Plant, the number of M1931/37s manufactured can be estimated at about 2,450, not including vehicle-mounted barrels. Like barrel of late production M1931, the barrel of the M1931/37 was of loose liner construction, the breechblock was of interrupted screw type, similar in construction to that of the 152 mm howitzer M1910/37. Recoil system consisted of hydraulic buffer and hydropneumatic recuperator, both located inside the cradle under the barrel. The gun had split trail carriage adapted from the 152 mm howitzer-gun M1937, the carriage was fitted with leaf spring suspension and metal wheels with pneumatic tires. The shield gave the crew protection from small arms and shell fragments. The M1931/37 was transported as a piece, with barrel pulled back. It was permitted to tow the gun barrel in its normal position. Several types of tractors were used, S-2 Stalinets-2, Komintern and, from 1943. The A-19 was originally intended for corps artillery, together with ML-20 it formed a so-called corps duplex. In 1940-41 there were three types of artillery regiments, With two battalions of ML-20 and one of either A-19 or 107-mm guns. With two battalions of ML-20 and two of either A-19 or 107-mm guns, soon after the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War the corps artillery was eliminated and was only reintroduced late in the war
38.
107 mm gun M1910/30
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107 mm gun M1910/30 was a Soviet 106.7 mm field gun. The gun was based on a piece originally developed by the French arms manufacturer Schneider prior to World War I. The modernized variant, adopted in 1931, differed from the original design mainly by having a chamber and longer barrel. The M1910/30 remained in production until the mid-1930s and was employed by the Red Army in World War II, mainly in corps artillery, a number of captured guns were used by the Wehrmacht. From the late 1920s the RKKA sought to upgrade its First World War era artillery pieces, one of the modernized weapons was the 107 mm gun M1910, originally designed by the French arms manufacturer Schneider. Modernization projects were submitted by Orudiyno-Arsenalny Trest and by the bureau of the Scientific. After trials it was decided to adopt the weapon designed by KB NTK GAU, the modernized weapon was adopted in 1931 as the 107 mm gun M1910/30. The weapon was manufactured by the Bolshevik Plant in Leningrad and by the Barrikady Plant in Stalingrad from 1931 until 1935 or later, additionally, a number of M1910 pieces were upgraded by Bolshevik, No 7, No 13 and KKZ plants. The barrel of the M1910/30 was longer than the barrel and was fitted with a slotted muzzle brake, in order to balance the barrel. The breech was of the screw type. The recoil system, consisting of a recoil buffer and a hydropneumatic recuperator, was located in a sleigh below the barrel. The box trail carriage was nearly identical to that of the M1910 and it had either unsprung wooden wheels or metal wheels with solid rubber tires. With wooden wheels, the speed of transportation was limited to about 6 km/h, a team of eight horses was needed to tow the gun, another six towed an ammunition box with 42 rounds. The M1910/30 guns were issued to corps artillery, in 1941, three variants of corps artillery regiments existed, Two battalions of 152 mm howitzer-guns M1937 and one battalion of 107 mm guns. Two battalions of ML-20 and two battalions of 122 mm guns or 107 mm guns, in September 1941 rifle corps of the RKKA were disbanded, therefore corps level artillery ceased to exist. 107 mm guns were issued to Reserve of the Main Command units. When corps level was reintroduced in 1943, most 107 mm pieces were given to corps artillery. New corps artillery regiments had 16-20 pieces and along with 107 mm guns included 122 mm guns and 152 mm howitzers, many 107 mm guns were also used by the independent artillery regiments of fortified regions and by independent battalions and batteries belonging to fronts and armies
39.
Division (military)
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A division is a large military unit or formation, usually consisting of between 10,000 and 20,000 soldiers. Infantry divisions during the World Wars ranged between 10,000 and 30,000 in nominal strength, in most armies, a division is composed of several regiments or brigades, in turn, several divisions typically make up a corps. In the West, the first general to think of organising an army into smaller units was Maurice de Saxe, Marshal General of France. He died at the age of 54, without having implemented his idea, victor-François de Broglie put the ideas into practice. He conducted successful practical experiments of the system in the Seven Years War. The first war in which the system was used systematically was the French Revolutionary War. It made the more flexible and easy to manoeuvre. Under Napoleon, the divisions were grouped together into corps, because of their increasing size, napoleons military success spread the divisional and corps system all over Europe, by the end of the Napoleonic Wars, all armies in Europe had adopted it. In modern times, most military forces have standardized their divisional structures, the peak use of the division as the primary combat unit occurred during World War II, when the belligerents deployed over a thousand divisions. With technological advances since then, the power of each division has increased. Divisions are often formed to organize units of a particular type together with support units to allow independent operations. In more recent times, divisions have mainly been organized as combined arms units with subordinate units representing various combat arms, in this case, the division often retains the name of a more specialized division, and may still be tasked with a primary role suited to that specialization. For the most part, large cavalry units did not remain after World War II, in general, two new types of cavalry were developed, air cavalry or airmobile, relying on helicopter mobility, and armored cavalry, based on an autonomous armored formation. The former was pioneered by the 11th Air Assault Division, formed on 1 February 1963 at Fort Benning, on 29 June 1965 the division was renamed as the 1st Cavalry Division, before its departure for the Vietnam War. After the end of the Vietnam War, the 1st Cavalry Division was reorganised and re-equipped with tanks, the development of the tank during World War I prompted some nations to experiment with forming them into division-size units. Many did this the way as they did cavalry divisions, by merely replacing cavalry with AFVs. This proved unwieldy in combat, as the units had many tanks, instead, a more balanced approach was taken by adjusting the number of tank, infantry, artillery, and support units. A panzer division was a division of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS of Germany during World War II
40.
Afghanistan
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Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located within South Asia and Central Asia. It has a population of approximately 32 million, making it the 42nd most populous country in the world. It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in the north and its territory covers 652,000 km2, making it the 41st largest country in the world. The land also served as the source from which the Kushans, Hephthalites, Samanids, Saffarids, Ghaznavids, Ghorids, Khiljis, Mughals, Hotaks, Durranis, the political history of the modern state of Afghanistan began with the Hotak and Durrani dynasties in the 18th century. In the late 19th century, Afghanistan became a state in the Great Game between British India and the Russian Empire. Following the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919, King Amanullah unsuccessfully attempted to modernize the country and it remained peaceful during Zahir Shahs forty years of monarchy. A series of coups in the 1970s was followed by a series of wars that devastated much of Afghanistan. The name Afghānistān is believed to be as old as the ethnonym Afghan, the root name Afghan was used historically in reference to a member of the ethnic Pashtuns, and the suffix -stan means place of in Persian. Therefore, Afghanistan translates to land of the Afghans or, more specifically in a historical sense, however, the modern Constitution of Afghanistan states that he word Afghan shall apply to every citizen of Afghanistan. An important site of historical activities, many believe that Afghanistan compares to Egypt in terms of the historical value of its archaeological sites. The country sits at a unique nexus point where numerous civilizations have interacted and it has been home to various peoples through the ages, among them the ancient Iranian peoples who established the dominant role of Indo-Iranian languages in the region. At multiple points, the land has been incorporated within large regional empires, among them the Achaemenid Empire, the Macedonian Empire, the Indian Maurya Empire, and the Islamic Empire. Archaeological exploration done in the 20th century suggests that the area of Afghanistan has been closely connected by culture and trade with its neighbors to the east, west. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, urban civilization is believed to have begun as early as 3000 BCE, and the early city of Mundigak may have been a colony of the nearby Indus Valley Civilization. More recent findings established that the Indus Valley Civilisation stretched up towards modern-day Afghanistan, making the ancient civilisation today part of Pakistan, Afghanistan, in more detail, it extended from what today is northwest Pakistan to northwest India and northeast Afghanistan. An Indus Valley site has found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan. There are several smaller IVC colonies to be found in Afghanistan as well, after 2000 BCE, successive waves of semi-nomadic people from Central Asia began moving south into Afghanistan, among them were many Indo-European-speaking Indo-Iranians. These tribes later migrated further into South Asia, Western Asia, the region at the time was referred to as Ariana
41.
Albania
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Albania, officially the Republic of Albania, is a country in Southeastern Europe. It has a population of 3.03 million as of 2016, Tirana is the nations capital and largest city, followed by Durrës and Vlorë. The country has a coastline on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, the Adriatic Sea to the west. Albania is less than 72 km from Italy, across the Strait of Otranto which connects the Adriatic Sea to the Ionian Sea. In antiquity, the area of Albania was home to several Illyrian, Thracian. After the Illyrian Wars, it part of the Roman provinces of Dalmatia, Macedonia and Moesia Superior. In 1190, the first Albanian state, the Principality of Arbanon was established by archon Progon in the region of Krujë, the territory of Albania was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century, of which it remained part of for the next five centuries. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in Europe, following the Balkan Wars, the Kingdom of Albania was invaded by Italy in 1939, which formed Greater Albania, before becoming a Nazi German protectorate in 1943. The following year, a socialist Peoples Republic was established under the leadership of Enver Hoxha, Albania experienced widespread social and political transformations in the communist era, as well as isolation from much of the international community. In 1991, the Socialist Republic was dissolved and the Republic of Albania was established, Albania is a democratic and developing country with an upper-middle income economy. The service sector dominates the economy, followed by the industrial. After the fall of communism in Albania, Free-market reforms have opened the country to foreign investment, especially in the development of energy, Albania has a high HDI and provides universal health care system and free primary and secondary education to its citizens. Albania is a member of the United Nations, NATO, WTO, World Bank, the Council of Europe, the OSCE and it is also an official candidate for membership in the European Union. Albania is one of the members of the Energy Community, Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation. It is home to the largest lake in Southern Europe and one of the oldest lakes in Europe, Albania is the Medieval Latin name of the country. The name may have a continuation in the name of a settlement called Albanon and Arbanon. During the Middle Ages, the Albanians called their country Arbëri or Arbëni, Albanians today call their country Shqipëri. As early as the 17th century the placename Shqipëria and the ethnic demonym Shqiptarë gradually replaced Arbëria, the two terms are popularly interpreted as Land of the Eagles and Children of the Eagles
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Cuba
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Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is a country comprising the island of Cuba as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located in the northern Caribbean where the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and it is south of both the U. S. state of Florida and the Bahamas, west of Haiti, and north of Jamaica. Havana is the largest city and capital, other cities include Santiago de Cuba. Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean, with an area of 109,884 square kilometres, prior to Spanish colonization in the late 15th century, Cuba was inhabited by Amerindian tribes. It remained a colony of Spain until the Spanish–American War of 1898, as a fragile republic, Cuba attempted to strengthen its democratic system, but mounting political radicalization and social strife culminated in the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1952. Further unrest and instability led to Batistas ousting in January 1959 by the July 26 Movement, since 1965, the state has been governed by the Communist Party of Cuba. A point of contention during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, a nuclear war broke out during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Culturally, Cuba is considered part of Latin America, Cuba is a Marxist–Leninist one-party republic, where the role of the vanguard Communist Party is enshrined in the Constitution. Independent observers have accused the Cuban government of human rights abuses. It is one of the worlds last planned economies and its economy is dominated by the exports of sugar, tobacco, coffee, according to the Human Development Index, Cuba is described as a country with high human development and is ranked the eighth highest in North America. It also ranks highly in some metrics of national performance, including health care, the name Cuba comes from the Taíno language. The exact meaning of the name is unclear but it may be translated either as where fertile land is abundant, authors who believe that Christopher Columbus was Portuguese state that Cuba was named by Columbus for the town of Cuba in the district of Beja in Portugal. Before the arrival of the Spanish, Cuba was inhabited by three distinct tribes of indigenous peoples of the Americas, the Taíno, the Guanajatabey, and the Ciboney people. The ancestors of the Ciboney migrated from the mainland of South America, the Taíno arrived from Hispanola sometime in the 3rd century A. D. When Columbus arrived they were the dominant culture in Cuba, having a population of 150,000. The name Cuba comes from the native Taíno language and it is derived from either coabana meaning great place, or from cubao meaning where fertile land is abundant. The Taíno were farmers, while the Ciboney were farmers as well as fishers and hunter-gatherers, Columbus claimed the island for the new Kingdom of Spain and named it Isla Juana after Juan, Prince of Asturias. In 1511, the first Spanish settlement was founded by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar at Baracoa, other towns soon followed, including San Cristobal de la Habana, founded in 1515, which later became the capital
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Iraq
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The capital, and largest city, is Baghdad. The main ethnic groups are Arabs and Kurds, others include Assyrians, Turkmen, Shabakis, Yazidis, Armenians, Mandeans, Circassians, around 95% of the countrys 36 million citizens are Muslims, with Christianity, Yarsan, Yezidism, and Mandeanism also present. The official languages of Iraq are Arabic and Kurdish, two major rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, run south through Iraq and into the Shatt al-Arab near the Persian Gulf. These rivers provide Iraq with significant amounts of fertile land, the region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, historically known as Mesopotamia, is often referred to as the cradle of civilisation. It was here that mankind first began to read, write, create laws, the area has been home to successive civilisations since the 6th millennium BC. Iraq was the centre of the Akkadian, Sumerian, Assyrian and it was also part of the Median, Achaemenid, Hellenistic, Parthian, Sassanid, Roman, Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, Ayyubid, Mongol, Safavid, Afsharid, and Ottoman empires. Iraqs modern borders were mostly demarcated in 1920 by the League of Nations when the Ottoman Empire was divided by the Treaty of Sèvres, Iraq was placed under the authority of the United Kingdom as the British Mandate of Mesopotamia. A monarchy was established in 1921 and the Kingdom of Iraq gained independence from Britain in 1932, in 1958, the monarchy was overthrown and the Iraqi Republic created. Iraq was controlled by the Arab Socialist Baath Party from 1968 until 2003, after an invasion by the United States and its allies in 2003, Saddam Husseins Baath Party was removed from power and multi-party parliamentary elections were held in 2005. The American presence in Iraq ended in 2011, but the Iraqi insurgency continued and intensified as fighters from the Syrian Civil War spilled into the country, the Arabic name العراق al-ʿIrāq has been in use since before the 6th century. There are several suggested origins for the name, one dates to the Sumerian city of Uruk and is thus ultimately of Sumerian origin, as Uruk was the Akkadian name for the Sumerian city of Urug, containing the Sumerian word for city, UR. An Arabic folk etymology for the name is rooted, well-watered. During the medieval period, there was a region called ʿIrāq ʿArabī for Lower Mesopotamia and ʿIrāq ʿajamī, for the region now situated in Central and Western Iran. The term historically included the south of the Hamrin Mountains. The term Sawad was also used in early Islamic times for the region of the plain of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. In English, it is either /ɪˈrɑːk/ or /ɪˈræk/, the American Heritage Dictionary, the pronunciation /aɪˈræk/ is frequently heard in U. S. media. Since approximately 10,000 BC, Iraq was one of centres of a Caucasoid Neolithic culture where agriculture, the following Neolithic period is represented by rectangular houses. At the time of the pre-pottery Neolithic, people used vessels made of stone, gypsum, finds of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidences of early trade relations
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