1.
Self-propelled artillery
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Self-propelled artillery is artillery equipped with its own propulsion system to move towards its target. Within the term are covered self-propelled guns and rocket artillery and they are high mobility vehicles, usually based on continuous tracks carrying either a large howitzer, field gun, a mortar or some form of rocket or missile launcher. They are usually used for long-range indirect bombardment support on the battlefield, in the past, self-propelled artillery has included direct-fire vehicles, such as assault guns and tank destroyers. These have been heavily armoured vehicles, the former providing close fire-support for infantry, modern self-propelled artillery vehicles may superficially resemble tanks, but they are generally lightly armoured, too lightly to survive in direct-fire combat. However, they protect their crews against shrapnel and small arms and are usually included as armoured fighting vehicles. Many are equipped with guns for defense against enemy infantry. The key advantage of self-propelled over towed artillery is that it can be brought into action much faster, before the towed artillery can be used, it has to stop, unlimber and set up the guns. To move position, the guns must be limbered up again, by comparison, self-propelled artillery can stop at a chosen location and begin firing almost immediately, then quickly move on to a new position. This shoot-and-scoot ability is useful in a mobile conflict and particularly on the advance. Conversely, towed artillery was and remains cheaper to build and maintain and it is also lighter and can be taken to places that self-propelled guns cannot reach. Since the Vietnam War, heavy transport helicopters have also used for rapid artillery deployment. So, despite the advantages of the artillery, towed guns remain in the arsenals of many modern armies. During the Thirty Years War, early 17th century experiments were made with early types of horse artillery, batteries towed light field guns where most or all of the crew rode horses into battle. The gunners were trained to quickly dismount, deploy the guns and provide instant fire support to cavalry, the Russian army organized small units of horse artillery that were distributed among their cavalry formations in the early 18th century. While not forming large batteries and employing only lighter 2- and 3-pound guns, they were still effective and this inspired Frederick the Great to organize the first regular horse artillery unit in 1759. The British Gun Carrier Mark I was the first example of a self-propelled gun and it was based on the first tank, the British Mark I and carried a heavy field gun. The gun could either be fired from the vehicle, or removed, in effect, the carrier replaced the use of a separate horse team or internal combustion engine powered artillery tractor, and allowed a new way for the gun to be used. The next major advance can be seen in the Birch gun developed by the British for their motorised warfare experimental brigade after the end of the War
2.
Gulf War
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The Iraqi Armys occupation of Kuwait that began 2 August 1990 was met with international condemnation, and brought immediate economic sanctions against Iraq by members of the UN Security Council. US President George H. W. Bush deployed US forces into Saudi Arabia, an array of nations joined the coalition, the largest military alliance since World War II. The great majority of the military forces were from the US, with Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia paid around US$32 billion of the US$60 billion cost, the war was marked by the introduction of live news broadcasts from the front lines of the battle, principally by the US network CNN. The war has also earned the nickname Video Game War after the daily broadcast of images from cameras on board US bombers during Operation Desert Storm. The initial conflict to expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait began with an aerial and naval bombardment on 17 January 1991 and this was followed by a ground assault on 24 February. This was a victory for the coalition forces, who liberated Kuwait. The coalition ceased its advance, and declared a ceasefire 100 hours after the campaign started. Aerial and ground combat was confined to Iraq, Kuwait, Iraq launched Scud missiles against coalition military targets in Saudi Arabia and against Israel. The following names have been used to describe the conflict itself, Gulf War, a problem with these terms is that the usage is ambiguous, having now been applied to at least three conflicts, see Gulf War. The use of the term Persian Gulf is also disputed, see Persian Gulf naming dispute, with no consensus of naming, various publications have attempted to refine the name. Other language terms include French, la Guerre du Golfe and German, Golfkrieg, German, Zweiter Golfkrieg, French, most of the coalition states used various names for their operations and the wars operational phases. Operation Desert Storm was the US name of the conflict from 17 January 1991. Operation Desert Sabre was the US name for the offensive against the Iraqi Army in the Kuwaiti Theater of Operations from 24–28 February 1991, in itself. Operation Desert Farewell was the given to the return of US units and equipment to the US in 1991 after Kuwaits liberation. Operation Granby was the British name for British military activities during the operations, Opération Daguet was the French name for French military activities in the conflict. Operation Friction was the name of the Canadian operations Operazione Locusta was the Italian name for the operations, in addition, various phases of each operation may have a unique operational name. The US divided the conflict into three campaigns, Defense of Saudi Arabian country for the period 2 August 1990, through 16 January 1991
3.
Yugoslav Wars
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The Yugoslav Wars were a series of ethnically-based wars and insurgencies fought from 1991 to 2001 inside the territory of the former Yugoslavia. The wars are considered to be a series of separate but related military conflicts which occurred in. The wars ended through peace accords, involving full international recognition of new states, as a result, the JNA began to lose Slovenes, Croats, Kosovar Albanians, Bosniaks, and ethnic Macedonians, and effectively became a Serb army. According to the 1994 United Nations report, the Serb side did not aim to restore Yugoslavia, other irredentist movements have also been brought into connection with the wars, such as Greater Albania and Greater Croatia. Often described as Europes deadliest since World War II, the conflicts have become infamous for the war crimes involved, including cleansing, crimes against humanity. These were the first European conflicts since World War II to be formally judged genocidal in character, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia was established by the UN to prosecute these crimes. According to the International Center for Transitional Justice, the Yugoslav Wars resulted in the deaths of 140,000 people, the Humanitarian Law Center estimates that in the conflicts in former Yugoslav republics at least 130,000 people lost their lives. The war have alternatively been called, Wars in the Balkans Wars/conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, third Balkan War, a term suggested by British journalist Misha Glenny in the title of his book, alluding to the two previous Balkan Wars fought 1912–13. In fact, this term has been applied by some historians to World War I. Yugoslavia Civil War/Yugoslav Civil War/Yugoslavian Civil War/Civil War in Yugoslavia, the nation of Yugoslavia was created in the aftermath of World War I, and was composed mostly of South Slavic Christians, but the nation also had a substantial Muslim minority. In the 1980s, relations among the six republics of the SFRY deteriorated, Slovenia and Croatia desired greater autonomy within the Yugoslav confederation, while Serbia sought to strengthen federal authority. As it became clearer that there was no solution agreeable to all parties, although tensions in Yugoslavia had been mounting since the early 1980s, it was 1990 that proved decisive. In the midst of hardship, Yugoslavia was facing rising nationalism among its various ethnic groups. By the early 1990s, there was no authority at the federal level. The Federal Presidency consisted of the representatives of the six republics, the communist leadership was divided along national lines. The representatives of Vojvodina, Kosovo and Montenegro were replaced with loyalists of the President of Serbia, Serbia secured four out of eight federal presidency votes and was able to heavily influence decision-making at the federal level, since all the other Yugoslav republics only had one vote. While Slovenia and Croatia wanted to allow a multi-party system, Serbia, led by Milošević, demanded a more centralized federation. This prompted the Croatian and Slovene delegations to walk out and thus the break-up of the party, the first of these conflicts, known as the Ten-Day War, was initiated by the JNA on 26 June 1991 after the secession of Slovenia from the federation on 25 June 1991
4.
Kosovo War
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The Kosovo War was an armed conflict in Kosovo that lasted from 5 March 1998 until 11 June 1999. After attempts at a diplomatic solution failed, NATO intervened, justifying the campaign in Kosovo as a humanitarian war and this precipitated a mass expulsion of Kosovar Albanians as the Yugoslav forces continued to fight during the aerial bombardment of Yugoslavia. The war ended with the Kumanovo Treaty, with Yugoslav and Serb forces agreeing to withdraw from Kosovo to make way for an international presence, Kosovos borders did not precisely match the areas of ethnic Albanian settlement in Yugoslavia. Kosovos formal autonomy, established under the 1945 Yugoslav constitution, initially meant relatively little in practice, the secret police cracked down hard on nationalists. In 1956 a number of Albanians went on trial in Kosovo on charges of espionage, the threat of separatism was in fact minimal, as the few underground groups aiming for union with Albania had little political significance. Demaci himself was imprisoned in 1964 along with many of his followers, Yugoslavia underwent a period of economic and political crisis in 1969, as a massive government program of economic reform widened the gap between the rich north and poor south of the country. Student demonstrations and riots in Belgrade in June 1968 spread to Kosovo in November of the same year, however, Tito conceded some of the students demands—in particular, representative powers for Albanians in both the Serbian and Yugoslav state bodies and better recognition of the Albanian language. The University of Pristina was established as an independent institution in 1970, the lack of Albanian-language educational materials in Yugoslavia hampered the Albanisation of education in Kosovo, so an agreement was struck with Albania itself to supply textbooks. In 1974 Kosovos political status improved further when a new Yugoslav constitution granted a set of political rights. Along with Vojvodina, Kosovo was declared a province and gained many of the powers of a fully-fledged republic, power was still exercised by the Communist Party, but it was now devolved mainly to ethnic Albanian communists. Titos death on 4 May 1980 ushered in a period of political instability, worsened by growing economic crisis. The disturbances were quelled by the Presidency of Yugoslavia proclaiming a state of emergency, sending in riot police and the army, hard-liners instituted a fierce crackdown on nationalism of all kinds, Albanian and Serbian alike. Kosovo endured a heavy secret-police presence throughout most of the 1980s that ruthlessly suppressed any unauthorised nationalist manifestations, according to a report quoted by Mark Thompson, as many as 580,000 inhabitants of Kosovo were arrested, interrogated, interned or reprimanded. Thousands of these lost their jobs or were expelled from their educational establishments, during this time tension between the Albanian and Serbian communities continued to escalate. Such concerns did attract interest in Belgrade, stories appeared from time to time in the Belgrade media claiming that Serbs and Montenegrins were being persecuted. There was a perception among Serbian nationalists that Serbs were being driven out of Kosovo, in addition to all this, the worsening state of Kosovos economy made the province a poor choice for Serbs seeking work. Albanians, as well as Serbs, tended to favor their compatriots when hiring new employees, Kosovo was the poorest entity of Yugoslavia, the average per capita income was $795, compared with the national average of $2,635. 33 nationalist formations were dismantled by Yugoslav police, who sentenced some 280 people and seized arms caches, in Kosovo an increasingly poisonous atmosphere between Serbs and Albanians led to wild rumors being spread and otherwise trivial incidents being blown out of proportion
5.
First Chechen War
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The First Chechen War, also known as the War in Chechnya, was a conflict between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, fought from December 1994 to August 1996. The official figure for Russian military deaths is 5,732, although there are no accurate figures for the number of Chechen forces killed, various estimates put the number at about 3,000 to 17,391 deaths and missing. The conflict led to a significant decrease of population due to violence. Following long local resistance during the 1817−1864 Caucasian War, Imperial Russian forces defeated the Chechens, in 1936, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin established the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. The official pretext was punishment for collaboration with the invading German forces during the 1940–1944 insurgency in Chechnya, eventually, Soviet first secretary Nikita Khrushchev granted the Vainakh peoples permission to return to their homeland and restored their republic in 1957. Russia became an independent nation after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, while Russia was widely accepted as the successor state to the USSR, it lost a significant amount of its military and economic power. In the Soviet period, some of Russias approximately 100 nationalities were granted ethnic enclaves that had various formal federal rights attached, relations of these entities with the federal government and demands for autonomy erupted into a major political issue in the early 1990s. Boris Yeltsin incorporated these demands into his 1990 election campaign by claiming that their resolution was a high priority, there was an urgent need for a law to clearly define the powers of each federal subject. In almost all cases, demands for autonomy or independence were satisfied by concessions of regional autonomy. The treaty outlined three basic types of subjects and the powers that were reserved for local and federal government. The only federal subjects that did not sign the treaty were Chechnya, neither Yeltsin nor the Chechen government attempted any serious negotiations and the situation deteriorated into a full-scale conflict. The storming caused the death of the head of Groznys branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Vitaly Kutsenko and this effectively dissolved the government of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic of the Soviet Union. In the following month, Dudayev won overwhelming support to oust the interim administration that was supported by the central government. He was made president and declared independence from the Soviet Union, in November 1991, Yeltsin dispatched Internal Troops to Grozny, but they were forced to withdraw when Dudayevs forces surrounded them at the airport. The newly created republic of Ingushetia then joined the Russian Federation, from 1991 to 1994, tens of thousands of people of non-Chechen ethnicity left the republic amidst reports of violence and discrimination against the non-Chechen population. During the undeclared Chechen civil war, factions both sympathetic and opposed to Dudayev fought for power, sometimes in pitched battles with the use of heavy weapons, in March 1992, the opposition attempted a coup détat, but their attempt was crushed by force. A month later, Dudayev introduced direct rule, and in June 1993. To prevent the invasion of Chechnya, he did not provoke the Russian troops, in August 1994, the coalition of the opposition factions based in north Chechnya launched a large-scale armed campaign to remove Dudayevs government
6.
Second Chechen War
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The Second Chechen War was an invasion launched by the Russian Federation, starting 26 August 1999, in response to the Invasion of Dagestan by the Islamic International Brigade. On 1 October, Russian troops entered Chechnya, the campaign ended the de facto independence of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and restored Russian federal control over the territory. Some Chechen separatists also carried out attacks against civilians in Russia and these attacks, as well as widespread human rights violations by Russian and separatist forces, drew international condemnation. In mid-2000, the Russian government transferred certain military operations to pro-Russian Chechen forces, the military phase of operations was terminated in April 2002, and the coordination of the field operations were given first to the Federal Security Service and then to the MVD in the summer of 2003. By 2009, Russia had severely disabled the Chechen separatist movement, Russian army and interior ministry troops no longer occupied the streets. Grozny underwent reconstruction efforts and much of the city and surrounding areas were rebuilt quickly, sporadic violence continues throughout the North Caucasus, occasional bombings and ambushes targeting federal troops and forces of the regional governments in the area still occur. On 15 April 2009, the government operation in Chechnya was officially ended, as the main bulk of the army was withdrawn, the burden of dealing with the ongoing low-level insurgency mainly fell on the shoulders of the local police force. The exact death toll from this conflict is unknown, unofficial estimates range from 25,000 to 50,000 dead or missing, mostly civilians in Chechnya. Russian casualties are over 5,200 and are about 11,000 according to the Committee of Soldiers Mothers, Chechnya is an area in the Northern Caucasus which has constantly fought against foreign rule, including the Ottoman Turks in the 15th century. The Russian Terek Cossack Host was established in lowland Chechnya in 1577 by free Cossacks who were resettled from the Volga to the Terek River, in 1783, Russia and the Georgian kingdom of Kartl-Kakheti signed the Treaty of Georgievsk, under which Kartl-Kakheti became a Russian protectorate. To secure communications with Georgia and other regions of the Transcaucasia, Russian forces first moved into highland Chechnya in 1830, and the conflict in the area lasted until 1859, when a 250, 000-strong army under General Baryatinsky broke down the highlanders resistance. Frequent uprisings in the Caucasus also occurred during the Russo-Turkish War, the Chechen states were opposed by both sides of the Russian Civil War and most of the resistance was crushed by Bolshevik troops by 1922. Then, months before the creation of the Soviet Union, the Chechen Autonomous Oblast of the Russian SFSR was established and it annexed a part of territory of the former Terek Cossack Host. Chechnya and neighboring Ingushetia formed the Chechen–Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1936, in 1941, during World War II, a Chechen revolt broke out, led by Khasan Israilov. Chechens were accused by Joseph Stalin of aiding Nazi forces, in February 1944 Stalin deported all the Chechens and Ingush to the Kazakh and Kirghiz SSRs. Up to a quarter of people died during the resettlement. In 1957, after the death of Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev allowed the Chechens to return, afterwards, the authority of the Soviet government gradually eroded. During the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Chechnya declared independence, in 1992, Chechen and Ingush leaders signed an agreement splitting the joint Chechen–Ingush republic in two, with Ingushetia joining the Russian Federation and Chechnya remaining independent
7.
Iraq War
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The Iraq War was a protracted armed conflict that began in 2003 with the invasion of Iraq by a United States-led coalition that toppled the government of Saddam Hussein. The conflict continued for much of the decade as an insurgency emerged to oppose the occupying forces. An estimated 151,000 to 600,000 or more Iraqis were killed in the first 3–4 years of conflict and it became re-involved in 2014 at the head of a new coalition, the insurgency and many dimensions of the civil armed conflict continue. The invasion began on 20 March 2003, with the U. S. joined by the United Kingdom and several allies, launching a shock. Iraqi forces were overwhelmed as U. S. forces swept through the country. The invasion led to the collapse of the Baathist government, President Hussein was captured during Operation Red Dawn in December of that same year, the United States responded with a troop surge in 2007. The winding down of U. S. involvement in Iraq accelerated under President Barack Obama, the U. S. formally withdrew all combat troops from Iraq by December 2011. Select U. S. officials accused Saddam of harboring and supporting al-Qaeda, while others cited the desire to end a repressive dictatorship, after the invasion, no substantial evidence was found to verify the initial claims about WMDs. The rationale and misrepresentation of pre-war intelligence faced heavy criticism within the U. S. in the aftermath of the invasion, Iraq held multi-party elections in 2005. Nouri al-Maliki became Prime Minister in 2006 and remained in office until 2014, the al-Maliki government enacted policies that were widely seen as having the effect of alienating the countrys Sunni minority and worsening sectarian tensions. The Iraq War caused hundreds of thousands of civilian, and thousands of military casualties, the majority of casualties occurred as a result of the insurgency and civil conflicts between 2004 and 2007. A1990 Frontline report on The arming of Iraq said, Officially, most Western nations participated in an arms embargo against Iraq during the 1980s. Western companies, primarily in Germany and Great Britain, but also in the United States, sold Iraq the key technology for its chemical, missile, any Western governments seemed remarkably indifferent, if not enthusiastic, about those deals. N Washington, the government consistently followed a policy which allowed and perhaps encouraged the growth of Saddam Husseins arsenal. The Western arming of Iraq took place in the context of the Iran-Iraq War, prior to September 2002, the CIA was the George W. Bush administrations main provider of intelligence on Iraq. The agency was out to disprove linkage between Iraq and terrorism the Pentagon adviser told me, the U. N. had prohibited Iraq from developing or possessing such weapons after the Gulf War and required Iraq to permit inspections confirming compliance. This was confirmed by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, during 2002, Bush repeatedly warned of military action against Iraq unless inspections were allowed to progress unfettered. In accordance with U. N. Security Council Resolution 1441, Iraq agreed to new inspections under United Nations Monitoring, as part of its weapons inspection obligations, Iraq was required to supply a full declaration of its current weapons capabilities and manufacturing
8.
Russo-Georgian War
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The Russo-Georgian War was a war between Georgia, Russia and the Russian-backed self-proclaimed republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The war took place in August 2008 following a period of worsening relations between Russia and Georgia, both constituent republics of the Soviet Union. The fighting took place in the strategically important Transcaucasia region, which borders the Middle East and it was regarded as the first European war of the 21st century. The Republic of Georgia declared its independence in early 1991 as the Soviet Union began to fall apart, following the war, a joint peacekeeping force of Georgian, Russian, and Ossetian troops was stationed in the territory. Meanwhile, a stalemate developed in the region of Abkhazia. By August 1,2008, Ossetian separatists began shelling Georgian villages, to put an end to these deadly attacks and restore order, the Georgian Army was sent to the South Ossetian conflict zone on 7 August. Georgians took control of most of Tskhinvali, a separatist stronghold, Georgia later stated it was also responding to Russia moving non-peacekeeping units into the country. Russia accused Georgia of aggression against South Ossetia, and launched a land, air. Russian and Ossetian forces battled Georgian forces in and around South Ossetia for several days, Russian and Abkhaz forces opened a second front by attacking the Kodori Gorge held by Georgia. Russian naval forces blockaded part of the Georgian coast and this was the first war in history in which cyber warfare coincided with military action. An active information war was waged during and after the conflict. President of France Nicolas Sarkozy negotiated an agreement on 12 August. Russian forces temporarily occupied the Georgian cities of Zugdidi, Senaki, Poti, the South Ossetians destroyed most ethnic Georgian villages in South Ossetia and were responsible for an ethnic cleansing of Georgians. Russia recognised Abkhazia and South Ossetia as separate republics on 26 August, in response, Russia mostly completed its withdrawal of troops from Georgia proper on 8 October. In the aftermath, Russias international relations were largely unharmed, the war displaced 192,000 people and while many returned to their homes after the war,20,272 people remained displaced as of 2014. Russia has, since the war, occupied Abkhazia and South Ossetia in violation of the agreement of August 2008. In the tenth century AD, Georgia for the first time emerged as a concept in the territories where the Georgian language was used to perform Christian rituals. After the Mongol invasions of the region, the Kingdom of Georgia eventually was broken up into several kingdoms, in the nineteenth century, the Russian Empire gradually annexed the Georgian lands
9.
Libyan Civil War (2011)
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The protests escalated into a rebellion that spread across the country, with the forces opposing Gaddafi establishing an interim governing body, the National Transitional Council. In early March, Gaddafis forces rallied, pushed eastwards and re-took several coastal cities before reaching Benghazi, a further UN resolution authorised member states to establish and enforce a no-fly zone over Libya, and to use all necessary measures to prevent attacks on civilians. The Gaddafi government then announced a ceasefire, but fighting continued, throughout the conflict, rebels rejected government offers of a ceasefire and efforts by the African Union to end the fighting because the plans set forth did not include the removal of Gaddafi. On 16 September 2011, the National Transitional Council was recognised by the United Nations as the representative of Libya. Muammar Gaddafi remained at large until 20 October 2011, when he was captured and killed in Sirte, the National Transitional Council declared the liberation of Libya and the official end of the war on 23 October 2011. In the aftermath of the war, a low-level insurgency by former Gaddafi loyalists continued. A much greater issue has been the role of militias which fought in the civil war and these unresolved issues led directly to a second civil war in Libya. Muammar Gaddafi was the head of the Free Officers, a group of Arab nationalists that deposed King Idris I in 1969 in a bloodless coup and he abolished the Libyan Constitution of 1951, considering it a neocolonial document. From 1969 until 1975 standards of living, life expectancy and literacy grew rapidly, in 1975 he published his manifesto The Green Book. He officially stepped down from power in 1977, and subsequently claimed to be merely a figurehead until 2011. Under Gaddafi, Libya was theoretically a decentralized, direct democracy state run according to the philosophy of Gaddafis The Green Book, according to Freedom House, however, these structures were often manipulated to ensure the dominance of Gaddafi, who reportedly continued to dominate all aspects of government. WikiLeaks disclosure of confidential US diplomatic cables revealed US diplomats there speaking of Gaddafis mastery of tactical maneuvering and this extended even to his own sons, as he repeatedly changed affections to avoid the rise of a clear successor and rival. Both Gaddafi and the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, however, officially denied that he held any power, while he was popularly seen as a demagogue in the West, Gaddafi always portrayed himself as a statesman-philosopher. According to several Western media sources, Gaddafi feared a coup against his government. The Libyan Army consisted of about 50,000 personnel and its most powerful units were four crack brigades of highly equipped and trained soldiers, composed of members of Gaddafis tribe or members of other tribes loyal to him. One, the Khamis Brigade, was led by his son Khamis, local militias and Revolutionary Committees across the country were also kept well-armed. By contrast, regular units were poorly armed and trained. By the end of Gaddafis 42 years rule, Libyas population had a per capita income of $14,000, a broadly secular society was imposed
10.
Syrian Civil War
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The Syrian Civil War is an armed conflict taking place in Syria. Syrian opposition groups formed the Free Syrian Army and seized control of the area surrounding Aleppo, over time, some factions of the Syrian opposition split from their original moderate position to pursue an Islamist vision for Syria, joining groups such as al-Nusra Front and ISIL. In 2015, the Yekîneyên Parastina Gel joined forces with Arab, Assyrian, Armenian, Russia and Hezbollah militarily engaged in support of the Syrian government, while beginning in 2014, a coalition of NATO countries began launching airstrikes against ISIL. International organizations have accused the Syrian government, ISIL, and some groups of severe human rights violations. The conflict has caused a major refugee crisis, over the course of the war a number of peace initiatives have been launched, including the March 2017 Geneva peace talks on Syria led by the United Nations, but fighting continues. Syria became an independent republic in 1946, although democratic rule ended with a coup in March 1949, a popular uprising against military rule in 1954 saw the army transfer power to civilians. From 1958 to 1961, a union with Egypt replaced Syrias parliamentary system with a highly centralized presidential government. The secular Baath Syrian Regional Branch government came to power through a successful coup détat in 1963, for the next several years Syria went through additional coups and changes in leadership. In March 1971, Hafez al-Assad, an Alawite, declared himself President, on 31 January 1973, Hafez al-Assad implemented a new constitution, which led to a national crisis. They labeled Assad the enemy of Allah and called for a jihad against his rule, the government survived a series of armed revolts by Sunni Islamists, mainly members of the Muslim Brotherhood, from 1976 until 1982. Upon Hafez al-Assads death in 2000, his son Bashar al-Assad was elected as President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma, a Sunni Muslim born and educated in Britain, initially inspired hopes for democratic reforms. The Damascus Spring, a period of social and political debate, the Damascus Spring largely ended in August 2001 with the arrest and imprisonment of ten leading activists who had called for democratic elections and a campaign of civil disobedience. In the opinion of his critics, Bashar al-Assad had failed to deliver on promised reforms, Syrian Arabs, together with some 600,000 Palestinian Arabs, make up roughly 74 percent of the population. Syria Muslims are 74 percent Sunnis, and 13 percent Shias,3 percent were Druze, not all of the Sunnis are Arabs. Bashar is married to a Sunni, with whom he has several children and he is affiliated with the sect that his parents belong to, the minority Alawite sect which comprises an estimated 8-12 percent of the total population. Assyrians, an indigenous Eastern Aramaic-speaking Christian Semitic people, numbering approximately 500,000, are mainly in northeast Syria. A larger population lives over the border in northern Iraq, other ethnic groups include Armenians, Circassians, Turkmens, Greeks, Mhallami, Kawliya, Yezidi, Shabaks, and Mandeans. Socioeconomic inequality increased significantly after free market policies were initiated by Hafez al-Assad in his later years, the country also faced particularly high youth unemployment rates
11.
War in Donbass
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The War in Donbass is an armed conflict in the Donbass region of Ukraine. Prior to a change of the top leadership in August 2014, during the middle of 2014, Russian paramilitaries were reported to make up between 15% and 80% of the combatants. Crossings occurred both in areas under the control of forces and areas that were not under their control, such as the south-eastern part of Donetsk Oblast. These events followed the reported shelling of Ukrainian positions from the Russian side of the border over the course of the preceding month, head of the Security Service of Ukraine, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko said that the events of 22 August were a direct invasion by Russia of Ukraine. Western and Ukrainian officials described these events as an invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin justified the incursion as defending the Russian-speaking population in the Donbass, as a result of this, DPR and LPR insurgents regained much of the territory they had lost during the preceding government military offensive. A deal to establish a ceasefire, called the Minsk Protocol, was signed on 5 September 2014, violations of the ceasefire on both sides were common. The ceasefire completely collapsed in January 2015, with renewed heavy fighting across the zone, including at Donetsk International Airport. A new ceasefire, called Minsk II, was agreed to on 12 February 2015, immediately following the signing of the agreement, separatist forces launched an offensive on Debaltseve and forced Ukrainian forces to withdraw from it. In the months after the fall of Debaltseve, minor skirmishes continued along the line of contact, but no territorial changes occurred. This state of stalemate led the war to be labelled by some a frozen conflict, despite this, the area stayed a war zone, with dozens of soldiers and civilians killed each month. Since the start of the conflict there have been eleven ceasefires, each intended to be indefinite, with the latest having started on 20 February 2017, pro-Russian protesters occupied the Donetsk RSA from 1–6 March, before being removed by the Security Service of Ukraine. On 6 April,1, 000–2,000 people gathered at a rally in Donetsk to demand a status similar to the one held in Crimea in March. The demonstrators stormed the RSA building, and took control of its first two floors, as these demands were not met, the activists held a meeting in the RSA building, and voted in favour of independence from Ukraine. They proclaimed the Donetsk Peoples Republic, concurrent to the events in Donetsk, armed forces led by Russian operative Igor Girkin stormed and occupied government buildings in other regional centers beginning on 12 April. Protesters barricaded the building, and demanded that all arrested separatist leaders be released, at this assembly, they elected Valery Bolotov to the position of Peoples Governor. The Luhansk Peoples Republic was declared on 27 April, representatives of the Republic demanded that Ukrainian government provide amnesty for all protesters, enshrine Russian as an official language, and hold a referendum on the status of the region. They issued an ultimatum that stated that if Kiev did not meet their demands by 14,00 on 29 April, in response to the widening unrest, the acting Ukrainian President, Oleksandr Turchynov, vowed to launch a major anti-terror operation against separatist movements in Donetsk Oblast
12.
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
13.
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
14.
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
15.
Rifled breech loader
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The spin imparted by the guns rifling gives projectiles directional stability and increased range. Loading from the rear of the gun leaves the crew exposed to enemy fire, allows smaller gun emplacements or turrets. This was both a safety issue and one of gun performance - all the propellant gas was needed to accelerate the projectile along the barrel. The second problem was speed of operation - how to close the breech before firing, two solutions were developed more or less in parallel, the screw breech block and sliding wedge or sliding block. Hence, unlike with a rifle cartridge, the breech mechanism itself somehow needed to provide obturation. Hence if the block circumference was divided into two sets of threads and gaps, the only needed to be rotated ¼ turn to lock it instead of several turns. The tradeoff was that only ½ the blocks circumference was threaded, until the 19th century, only muzzle-loaders were used. In 1837 Martin von Wahrendorff patented a design for a breech-loader with a cylindrical breech plug secured by a horizontal wedge, independently, Giovanni Cavalli first proposed a breech-loader gun in 1832 to the Sardinian Army, and first tested such a gun in 1845. Advances in metallurgy in the industrial era allowed for the construction of rifled breech-loading guns that could fire at a greater muzzle velocity. Production started in 1855 at the Elswick Ordnance Company and the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich, a degree of obturation was achieved via a cup on the face of the block being forced into a recessed ring on the chamber face. Whatever obturation that was achieved relied on manual labour rather than the power of the guns firing, however, the British Army and Navy preferred to revert to muzzle-loaders until larger high-powered breech-loaders with secure obturation systems that were relatively simple to operate were developed. In the meantime the French persevered with trying to develop breechloaders which combined faster loading than muzzle-loaders, high power, safety, the Lahitolle 95 mm cannon of 1875 with an interrupted screw breech met the first three requirements to a great extent and partially solved the obturation problem. Finally the de Bange system introduced in 1877 solved the problem with an asbestos pad impregnated with grease which expanded and sealed the breech on firing. The de Bange system formed the system for all subsequent screw breeches to the present day. Britain adopted the de Bange breech when it returned to breechloaders in the early 1880s after some experiments with the inferior Armstrong cup obturation system. Loading required the 3 operations in reverse and this was hence termed a three motion block and was slow to operate. While working as a designer for Thorsten Nordenfelt in London. This allowed the block to be unscrewed and swung out in two motions - the two motion interrupted screw breech, bofors continued to use this in medium artillery into the 20th century
16.
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
17.
Vehicle armour
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Military vehicles are commonly armoured to withstand the impact of shrapnel, bullets, missiles or shells, protecting the personnel inside from enemy fire. Such vehicles include armoured fighting vehicles like tanks, aircraft and ships, civilian vehicles may also be armoured. These vehicles include cars used by reporters, officials and others in conflict zones or where violent crime is common, armoured cars are also routinely used by security firms to carry money or valuables to reduce the risk of highway robbery or the hijacking of the cargo. Armour may also be used in vehicles to protect from other than a deliberate attack. Some spacecraft are equipped with specialised armour to protect them against impacts from micrometeoroids or fragments of space junk, the design and purpose of the vehicle determines the amount of armour plating carried, as the plating is often very heavy and excessive amounts of armour restrict mobility. In order to decrease this problem, some new materials and material compositions are being researched which include buckypaper, rolled homogeneous armour is strong, hard, and tough. Steel with these characteristics is produced by processing cast steel billets of appropriate size, rolling and forging irons out the grain structure in the steel, removing imperfections which would reduce the strength of the steel. Aluminium is used when weight is a necessity. It is most commonly used on APCs and armoured cars, wrought iron was used on ironclad warships. Early European iron armour consisted of 10 to 13 cm of wrought iron backed by up to one meter of solid wood, titanium is roughly the weight of aluminium, but as strong as iron. So despite being rather expensive, it finds an application in areas where weight is a concern, such as personal armour, because of its high density, depleted uranium can also be used in tank armour, sandwiched between sheets of steel armour plate. Plastic metal was a type of vehicle armour originally developed for merchant ships by the British Admiralty in 1940, the original composition was described as 50% clean granite of half-inch size, 43% of limestone mineral, and 7% of bitumen. It was typically applied in a two inches thick and backed by half an inch of steel. Plastic armour could be applied by pouring it into a cavity formed by the backing plate. Bulletproof glass is a term for glass that is particularly resistant to being penetrated when struck by bullets. The industry generally refers to it as bullet-resistant glass or transparent armour, bullet-resistant glass is usually constructed using a strong but transparent material such as polycarbonate thermoplastic or by using layers of laminated glass. The desired result is a material with the appearance and light-transmitting behaviour of standard glass, the polycarbonate layer, usually consisting of products such as Armormax, Makroclear, Cyrolon, Lexan or Tuffak, is often sandwiched between layers of regular glass. The use of plastic in the laminate provides impact-resistance, such as physical assault with a hammer, the plastic provides little in the way of bullet-resistance
18.
122 mm howitzer 2A18 (D-30)
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The 122-mm howitzer D-30 is a Soviet howitzer that first entered service in the 1960s. It is a robust piece that focuses on the features of a towed field gun suitable for all conditions. The D-30 has a range of 15.4 kilometers. With its striking three-leg mounting, the D-30 can be traversed through 360 degrees. Although no longer manufactured in the nations of the former Soviet Union, the barrel assembly of the 2A18 gun is used by the 2S1 self-propelled howitzer. There are also Egyptian, Chinese, Serbian and Syrian self-propelled variants, the Syrian conversion utilizes the hull of a T-34 tank. The 122 mm calibre was adopted by Russia in the early 20th century, development of the D-30 began in the 1950s, as a replacement for the M-30 howitzer, widely used in divisional and regimental artilleries. The D-30 also replaced the remaining 76 mm M1942 guns in motor rifle regiments, military requirements that led to the D-30 can only be deduced. Its role supporting tank and motor rifle regiments, and Soviet doctrine from the Great Patriotic War, suggest that while indirect fire was the primary role, direct fire anti-tank was very important. The latter is evidenced by the very effective HEAT shell, the low silhouette of the piece, its wide and rapid top-traverse and its shield. The D-30 was designed by the established design bureau at Artillery Plant No 9 in Sverdlovsk. This team was responsible for designing the earlier M-30, the post-war 152 mm D-20 gun-howitzer, Soviet divisional artillery was assigned to manoeuvre regiments and as divisional troops. A RAG was normally three batteries, each of six pieces, to motor rifle and tank regiment. DAGs were mostly equipped with 152 mm pieces, but the DAG of a rifle division included a D-30 battalion. The role of an RAG was a field artillery role to support manoeuvre forces with indirect. The D-30 entered Soviet service in 1963 and is referred to as the M1963. In 1967, widespread introduction of self-propelled guns was authorised and the D-30s barrel, when the 2S1 entered service, it was usually assigned to tank regiments and motor rifle regiments equipped with BMP infantry fighting vehicles. D-30s were retained in motor rifle regiments equipped with BTR APCs, the D-30 has been widely exported and used in wars around the world, notably in the Middle East, and particularly in the Iran–Iraq War, a long-lasting war of attrition similar to World War I
19.
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
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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
21.
MT-LB
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The MT-LB is a Soviet multi-purpose fully amphibious auxiliary armoured tracked vehicle, which was first introduced in the late 1960s. Initially, the vehicle was known as the M1970 in the west, in the 1970s, the Soviet Central Auto and Tractor Directorate began a development program to replace the AT-P series of artillery tractors with a new generation of vehicles. The MT-L was developed to meet this requirement based on the PT-76 amphibious light tank chassis, the MT-LB is the armoured variant of the MT-L. Entering production in the early 1970s, it was cheap to build, being based on many existing components, e. g. the engine and it is built at the Kharkiv Tractor Plant and under license in Poland by Huta Stalowa Wola and Bulgaria. The crew, a driver and a sit in a compartment at the front of the vehicle. A compartment at the rear enables up to 11 infantry to be carried or a cargo of up to 2,000 kg, a load of 6,500 kg can be towed. The vehicle is amphibious, being propelled by its tracks in the water. A small turret at the front of the vehicle fits a 7.62 mm PKT machine gun with 360 degree manual traverse, the vehicle is lightly armoured against small arms and shell splinters with a thickness of 3 to 10 mm of steel. The infantry compartment has two hatches over the top, which open forwards, there are four firing ports - one in either side of the hull, the other two in the rear twin doors of the infantry compartment. The driver is provided with a TVN-2 infra-red periscope, which in combination with the OU-3GK infra-red/white light search light provides a range of about 40 m, all vehicles include an NBC system. MT-L MT-LB - basic model, often used as simple APC, in the West the term MT-LB Blade or MT-LB M1980 is used for vehicles that are fitted with a hydraulic dozer blade. MT-LBV - low pressure track version, with 565 mm tracks giving a pressure of 0.27 kgf/cm². Used in Arctic regions instead of BMP or BTR wheeled vehicles, MT-LBVM - with NSVT12.7 mm instead of the original 7.62 mm machine gun turret. MT-LBV-N MT-LBV-NS MTP-LB - technical support version with no turret, an A frame, SNAR-10 Jaguar - with 1RL-127 Ground surveillance radar in a large rotating turret. Old NATO designators are MT-LB M1975 and MT-LB SON, sNAR-10M Pantera - upgraded, automated system with a range of 40 km. 9A34 - launch vehicle of the 9K35 Strela-10 system, 9A35 - as per 9A34 but additionally with passive detection system. 9P149 Shturm-S - anti-tank version with retractable launcher for 9M114 Kokon ATGM, the vehicles carries 12 missiles on board and entered service in 1979. RKhM Kashalot - chemical reconnaissance vehicle with detection, marking and alarm devices and this model has the hull shape and single rear door of the 2S1
22.
GRAU
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The Main Missile and Artillery Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation is a department of the Russian Ministry of Defense. It is subordinate to the Chief of Armament and Munition of the Russian Armed Forces, the organization dates back to 1862 when it was established under the name Главное артиллерийское управление. The R from rockets was added to the title in 1960, in particular, the GRAU is responsible for assigning GRAU indices to Russian army munitions and equipment. As of March 2014, the current Chief of the GRAU is Lieutenant General Nikolay Parshin, GRAU indices are of the form <number> <letter> <number>, with the optional suffix <letter> <number>. A specially assigned codename may follow the index, for example, «2 S19 Msta-S», the 2S19 Msta self-propelled howitzer. Several common misconceptions surround the scope and originating body of these indices, the GRAU designation is not an industrial designation, nor is it assigned by the design bureau. In addition to its GRAU designation, a piece of equipment could have a design name, an industrial name. The first part of a GRAU index is a number indicating which of the main categories of equipment a given item belongs to. The second part, a Cyrillic character, indicates the subcategory, the third part, a number, indicates the specific model. The optional suffix can be used to differentiate variants of the same model. ru and it has been released under the GFDL by the copyright holder. Dictionary of GRAU designations at aviation. ru Lennox, Duncan
23.
Amphibious vehicle
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An amphibious vehicle, is a vehicle that is a means of transport, viable on land as well as on water. Amphibious vehicles include amphibious bicycles, ATVs, cars, buses, trucks, military vehicles, classic landing craft are not amphibious vehicles as they do not offer any real land transportation at all, although they are part of amphibious assault. Ground effect vehicles, such as Ekranoplans, will likely crash on any, apart from the distinction in sizes mentioned above, two main categories of amphibious vehicle are immediately apparent, those that travel on an air-cushion and those that do not. Most land vehicles – even lightly armoured ones – can be made simply by providing them with a waterproof hull. This is possible as a displacement is usually greater than its weight. Heavily armoured vehicles however sometimes have a density greater than water, for propulsion in or on the water some vehicles simply make do by spinning their wheels or tracks, while others can power their way forward more effectively using screw propeller or water jet. Inventor Gail Borden, better known for condensed milk, designed and tested a sail powered wagon in 1849, on testing it reportedly tipped over 50 feet from shore, from an apparent lack of ballast to counteract the force of the wind in the sail. In the 1870s, logging companies in eastern Canada and the northern United States developed a steam-powered amphibious tug called an Alligator which could cross between lakes and rivers, the most successful Alligator tugs were produced by the firm of West and Peachey in Simcoe, Ontario. One of the first reasonably well documented cases was the 1905 amphibious petrol-powered carriage of T. Richmond, just like the worlds first petrol-powered automobile it was a three-wheeler. The single front wheel provided direction, both on land and in the water, a three-cylinder petrol combustion-engine powered the oversized rear wheels. In order to get the wheels to provide propulsion in the water, remarkably the boat-like hull was one of the first integral bodies ever used on a car. In some of them the amphibious capabilities are central to their purpose, the design that came together with all the features needed for a practical all terrain amphibious vehicle was by Peter Prell of New Jersey. His design, unlike others, could not only on rivers and lakes but the sea. It combined a boat-like hull with tank-like tracks, in 1931 he tested a scaled down version of his invention. Recently, Gibbs Amphibians has developed a new type of amphibian, the vehicles use a patented hydraulic system to raise the wheels into the wheel wells, allowing the vehicles to plane on water. The vehicles can transition between land and water modes in about five seconds, the first Gibbs fast amphibian is the Quadski, introduced in October 2012. It went on sale in January 2013, Iguana Yachts, a French company created in 2008, has developed amphibious motorboats featuring all-terrain tracks. Since then, the company launched their first commercial vehicle, The Panther, the WaterCar can do 80 mph on land, and 44 mph on sea, and can transition from land to sea in less than 15 seconds
24.
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
25.
Fume extractor
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Bore evacuators are most often used on large-calibre tank guns and self-propelled guns. The evacuator is a passive device. It consists of a ring of holes drilled into the barrel, the high-pressure is then released through these holes. As the shell continues down the barrel the pressure begins to drop, during this process the high-pressure air in the reservoir begins to blow back into the barrel towards the front of the gun tube. By aiming these holes forward, their exhaust causes the air to be blown forward. Various designs attempt to improve on the concept in any number of ways. One common change is to use two sets of holes, each designed specifically to be efficient at capturing or releasing the gas. In this case the set of holes is similar to the single-hole example, but a second rearward set of holes is added, using check valves to allow the high-pressure gases in. The system may be arranged to allow the gases to escape through the set of holes before the shell reaches it, causing a partial vacuum to develop directly behind the shell. For best results, the breech must be opened at the time, just as the forward momentum of the gases reaches its maximum. This means that bore extractors are normally used only on guns with semi-automatic or fully automatic actions, where the breech is opened, unprotected bore evacuators damaged by bullets have caused considerable problems in past conflicts, but up-armouring solved this problem. Bore evacuators are a feature of most modern tanks. The Russian T-14 Armata tank does not have a fume extractor as it has an unmanned turret, woodley, C. R. Modelling of Fume Extractors, 19th International Symposium of Ballistics, Interlaken, pp. 281–288, retrieved 2014-01-07
26.
Cluster munition
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A cluster munition is a form of air-dropped or ground-launched explosive weapon that releases or ejects smaller submunitions. Commonly, this is a bomb that ejects explosive bomblets that are designed to kill personnel. Other cluster munitions are designed to destroy runways or electric transmission lines, disperse chemical or biological weapons. Some submunition-based weapons can disperse non-munitions, such as leaflets, because cluster bombs release many small bomblets over a wide area, they pose risks to civilians both during attacks and afterwards. Unexploded bomblets can kill or maim civilians and/or unintended targets long after a conflict has ended, Cluster munitions are prohibited for those nations that ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions, adopted in Dublin, Ireland in May 2008. The Convention entered into force and became binding international law upon ratifying states on 1 August 2010, as of 1 October 2015, a total of 118 states have joined the Convention, as 98 States parties and 20 Signatories. The first cluster bomb used operationally was the German SD-2 or Sprengbombe Dickwandig 2 kg and it was used in World War II to attack both civilian and military targets. The technology was developed independently by the United States, Russia, the US used the 20-lb M41 fragmentation bomb wired together in clusters of 6 or 25 with highly sensitive or proximity fuzes. From the 1970s to the 1990s cluster bombs became standard air-dropped munitions for many nations and they have been produced by 34 countries and used in at least 23. Artillery shells that employ similar principles have existed for decades and they are typically referred to as ICM shells. The US military slang terms for them are firecracker or popcorn shells, a basic cluster bomb consists of a hollow shell and then two to more than 2,000 submunitions or bomblets contained within it. Some types are dispensers that are designed to be retained by the aircraft after releasing their munitions, the submunitions themselves may be fitted with small parachute retarders or streamers to slow their descent. Modern cluster bombs and submunition dispensers are often multiple-purpose weapons, containing mixtures of anti-armor, anti-personnel, the submunitions themselves may also be multi-purpose, such as combining a shaped charge, to attack armour, with a fragmenting case, to attack infantry, material, and light vehicles. Modern multipurpose munitions may also have an incendiary effect, recently submunition-based weapons have been designed that deploy smart submunitions, using thermal and visual sensors to locate and attack particular targets, usually armored vehicles. Weapons of this include the US CBU-97 sensor-fuzed weapon, first used in combat during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Incendiary cluster bombs are intended to start fires, just as conventional incendiary bombs and they are specifically designed for this purpose, with submunitions of white phosphorus or napalm, and they often include anti-personnel and anti-tank submunitions to hamper firefighting efforts. When used in cities they have often preceded by the use of conventional explosive bombs to break open the roofs. One of the earliest examples is the so-called Molotov bread basket first used by the Soviet Union in the Winter War of 1939-40 and this type of munition was extensively used by both sides in the strategic bombings of World War II
27.
Flechette
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A flechette /flɛˈʃɛt/ fleh-SHET is a pointed steel projectile, with a vaned tail for stable flight. The name comes from French fléchette, little arrow or dart, in World War I, darts, also known as flechettes were dropped from aircraft to attack infantry. Small-arms makers are attracted by the ballistic performance and armor-piercing potential of flechettes. A number of attempts have been made to field flechette-firing small arms, the initial work was with the nerve agent VX, which had to be thickened to deliver a reliable dose. Eventually this was replaced by a particulate carbamate, the US Biological Program also had a microflechette to deliver either botulinum toxin A or saxitoxin, the M1 biodart, which resembled a 7.62 mm rifle cartridge. Several underwater firearms were experimented with using flechettes, during the Vietnam War the United States employed 12 gauge combat shotguns that were used with flechette loads that consisted of around 20 flechettes per shell. The USSR/Russian federation had the AO-27 rifle as well as the APS amphibious rifle, a number of prototype flechette-firing weapons were developed as part of the long-running Special Purpose Individual Weapon project. Some of these showed up as entries in the Advanced Combat Rifle project as well, a variation of the flechette addressing its difficulties is the SCMITR, developed as part of the Close Assault Weapon System, or CAWS, project. Selective-fire shotguns were used to fire flechettes designed to retain the exterior ballistics and penetration of the standard flechette and they were used in the Vietnam War by 105 mm howitzer batteries and tanks to defend themselves against massed infantry attacks. There was also a round for the M40 recoilless rifle. Heavier artillery, including 155 mm howitzers, 8-inch howitzers, and 175 mm guns, the 70 mm Hydra 70 rocket currently in service with the US Armed forces can be fitted with an anti-personnel warhead containing 96 flechettes. They are carried by attack helicopters such as the AH-64 Apache, the Israel Defense Forces have been accused of using 105 and 120 mm flechette shells during the occupation of southern Lebanon and later in the 2009 and 2014 incursions into the Gaza Strip. The Israel Defense Forces had drawn criticism for their use of tank-fired flechettes in urban areas, in 2008, a flechette round from an Israeli tank fired at Reuters cameraman Fadel Shanaa killed him along with two adjacent civilians. According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, IDF tanks fired six anti-personnel munitions at the town of Khuza on July 17, kinetic energy penetrator Lazy Dog How flechettes work The Guardian newspaper. Pictures of air dropped flechette, from World War I through the 1970s
28.
Soviet Army
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It had 2.4 million men under its service during the Cold War. At the end of World War II the Red Army had over 500 rifle divisions and their experience of war gave the Soviets such faith in tank forces that the infantry force was cut by two-thirds. The Tank Corps of the war period were converted to tank divisions. MRDs had three motorized rifle regiments and a regiment, for a total of ten motor rifle battalions and six tank battalions. The Land Forces Chief Command was created for the first time in March 1946, four years later it was disbanded, only to be formed again in 1955. In March 1964 the Chief Command was again disbanded but recreated in November 1967, the personnel strength of the Ground Forces was reduced from 9.8 million to 2.4 million. Elsewhere, they may have assisted the NKVD in suppressing resistance in Western Ukraine. Soviet troops, including the 39th Army, remained at Port Arthur, control was then handed over to the new Chinese communist government. Soviet Army forces on USSR territory were apportioned among military districts, there were 32 of them in 1945. Sixteen districts remained from the mid-1970s to the end of the USSR, yet, the greatest Soviet Army concentration was in the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, which suppressed the anti-Soviet Uprising of 1953 in East Germany. East European Groups of Forces were the Northern Group of Forces in Poland, and the Southern Group of Forces in Hungary, in 1958, Soviet troops were withdrawn from Romania. The Central Group of Forces in Czechoslovakia was established after Warsaw Pact intervention against the Prague Spring of 1968. In 1969, at the east end of the Soviet Union, the Sino-Soviet border conflict, prompted establishment of a 16th military district, in 1979, the Soviet Union entered Afghanistan, to support its Communist government, provoking a 10-year Afghan mujahideen guerrilla resistance. Throughout the Cold War, Western intelligence estimates calculated that the Soviet strength remained ca.2.8 million to ca.5.3 million men, by the middle of the 1980s the Ground Forces contained about 210 divisions. About three-quarters were motor rifle divisions and the tank divisions. There were also a number of artillery divisions, separate artillery brigades, engineer formations. However, only relatively few formations were fully war ready, three readiness categories, A, B, and V, after the first three letters of the Cyrillic alphabet, were in force. The Category A divisions were certified combat-ready and were fully equipped, B and V divisions were lower-readiness, 50–75% and 10–33% respectively
29.
Polish Land Forces
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The Land Forces are a military branch of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland. They currently contain some 65,000 active personnel and form many components of European Union, Polands recorded military history stretches back for hundreds of years – since the 10th century, but Polands modern army was formed after 1918. When Poland regained independence in 1918, it recreated its military which participated in the Polish-Soviet War of 1919–1921, the Polish land forces as readied for the Polish-Soviet War was made up of soldiers who had formerly served in the various partitioning empires, supported by some international volunteers. There appear to have been a total of around 30 Polish divisions involved, boris Savinkov was at the head of an army of 20,000 to 30,000 largely Russian POWs, and was accompanied by Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Zinaida Gippius. The Polish forces grew from approximately 100,000 in 1918 to over 500,000 in early 1920, in August 1920, the Polish army had reached a total strength of 737,767 people, half of that was on the frontline. Given Soviet losses, there was rough numerical parity between the two armies, and by the time of the battle of Warsaw Poles might have even had an advantage in numbers. Among the major formations involved on the Polish side were a number of Fronts, including the Lithuanian-Belarusian Front, the German invasion of Poland began on 1 September 1939, and the Wehrmacht seized half the country quickly despite heavy Polish resistance. Among the erroneous myths generated by this campaign were accounts of Polish cavalry charging German tanks, in the east, the Red Army took the other half of the country in accordance with the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Following the countrys fall, Polish soldiers began regrouping in what was to become the Polish Army in France. Both the Polish Armed Forces in the West and the Polish Armed Forces in the East, as well as interior forces, while the forces fighting under the Allied banner were supported by the Polish air force and navy, the partisan forces were an exclusive land formation. However the army today has its roots in the surrogate force formed in support of Soviet interests during the establishment of the Peoples Republic of Poland after the Second World War. Two Polish armies, the First Army and the Second Army fought with the Red Army on the Eastern Front, the formation of a Third Army was begun but not completed. The end of the war found the Polish Army in the midst of intense organisational development, although the implementation of the Polish Front concept was abandoned, new tactical unit and troop types were created. As a result of mobilisation, troop numbers in May 1945 reached 370,000 soldiers, Military districts were organised in liberated areas. The districts exercised direct authority over the units stationed on the territory administered by them, the southern border, from Jelenia Gora to the Użok railway station was occupied by the First Army. Its headquarters staff formed the basis of the Silesian Military District, in mid-1945, after the end of World War II, the Polish Army, as part of the overall armed forces, the Peoples Army of Poland, was divided into six districts. In June 1945 the 1st, 3rd and 8th Infantry Divisions were assigned internal security duties, the rule was that military units were used primarily against the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, while the Internal Security Corps was used to fight the armed underground independence. Often however army units fought the underground resistance, and vice versa, the culmination of the UPA suppression operation was the so-called Wisła Action which took place in 1947
30.
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
31.
Fire-control system
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A fire-control system is a number of components working together, usually a gun data computer, a director, and radar, which is designed to assist a weapon system in hitting its target. It performs the task as a human gunner firing a weapon. The best known United States device was the Norden bombsight, simple systems, known as lead computing sights also made their appearance inside aircraft late in the war as gyro gunsights. These devices used a gyroscope to measure turn rates, and moved the gunsights aim-point to take this into account, the only manual input to the sight was the target distance, which was typically handled by dialing in the size of the targets wing span at some known range. Small radar units were added in the period to automate even this input. By the start of the Vietnam War, a new computerized bombing predictor, called the Low Altitude Bombing System, the key advantage is that the weapon can be released accurately even when the plane is maneuvering. Most bombsights until this time required that the plane maintain a constant attitude, the LABS system was originally designed to facilitate a tactic called toss bombing, to allow the aircraft to remain out of range of a weapons blast radius. The principle of calculating the point, however, was eventually integrated into the fire control computers of later bombers and strike aircraft, allowing level, dive. In addition, as the control computer became integrated with ordnance systems. By the start of World War II, aircraft altitude performance had increased so much that anti-aircraft guns had similar predictive problems, the main difference between these systems and the ones on ships was size and speed. The USN Mk 37 system made similar assumptions except that it could predict assuming a constant rate of altitude change. The Kerrison Predictor is an example of a system that was built to solve laying in real time, simply by pointing the director at the target and then aiming the gun at a pointer it directed. It was also designed to be small and light, in order to allow it to be easily moved along with the guns it served. The radar-based M-9/SCR-584 Anti-Aircraft System was used to air defense artillery since 1943. In combination with the VT proximity fuze, this system accomplished the feat of shooting down V-1 cruise missiles with less than 100 shells per plane. This system was instrumental in the defense of London and Antwerp against the V-1, although listed in Land based fire control section anti-aircraft fire control systems can also be found on naval and aircraft systems. In the United States, Coast Artillery fire control systems began to be developed at the end of the 19th Century, early systems made use of multiple observation or base end stations to find and track targets attacking American harbors. Fire control in the Coast Artillery became more and more sophisticated in terms of correcting firing data for such factors as weather conditions, provisions were also made for adjusting firing data for the observed fall of shells
32.
Infantry fighting vehicle
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An infantry fighting vehicle, or mechanized infantry combat vehicle, is a type of armoured fighting vehicle used to carry infantry into battle and provide direct fire support. Infantry fighting vehicles are distinct from armoured personnel carriers, which are transport vehicles armed only for self-defense, consequently, IFVs possess heavier armament than an APC, and the attached rifle squad fights from within the vehicle more often than in an APC. IFVs also often have improved armour and some have ports which allow the infantry to fire personal weapons while on board and they are typically armed with a 20 to 40 mm caliber autocannon, a coaxial machine gun and sometimes anti-tank guided missiles. IFVs are usually tracked, but there are some wheeled vehicles too, IFVs are much less heavily armed and protected than main battle tanks, but when equipped with larger cannon or ATGMs may pose a significant threat to all but the heaviest armoured fighting vehicles. The first mass-produced IFV was the West German Schützenpanzer 12-3 which served in the Bundeswehr from 1958 until the early 1980s, the SPz 12-3 mounted a 20 mm autocannon in a small turret and carried a half-squad of five armoured infantrymen. Western powers were surprised when the Soviet Union paraded the BMP-1, Soviet infantrymen could thus enter a hypothetical engagement in a vehicle that possessed formidable fighting capability in its own right. This brought combined arms integration to the lowest tactical level, in 1971, the Ratel was designed to a South African specification for a wheeled combat vehicle suited to the demands of a high-speed offensive that combined maximum mobility and firepower. The emphasis was on mobility in particular, as it had to keep pace with a rapid mechanised advance, South Africas motorised units had carried out prior deployments on unprotected Bedford MK and Unimog trucks, but these were deemed unsuitable for the harsh African terrain. They also offered few advantages in mine protection, while the Ratels blastproof hull was developed to even the most catastrophic anti-tank mine explosions. During the South African Border War, Ratels equipped with a 90 mm gun adopted from the Eland-90 were utilised as improvised tank destroyers to varying degrees of success. In most Western IFVs, the large guns on the BMP. While the former enjoyed a tank-killing capability that most autocannon lack, combat applications in close-combat environments are likely to drive up survivability requirements necessitating the same protection level required by most tanks. In times of warfare, local crises, and urban combat. The IFV offers a compromise between mobility, protection, and firepower. They can be used in high and low intensity conflicts as well as peacekeeping operations, the latest vehicles, like the Patria AMV, have been designed with an emphasis on modularity that improves their ability to be repaired in the field. Infantry fighting vehicles are typically well armoured, although usually with less protection than main battle tanks, typical armament is an autocannon and machine guns. IFVs have a door for dismounts, most IFVs are resistant against heavy machine guns, artillery fragments, and small arms. The IFVs mission does not include anti-tank duties except in support of units or in emergencies, therefore
33.
Caterpillar Inc.
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Caterpillar is a leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines and diesel-electric locomotives. With more than US$89 billion in assets, Caterpillar was ranked one in its industry. In 2016 Caterpillar was ranked #59 on the Fortune 500 list, Caterpillar stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Caterpillar Inc. traces its origins to the 1925 merger of the Holt Manufacturing Company, Best Tractor Company, creating a new entity, the California-based Caterpillar Tractor Company. In 1986, the company re-organized itself as a Delaware corporation under the current name, Caterpillars headquarters are located in Peoria, Illinois, it announced in January 2017 that over the course of that year it would relocate its headquarters to Chicago. The company also licenses and markets a line of clothing and workwear boots under its Cat / Caterpillar name, Caterpillar machinery is recognizable by its trademark Caterpillar Yellow livery and the CAT logo. Benjamin Holt attempted to fix the problem by increasing the size and width of the wheels up to 7.5 feet tall and 6 feet wide, but this also made the tractors increasingly complex, expensive and difficult to maintain. Another solution considered was to lay a temporary plank road ahead of the tractor, but this was time-consuming, expensive. Holt thought of wrapping the planks around the wheels and he replaced the wheels on a 40 horsepower Holt steamer, No. 77, with a set of wooden tracks bolted to chains, on Thanksgiving Day, November 24,1904, he successfully tested the updated machine plowing the soggy delta land of Roberts Island. Company photographer Charles Clements was reported to have observed that the tractor crawled like a caterpillar, some sources, though, attribute this name to British soldiers in July 1907. Two years later Holt sold his first steam-powered tractor crawlers for US$5,500, each side featured a track frame measured 30 inches high by 42 inches wide and were 9 feet long. The tracks were 3 inches by 4 inches redwood slats, Holt received the first patent for a practical continuous track for use with a tractor on December 7,1907 for his improved Traction Engine. On February 2,1910, Holt opened up a plant in East Peoria, Illinois, there Pliny met farm implement dealer Murray Baker who knew of an empty factory that had been recently built to manufacture farm implements and steam traction engines. On October 25,1909, Pliny Holt purchased the factory, Holt incorporated it as the Holt Caterpillar Company, although he did not trademark the name Caterpillar until August 2,1910. Tractors were built in both Stockton and East Peoria, on January 31,2017, after more than 90 years of being headquartered in Peoria, Illinois, the company announced plans to move their headquarters from Peoria to Chicago, Illinois by the end of 2017. The upper echelon of executives, including newly installed CEO Jim Umpleby, will begin relocating later this year, about 300 employees will work in the new office at an as-yet undecided location once the transition is complete. The changes contributed to $2.3 billion in savings in 2016, Umpleby said that decline is a fundamental reason the companys Board of Directors opted to move global headquarters to an area where the global marketplace is in easier reach
34.
Cummins
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Dongfeng Motor Corporation is a Chinese state-owned automobile manufacturer headquartered in Wuhan, China. Traditionally one of the Big Three Chinese automakers, Dongfeng is currently in the top four in terms of output along with Changan Motors, FAW Group, in addition to commercial and consumer vehicles, it also manufactures parts and cooperates with foreign companies. Counting six global automakers as partners, it has more Sino-foreign joint ventures than any other Chinese carmaker and these partnerships allow it to produce and sell a variety of foreign-brand products in China including those of Citroën, Honda, Kia, Nissan, Peugeot, and Renault. Other brand names associated with Dongfeng include Fengshen, Infiniti, Luxgen, heavy-duty commercial vehicles and buses are sold under the eponymous Dongfeng brand although c.2015 the Dual Sparrows logo started appearing on consumer products as well. The company was the second-largest Chinese vehicle maker in 2014 by production volume manufacturing over 3.5 million whole vehicles that year, commercial vehicle production that year was higher than all other domestic manufacturers at nearly 450,000. Dongfeng has two listed subsidiaries—Dongfeng Motor Group Co and Dongfeng Automobile Co Ltd. Some sources may refer to the company as Dong Feng, use an acronym like DFM, or use the name in conjunction with others when referring to a subsidiary, joint venture, or other associated enterprise. Known as Second Automobile Works until 1992, Dongfeng, or East Wind in Chinese, was founded in 1969. Its origins lie in a dictate of Chairman Mao Zedong, as part of his Third Front strategy, traditionally manufacturing commercial vehicles, by 2001 these made up about 73% of Dongfengs production. By 2012, that figure had reversed, and 73% of manufactures were passenger cars, however, the percentage of consumer offerings was likely lower as passenger car counts may include microvans, tiny commercial vehicles that are popular in China. Post-1985, further reforms took place that allowed Dongfeng greater autonomy, by the mid-1980s, its assets had tripled from those initially given to it by the state in 1981, and management was desirous of even greater production capacity. But in 1995, the company was experiencing financial difficulties as was the case with many Chinese automobile manufacturers at this time, the situation was still dire in 1998 precipitating a 1999 restructuring of the company. This state owned enterprise has come into conflict with authority at both the national and provincial levels, the Chinese partner in many Sino-foreign joint venture companies, Dongfeng initiated most of these cooperative efforts with foreign firms in the early 2000s. But its first was established in 1992 with French PSA Group, known as Dongfeng Citroën Automobile Company, it was the forerunner to the current Dongfeng Peugeot-Citroën Automobile Limited. By 2003, Dongfeng had established joint ventures with Kia Motors, Honda, as of 2011, it had more Sino-foreign joint ventures than any other Chinese automaker, and the 2013 creation of a partnership with French Renault means it retains this title today. In 2009, it sold 1.9 million vehicles ranking second among domestic automakers, at the 2010 Beijing Auto Show, Dongfeng displayed an electric vehicle concept car, a physical representation of its vow to bring an electric car to market by 2015. In 2010, the company sold 2.72 million units and it reported 1.72 million sales of passenger vehicles that same year. 2011 production figures put the company in place, in terms of production volume, in its home market
35.
Deutz AG
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Deutz AG is an engine manufacturer, based in Cologne, Germany. The company was founded in 1864 as N. A, Otto & Cie by Nikolaus Otto, inventor of the four-stroke internal combustion engine. In the early years, Otto and his partner Eugen Langen, were interested in production of stationary engines. In the middle of the 1870s, technical director Gottlieb Daimler and he resigned, taking Wilhelm Maybach with him. Deutz also produced agricultural machines such as combine harvesters and tractors, as well as commercial vehicles such as trucks, famous people who worked for Deutz include Eugen Langen, Gottlieb Daimler, Wilhelm Maybach, Prosper LOrange, Rudolf Diesel, Robert Bosch and Ettore Bugatti. During World War II, the company was ordered to produce artillery, commercial vehicles powered by Deutz engines were popular from 1960 to 1980, sold under the brand name Magirus Deutz. Deutzs head office is in the Porz district of Cologne and as of 2004 was manufacturing liquid, the larger engines in the Deutz range were manufactured in Mannheim, at a production facility that once belonged to Süddeutsche Bremsen-AG as MWM-Diesel. Deutz also have facilities in other countries including Spain and a joint venture production facility in China. After Deutz took over, the plant specialised in marine engines and this facility now produces engines for marine and power generation which can run on either fuel oils or fuel gases. In 1995 Deutz sold its agricultural machinery division – Deutz-Fahr – to the Italian company SAME, forming SAME Deutz-Fahr. Deutz engines are available in the power range 4 to 500 kW, with air, oil or water cooling and with life expectancy of 20,000 and 30,000 running hours TBO on rebuilt, parts and service are available worldwide. In the United States and Canada, a network of distributors was established a few years ago, providing parts, deutz-powered air-cooled machines are well-suited for many applications since they cannot freeze or boil-over during normal operation. These can provide the power as other engine designs, but in a smaller package. Deutz also makes engines with a tandem oil cooler/radiator configuration, these also do not require antifreeze or coolant agents, Deutz also has line of economical liquid-cooled engines. In 2007, the Deutz Power Systems division was sold to 3i and they are focusing on manufacturing engines only for the customer, without competing for the entire piece of finished machinery. On October 1,2008, the former Deutz Power Systems division received a new, old, the company traces its roots to Karl Benz, who set up the foundations of the company in 1871. After splitting the business off from Benz AG, it became Motoren-Werke Mannheim AG. Klöckner-Humboldt-Deutz AG took over in 1985, later becoming Deutz AG, after spinning off Deutz Power Systems, the company has made a full circle back to MWM
36.
CBRN defense
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Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defense is protective measures taken in situations in which chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear warfare hazards may be present. CBRN defense consists of CBRN passive protection, contamination avoidance and CBRN mitigation, a CBRN incident differs from a hazardous material incident in both scope and intent. CBRN incidents are responded to under the assumption that they are intentional and malicious, evidence preservation, a 2011 forecast concluded that worldwide government spending on CBRN defence products and services would reach US$8. 38bn that year. In English the term CBRN is a replacement for the cold war term NBC, the addition of the R is a consequence of the new threat of a radiological weapon. In the new millennium, the term CBRNe was introduced as an extension of CBRN - the e in this term representing the enhanced explosives threat, in Spanish the term NRBQ has replaced NBQ. The Argentine Armed Forces has several CRBN response teams, the Batallón de Ingenieros QBN601 of the Argentine Army, was the first CRBN response team created, in the 1990s, as a part of the countrys Rapid Deployment Force. Civil defense, and firemen from Policía Federal Argentina teams also have CRBN training, Brazilian firefighters are trained for NBC situations. Due to the 2016 Summer Olympics, police forces, like the GATE from Minas Gerais, the Federal Police, in the military area, there is CBRN equipment and personnel by all the Armed Forces. The Brazilian Presidential Guard and Army Police also have CBRN units, the Air Force is making special teams for transporting victims from CBRN attacks/accidents. The term CBRN is in use in disaster and emergency services organizations across the country. Since July 2005, the Canadian Armed Forces also started using the term CBRN Defence, instead of NBC Defence, CBRNE is a new term that is being used in both civilian and military organisations. All members of the Canadian Armed Forces are trained in CBRN defense, at the provincial level, cities are provided opportunities for their emergency services with CBRN training. In Ontario, emergency services in Windsor, Peterborough, Toronto, in mid-July 2016, the European Parliament negotiated a new draft counterterrorism directive aimed at protecting Europes people from biological, chemical and other attacks. Hong Kong has had CBRN response capabilities since the early 1990s, the Standing CBRN Planning Group plans for all CBRN incidents in Hong Kong. The SRPG was set up with the support of the Secretary for Security by the Senior Bomb Disposal Officer in Hong Kong and it consists of representatives from 9 government departments who plan the response to CBRN threats. RIAG consists of five experts who assist with the response to the incident by providing real time advice. The Hong Kong capability is well rehearsed, with regular departmental exercises conducted, the Indian Army ordered 16 CBRN monitoring vehicles, of which the first 8 were inducted in December 2010. It was developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation and manufactured by Ordnance Factories Board, indonesia army has a CBRN Defense unit, Kompi Zeni Nubika Ditzi TNI-AD
37.
Opal (armoured personnel carrier)
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The Opal-I is a multi-purpose fully amphibious armoured personnel carrier developed and produced by HSW S. A. APC is a development of MT-LB that was produced in HSW on licence. Major changes are with reworked nose section and propellers for better in speed and manoeuvrability, new turret with 12.7 mm NSVT machine-gun instead of old with 7.62 PKT. Opal-II is a variant with longer chassis with 7 road wheels on each side, like the 2S1. - technical support vehicle with crane, hydraulic dozerblade, welding equipment. The vehicle is a support vehicle of mechanized battalions equipped with BMP-1 IFV in Polish Land Forces. - engineering vehicle with basic equipment, in use with Polish Land Forces. Its TRI Hors additionally equipped with trailer-mounted UZR-3 mine clearing system, in use with Polish Land Forces. - Opal-II based engineer vehicle with mine-scattering system UMN mounted on a cargo bed, UMN consists of 4 launchers, each with 20 launch containers for anti-personnel or anti-tank mines. The ISM has a crew of 2 and a weight of 15.25 tonnes. It entered service with Polish Land Forces in 2004, in service with Polish Land Forces. - Opal-I based air defence command vehicle equipped with Łowcza system, the troop compartment section of vehicle is higher than in standard vehicle. Vehicle is used by Polish Land Forces, - air defence variant armed with twin 23 mm cannon and two 9M32M Strela-2M surface to air missiles. Vehicle designed as air-defence vehicle for mechanized units, - development of Sopel, based on Opal-II, armed with ELOP turret with two 23 mm Model-4216 guns and 4 Grom surface to air missiles. This variant was equipped with more advanced guiding systems, ammunition re-supply vehicle for artillery units
38.
Huta Stalowa Wola
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Huta Stalowa Wola is a defense contractor, and steel mill. It is a producer of military equipment in Poland, located in Stalowa Wola. It was established in 1938-1939 in the Second Polish Republic and it was a major part of a series of investments made by the Polish government in the years 1936–1939 to create the Central Industrial Region. This was to be a group of factories built in an area in the middle of the country, away from the borders with Germany and it was designed to provide a reasonably secure location for the production of armaments and high technology goods. The mill was set up in order to manufacture high alloy steels and weapons - artillery, a city quickly grew around the mill, and took its name from it. In 1960s and 1970s the company started production of construction machinery. In 1991 Huta Stalowa Wola became a joint stock company and it is still the major employer in the town, and a major producer of military equipment in Poland. HSW SA as of Feb.1,2012 sold its construction division to the Guangxi Liugong Machinery. In 2012, HSW bought Jelcz-Komponenty Sp, HSW SA is included in Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa SA. HSW SA Homepage Homepage LiuGong Poland, formerly part of HSW
Algeria – 145
Angola
Armenia – 20
Azerbaijan – 81 2S1 and unknown number of UR-77
Bosnia and Herzegovina – 5
Belarus – 246[5]
Bulgaria – 506
Cuba – 150
Croatia – 9 (to be used alongside 15 Panzerhaubitze 2000 from German Army stock.)
Eritrea – 20[6]
Ethiopia
Finland – 72 (known as 122 PsH 74)
Georgia 48
India – 110 (to be replaced)
Iran
Iraq
Kazakhstan – 10
Libya
Poland – 324 (to be replaced by SMK Rak and AHS Krab)
Russia – 622[7]
South Ossetia
Serbia – 72
Slovakia – 49
Syria – 400
Turkmenistan – unknown number in service as of 2016[8]
Ukraine – 638[9]
Uruguay – 6
Uzbekistan
Vietnam
Yemen
Republic of Moldova
Transnistria
Czech Republic – Phased out in early 2000s (decade)
East Germany – Phased out in 1990 after German reunification
Hungary – Phased out in 2004. Original there were 144 pieces of Gvozdikas.
ISIL – Reported. Currently probably all destroyed.
Romania – 48 reserve status since 2005
Slovenia – 8 reserve status
Soviet Union – Passed on to successor states
Yugoslavia – Passed on to successor states.
