1.
AA battery
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The AA battery—also called a double A or Mignon battery—is a standard size single cell cylindrical dry battery. The IEC60086 system calls it size R6, and ANSIC18 calls it size 15, historically, it is known as HP7 in official documentation the United Kingdom, though it is colloquially known as a double A battery. AA batteries are common in electronic devices. An AA battery is composed of an electrochemical cell that may be either a primary battery or a rechargeable battery. The exact terminal voltage and capacity of an AA size battery depends on cell chemistry, however, ANSI and IEC Battery nomenclature gives several designations for cells in this size, depending on cell features and chemistry. An AA cell measures 49. 2–50.5 mm in length, alkaline AA cells have a weight of roughly 23 g, lithium AA cells have a mass around 15 g, and rechargeable Ni-MH cells around 31 g. Primary zinc–carbon AA batteries have around 400–900 milliamp-hours capacity, with measured capacity highly dependent on test conditions, duty cycle, zinc–carbon batteries are usually marketed as general purpose batteries. Zinc-chloride batteries store around 1000 to 1500 mAh are often sold as heavy duty or super heavy duty, alkaline batteries from 1700 mAh to 3000 mAh cost more than zinc-chloride batteries, but last proportionally longer. Lithium iron disulfide batteries are intended for use in equipment compatible with alkaline zinc batteries, a fresh alkaline zinc battery can have an open-circuit voltage of 1.6 volts, but an iron-disulfide battery with an open-circuit voltage below 1.7 volts is entirely discharged. Lithium ion chemistry has a voltage of 3. 6-3.7 volts. Nickel-zinc cell AAs are also available, but not widely used, in 2011, AA cells accounted for approximately 60% of alkaline battery sales in the United States. In Japan, 58% of alkaline batteries sold were AA, known in country as tansan. In Switzerland, AA batteries totaled 55% in both primary and secondary battery sales, list of battery sizes Battery nomenclature Datasheet for Energizer alkaline AA battery Datasheet for Energizer lithium AA battery Datasheet for Duracell alkaline AA battery
2.
Battery (electricity)
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An electric battery is a device consisting of one or more electrochemical cells with external connections provided to power electrical devices such as flashlights, smartphones, and electric cars. When a battery is supplying power, its positive terminal is the cathode. The terminal marked negative is the source of electrons that when connected to a circuit will flow. It is the movement of ions within the battery which allows current to flow out of the battery to perform work. Historically the term specifically referred to a device composed of multiple cells. Primary batteries are used once and discarded, the materials are irreversibly changed during discharge. Common examples are the battery used for flashlights and a multitude of portable electronic devices. Secondary batteries can be discharged and recharged multiple times using mains power from a wall socket, examples include the lead-acid batteries used in vehicles and lithium-ion batteries used for portable electronics such as laptops and smartphones. According to a 2005 estimate, the battery industry generates US$48 billion in sales each year. Batteries have much lower energy than common fuels such as gasoline. This is somewhat offset by the efficiency of electric motors in producing mechanical work. The usage of battery to describe a group of electrical devices dates to Benjamin Franklin, alessandro Volta built and described the first electrochemical battery, the voltaic pile, in 1800. This was a stack of copper and zinc plates, separated by brine-soaked paper disks, Volta did not understand that the voltage was due to chemical reactions. Although early batteries were of value for experimental purposes, in practice their voltages fluctuated. It consisted of a pot filled with a copper sulfate solution, in which was immersed an unglazed earthenware container filled with sulfuric acid. These wet cells used liquid electrolytes, which were prone to leakage and spillage if not handled correctly, many used glass jars to hold their components, which made them fragile and potentially dangerous. These characteristics made wet cells unsuitable for portable appliances, near the end of the nineteenth century, the invention of dry cell batteries, which replaced the liquid electrolyte with a paste, made portable electrical devices practical. Batteries convert chemical energy directly to electrical energy, a battery consists of some number of voltaic cells
3.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
4.
NATO
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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party, three NATO members are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and are officially nuclear-weapon states. NATOs headquarters are located in Haren, Brussels, Belgium, while the headquarters of Allied Command Operations is near Mons. NATO is an Alliance that consists of 28 independent member countries across North America and Europe, an additional 22 countries participate in NATOs Partnership for Peace program, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the global total, Members defence spending is supposed to amount to 2% of GDP. The course of the Cold War led to a rivalry with nations of the Warsaw Pact, politically, the organization sought better relations with former Warsaw Pact countries, several of which joined the alliance in 1999 and 2004. N. The Treaty of Brussels, signed on 17 March 1948 by Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, the treaty and the Soviet Berlin Blockade led to the creation of the Western European Unions Defence Organization in September 1948. However, participation of the United States was thought necessary both to counter the power of the USSR and to prevent the revival of nationalist militarism. He got a hearing, especially considering American anxiety over Italy. In 1948 European leaders met with U. S. defense, military and diplomatic officials at the Pentagon, marshalls orders, exploring a framework for a new and unprecedented association. Talks for a new military alliance resulted in the North Atlantic Treaty and it included the five Treaty of Brussels states plus the United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark and Iceland. The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, stated in 1949 that the goal was to keep the Russians out, the Americans in. Popular support for the Treaty was not unanimous, and some Icelanders participated in a pro-neutrality, the creation of NATO can be seen as the primary institutional consequence of a school of thought called Atlanticism which stressed the importance of trans-Atlantic cooperation. The members agreed that an attack against any one of them in Europe or North America would be considered an attack against them all. The treaty does not require members to respond with military action against an aggressor, although obliged to respond, they maintain the freedom to choose the method by which they do so. This differs from Article IV of the Treaty of Brussels, which states that the response will be military in nature. It is nonetheless assumed that NATO members will aid the attacked member militarily, the treaty was later clarified to include both the members territory and their vessels, forces or aircraft above the Tropic of Cancer, including some Overseas departments of France. The creation of NATO brought about some standardization of allied military terminology, procedures, and technology, the roughly 1300 Standardization Agreements codified many of the common practices that NATO has achieved
5.
Vietnam War
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It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and the government of South Vietnam. The war is considered a Cold War-era proxy war. As the war continued, the actions of the Viet Cong decreased as the role. U. S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery, in the course of the war, the U. S. conducted a large-scale strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam. The North Vietnamese government and the Viet Cong were fighting to reunify Vietnam and they viewed the conflict as a colonial war and a continuation of the First Indochina War against forces from France and later on the United States. The U. S. government viewed its involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam and this was part the domino theory of a wider containment policy, with the stated aim of stopping the spread of communism. Beginning in 1950, American military advisors arrived in what was then French Indochina, U. S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with troop levels tripling in 1961 and again in 1962. Regular U. S. combat units were deployed beginning in 1965, despite the Paris Peace Accord, which was signed by all parties in January 1973, the fighting continued. In the U. S. and the Western world, a large anti-Vietnam War movement developed as part of a larger counterculture, the war changed the dynamics between the Eastern and Western Blocs, and altered North–South relations. Direct U. S. military involvement ended on 15 August 1973, the capture of Saigon by the North Vietnamese Army in April 1975 marked the end of the war, and North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year. The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities, estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed vary from 966,000 to 3.8 million. Some 240, 000–300,000 Cambodians,20, 000–62,000 Laotians, and 58,220 U. S. service members died in the conflict. Various names have applied to the conflict. Vietnam War is the most commonly used name in English and it has also been called the Second Indochina War and the Vietnam Conflict. As there have been several conflicts in Indochina, this conflict is known by the names of its primary protagonists to distinguish it from others. In Vietnamese, the war is known as Kháng chiến chống Mỹ. It is also called Chiến tranh Việt Nam, France began its conquest of Indochina in the late 1850s, and completed pacification by 1893. The 1884 Treaty of Huế formed the basis for French colonial rule in Vietnam for the seven decades
6.
Six-Day War
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The Six-Day War, also known as the June War,1967 Arab–Israeli War, or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10,1967 by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. Relations between Israel and its neighbours had never fully normalised following the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, in the period leading up to June 1967, tensions became dangerously heightened. In reaction to the mobilisation of Egyptian forces along the Israeli border in the Sinai Peninsula, the Egyptians were caught by surprise, and nearly the entire Egyptian air force was destroyed with few Israeli losses, giving the Israelis air superiority. Simultaneously, the Israelis launched an offensive into the Gaza Strip and the Sinai. After some initial resistance, Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser ordered the evacuation of the Sinai, Israeli forces rushed westward in pursuit of the Egyptians, inflicted heavy losses, and conquered the Sinai. Nasser induced Syria and Jordan to begin attacks on Israel by using the initially confused situation to claim that Egypt had defeated the Israeli air strike. Israeli counterattacks resulted in the seizure of East Jerusalem as well as the West Bank from the Jordanians, on June 11, a ceasefire was signed. Arab casualties were far heavier than those of Israel, fewer than a thousand Israelis had been killed compared to over 20,000 from the Arab forces. Israels military success was attributed to the element of surprise, an innovative and well-executed battle plan, Israel seized control of the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. Israeli morale and international prestige was greatly increased by the outcome of the war, across the Arab world, Jewish minority communities were expelled, with refugees going to Israel or Europe. After the 1956 Suez Crisis, Egypt agreed to the stationing of a United Nations Emergency Force in the Sinai to ensure all parties would comply with the 1949 Armistice Agreements, in the following years there were numerous minor border clashes between Israel and its Arab neighbors, particularly Syria. In early November 1966, Syria signed a defense agreement with Egypt. Jordanian units that engaged the Israelis were quickly beaten back, King Hussein of Jordan criticized Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser for failing to come to Jordans aid, and hiding behind UNEF skirts. In May 1967, Nasser received false reports from the Soviet Union that Israel was massing on the Syrian border, the right of innocent, maritime passage must be preserved for all nations. On May 30, Jordan and Egypt signed a defense pact, the following day, at Jordans invitation, the Iraqi army began deploying troops and armoured units in Jordan. They were later reinforced by an Egyptian contingent, on June 1, Israel formed a National Unity Government by widening its cabinet, and on June 4 the decision was made to go to war. The next morning, Israel launched Operation Focus, a surprise air strike that was the opening of the Six-Day War. Before the war, Israeli pilots and ground crews had trained extensively in rapid refitting of aircraft returning from sorties and this has contributed to the Arab belief that the IAF was helped by foreign air forces
7.
Yom Kippur War
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The fighting mostly took place in the Sinai and the Golan Heights, territories that had been occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat wanted also to reopen the Suez Canal, neither specifically planned to destroy Israel, although the Israeli leaders could not be sure of that. Egyptian and Syrian forces crossed ceasefire lines to enter the Sinai Peninsula, both the United States and the Soviet Union initiated massive resupply efforts to their respective allies during the war, and this led to a near-confrontation between the two nuclear superpowers. The war began with a massive and successful Egyptian crossing of the Suez Canal, after crossing the cease-fire lines, Egyptian forces advanced virtually unopposed into the Sinai Peninsula. After three days, Israel had mobilized most of its forces and halted the Egyptian offensive, resulting in a military stalemate, the Syrians coordinated their attack on the Golan Heights to coincide with the Egyptian offensive and initially made threatening gains into Israeli-held territory. Within three days, however, Israeli forces had pushed the Syrians back to the ceasefire lines. The Israel Defense Forces then launched a four-day counter-offensive deep into Syria, within a week, Israeli artillery began to shell the outskirts of Damascus. He therefore ordered the Egyptians to go back on the offensive, on October 22 a United Nations–brokered ceasefire quickly unraveled, with each side blaming the other for the breach. By October 24, the Israelis had improved their positions considerably and completed their encirclement of Egypts Third Army and this development led to tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. As a result, a ceasefire was imposed cooperatively on October 25 to end the war. These changes paved the way for the subsequent peace process, the 1978 Camp David Accords that followed led to the return of the Sinai to Egypt and normalized relations—the first peaceful recognition of Israel by an Arab country. Egypt continued its drift away from the Soviet Union and left the Soviet sphere of influence entirely, the war was part of the Arab–Israeli conflict, an ongoing dispute that included many battles and wars since 1948, when the state of Israel was formed. During the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel had captured Egypts Sinai Peninsula, roughly half of Syrias Golan Heights, and the territories of the West Bank which had been held by Jordan since 1948. On June 19,1967, shortly after the Six-Day War, the Israeli government voted to return the Sinai to Egypt, the Arab position, as it emerged in September 1967 at the Khartoum Arab Summit, was to reject any peaceful settlement with the state of Israel. Prior to that, King Hussein of Jordan had stated that he could not rule out a possibility of a real, permanent peace between Israel and the Arab states. Armed hostilities continued on a limited scale after the Six-Day War and escalated into the War of Attrition, a ceasefire was signed in August 1970. President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt died in September 1970 and he was succeeded by Anwar Sadat. A peace initiative led by both Sadat and UN intermediary Gunnar Jarring was tabled in 1971 and it resembled a proposal independently made by Moshe Dayan
8.
Falklands War
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It began on Friday,2 April 1982, when Argentina invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands in an attempt to establish the sovereignty it had claimed over them. On 5 April, the British government dispatched a naval force to engage the Argentine Navy. The conflict lasted 74 days and ended with the Argentine surrender on 14 June 1982, in total,649 Argentine military personnel,255 British military personnel, and three Falkland Islanders died during the hostilities. The conflict was an episode in the protracted confrontation over the territories sovereignty. Argentina asserted that the islands are Argentine territory, and the Argentine government thus characterised its military action as the reclamation of its own territory, the British government regarded the action as an invasion of a territory that had been a Crown colony since 1841. Falkland Islanders, who have inhabited the islands since the early 19th century, are descendants of British settlers. The conflict has had an effect in both countries and has been the subject of various books, articles, films, and songs. Patriotic sentiment ran high in Argentina, but the outcome prompted large protests against the military government. In the United Kingdom, the Conservative Party government, bolstered by the outcome, was re-elected the following year. The cultural and political weight of the conflict has had less effect in Britain than in Argentina, diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and Argentina were restored in 1989 following a meeting in Madrid, Spain, at which the two governments issued a joint statement. No change in either countrys position regarding the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands was made explicit, in 1994, Argentinas claim to the territories was added to its constitution. In December 1981 there was a change in the Argentine military regime, bringing to office a new junta headed by General Leopoldo Galtieri, Brigadier Basilio Lami Dozo. Anaya was the architect and supporter of a military solution for the long-standing claim over the islands. Such action would also bolster its dwindling legitimacy, the newspaper La Prensa speculated in a step-by-step plan beginning with cutting off supplies to the islands, ending in direct actions late in 1982, if the UN talks were fruitless. The Royal Navy ice patrol vessel HMS Endurance was dispatched from Stanley to South Georgia in response, the Argentine military junta, suspecting that the UK would reinforce its South Atlantic Forces, ordered the invasion of the Falkland Islands to be brought forward to 2 April. Britain was initially taken by surprise by the Argentine attack on the South Atlantic islands, despite repeated warnings by Royal Navy captain Nicholas Barker, on 2 April 1982, Argentine forces mounted amphibious landings off the Falkland Islands. The invasion was met with a defence organised by the Falkland Islands Governor Sir Rex Hunt. Word of the invasion first reached Britain from Argentine sources, a Ministry of Defence operative in London had a short telex conversation with Governor Hunts telex operator, who confirmed that Argentines were on the island and in control
9.
The Troubles
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The Troubles is the common name for the ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland during the late 20th century. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is described as a guerrilla war or low-level war. The most recent instalment of violence began in the late 1960s and is deemed to have ended with the Good Friday Belfast Agreement of 1998. Although the Troubles mainly took place in Northern Ireland, violence spilled over at times parts of the Republic of Ireland, England and mainland Europe. The conflict was political and nationalistic, fuelled by historical events. It also had an ethnic or sectarian dimension, although it was not a religious conflict, a key issue was the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. Unionists/loyalists, who are mostly Protestants and consider themselves British, want Northern Ireland to remain within the United Kingdom, Irish nationalists/republicans, who are predominantly Catholics, want Northern Ireland to be reunited with the 26 counties which make up the Republic of Ireland in an independent united Ireland. This campaign was met with violence by loyalists who viewed the campaign as a stalking horse. This eventually led to the deployment of British troops, initially to protect Catholic civilians, the security forces of the Republic played a smaller role. More than 3,500 people were killed in the conflict, of whom 52% were civilians, 32% were members of the British security forces, there has been sporadic violence since the Good Friday Agreement was signed, including a campaign by anti-ceasefire republicans. The Troubles refers to the recent three-decade conflict between nationalists and unionists, the term the Troubles was previously used to refer to the Irish revolutionary period, it was adopted to refer to the escalating violence in Northern Ireland after 1969. The violence was characterised by the campaigns of Irish republican and Ulster loyalist paramilitary groups. It thus became the focus for the longest major campaign in the history of the British Army, nationalists regard the state forces as forces of occupation or partisan combatants in the conflict. One part of the Agreement is that Northern Ireland will remain within the United Kingdom unless a majority of the Northern Irish electorate vote otherwise and it also established the Northern Ireland Executive, a devolved power-sharing government, which must consist of both unionist and nationalist parties. In 1609, Scottish and English settlers, known as planters, were given land escheated from the native Irish in the Plantation of Ulster. As the Penal Laws started to be phased out in the part of the 18th century, there was more competition for land. With Roman Catholics allowed to buy land and enter trades from which they had formerly been banned, tensions arose resulting in the Protestant Peep ODay Boys and Catholic Defenders. This created polarisation between the communities and a reduction in reformers among Protestants, many of whom had been growing more receptive to democratic reform
10.
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
11.
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
12.
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
13.
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
14.
Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen
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Code-named Operation Decisive Storm, the intervention initially consisted of a bombing campaign on Houthi Rebels and later saw a naval blockade and the deployment of ground forces into Yemen. Fighter jets and ground forces from Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Sudan, Djibouti, Eritrea and Somalia made their airspace, territorial waters and military bases available to the coalition. The United States provided intelligence and logistical support, including aerial refueling and it also accelerated the sale of weapons to coalition states. US and Britain have deployed their military personnel in the command and control centre responsible for Saudi-led air strikes on Yemen, Pakistan was called on by Saudi Arabia to join the coalition, but its parliament voted to maintain neutrality. On 21 April 2015, the Saudi-led military coalition announced an end to Operation Decisive Storm, the kingdom and its coalition partners said they would be launching political and peace efforts, which they called Operation Restoring Hope. However, the coalition did not rule out using force, saying it would respond to threats, the war has received widespread criticism and had a dramatic worsening effect on the humanitarian situation, that reached the level of a humanitarian disaster or humanitarian catastrophe. On 1 July UN declared for Yemen a level-three emergency – the highest UN emergency level – for a period of six months, Human rights groups repeatedly blamed the Saudi-led military coalition for killing civilians and destroying health centers and other infrastructure with airstrikes. The de facto blockade left 78% of the Yemeni population in urgent need of food, water, aid ships are allowed, but the bulk of commercial shipping, on which the country relies, is blocked. In one occasion, coalition jets prevented an Iranian Red Crescent plane from landing by bombing Sanaa International Airports runway, as of 10 December, more than 2,500,000 people had been internally displaced by the fighting. Many countries evacuated more than 23,000 foreign citizens from Yemen, more than 1,000,000 people fled Yemen for Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan and Oman. Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, running unopposed for president, won the 2012 Yemeni elections, the Houthis, a Zaidi Shia movement and militant group thought to be backed by Iran, took control of the Yemeni government through a series of actions in 2014 and 2015. Saudi Arabia and other countries denounced this as an unconstitutional coup détat, Saudi media claim that Saleh or his son had approached Riyadh seeking such a deal. By September 2014, Houthi fighters captured Sanaa, toppling Hadis government, soon after, a peace deal was concluded between the Hadi government and the Houthis, but was not honored by either party. The deal was drafted with the intent of defining a power-sharing government, a conflict over a draft constitution resulted in the Houthis consolidating control over the Yemeni capital in January 2015. After resigning from his post alongside his prime minister and remaining under house arrest for one month. Upon arriving in Aden, Hadi withdrew his resignation, saying that the actions of the Houthis from September 2014 had amounted to a coup against him. By 25 March, forces answering to Sanaa were rapidly closing in on Aden, during the Houthis southern offensive, Saudi Arabia began a military buildup on its border with Yemen. In response, a Houthi commander boasted that his troops would counterattack against any Saudi aggression and would not stop until they had taken Riyadh, the Saudi capital
15.
Cartridge (firearms)
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Military and commercial producers continue to pursue the goal of caseless ammunition. A cartridge without a bullet is called a blank, One that is completely inert is called a dummy. Some artillery ammunition uses the same concept as found in small arms. In other cases, the shell is separate from the propellant charge. In popular use, the bullet is often misused to refer to a complete cartridge. The cartridge case seals a firing chamber in all directions excepting the bore, a firing pin strikes the primer and ignites it. The primer compound deflagrates, it does not detonate, a jet of burning gas from the primer ignites the propellant. Gases from the burning powder pressurize and expand the case to seal it against the chamber wall and these propellant gases push on the bullet base. In response to pressure, the bullet will move in the path of least resistance which is down the bore of the barrel. After the bullet leaves the barrel, the pressure drops to atmospheric pressure. The case, which had been expanded by chamber pressure. This eases removal of the case from the chamber, brass is a commonly used case material because it is resistant to corrosion. A brass case head can be work-hardened to withstand the pressures of cartridges. The neck and body portion of a case is easily annealed to make the case ductile enough to allow reforming so that it can be reloaded many times. Steel is used in some plinking ammunition, as well as in military ammunition. Steel is less expensive than brass, but it is not feasible to reload, Military forces typically consider small arms cartridge cases to be disposable, one-time-use devices. However, case weight affects how much ammunition a soldier can carry, conversely, steel is more susceptible to contamination and damage so all such cases are varnished or otherwise sealed against the elements. One downside caused by the strength of steel in the neck of these cases is that propellant gas can blow back past the neck
16.
.308 Winchester
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The.308 Winchester is a rimless, bottlenecked rifle cartridge and is the commercial cartridge from which the 7. 62×51mm NATO round was derived. The.308 Winchester was introduced in 1952, two prior to the NATO adoption of the 7. 62×51mm NATO T65. Winchester branded the cartridge and introduced it to the hunting market as the.308 Winchester. Winchesters Model 70 and Model 88 rifles were chambered for the new cartridge. Since then, the.308 Winchester has become the most popular short-action and it is also commonly used for civilian hunting, target shooting, Metallic Silhouette, bench rest target shooting, palma, metal matches and military sniping, and police sharpshooting. The relatively short case makes the.308 Winchester especially well-adapted for short-action rifles, when loaded with a bullet that expands, tumbles, or fragments in tissue, this cartridge is capable of high terminal performance. Their interchange is, however, considered safe by the Sporting Arms, the.308 Winchester has 3.64 ml cartridge case capacity. The exterior shape of the case was designed to promote reliable case feeding and extraction in bolt action rifles and machine guns alike, all dimensions in millimeters and inches. Americans would define the angle at alpha/2 =20 degrees. The common rifling twist rate for this cartridge is 305 mm,4 grooves, Ø lands =7.62 mm, Ø grooves =7.82 mm, land width =4.47 mm and the primer type is large rifle. Rulings the.308 Winchester can handle up to 415.00 MPa Pmax piezo pressure, regulated countries every rifle cartridge combo has to be proofed at 125% of this maximum C. I. P. pressure to certify for sale to consumers. This means that.308 Winchester chambered arms in C. I. P, regulated countries are currently proof tested at 519.00 MPa PE piezo pressure. North American SAAMI maximum pressure for the 308 Winchester is 62,000 PSI, the.308 Winchester is one of the most popular hunting cartridges in the United States, and possibly the world. It has gained popularity in countries as an exceptional cartridge for game in the medium- to large-sized class. In North America it is used extensively on whitetail deer, pronghorn, clay Harvey, an American gun writer, says it is usable on moose and elk. Layne Simpson, an American who has hunted in Sweden, says he is surprised how many hunters there use the cartridge, craig Boddington was told by a Norma Precision executive that the.308 is one of Normas best-selling calibers. In Africa the.308 Win is one of the most popular calibers among Bushveld hunters and is used on anything from duiker right up to the massive eland. The.308 Winchester has slightly more drop at range than the. 30-06 Springfield
17.
Bullet
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The word bullet is a firearm term. A bullet is a projectile expelled from the barrel of a firearm, the term is from Middle French and originated as the diminutive of the word boulle which means small ball. Bullets are made of a variety of materials and they are available singly as they would be used in muzzle loading and cap and ball firearms, as part of a paper cartridge, and much more commonly as a component of metallic cartridges. Bullets are made in a numbers of styles and constructions depending on how they will be used. Many bullets have specialized functions, such as hunting, target shooting, training, defense, a bullet is not a cartridge. In paper and metallic cartridges a bullet is one component of the cartridge, bullet sizes are expressed by their weight and diameter in both English and Metric measurement systems. For example.22 caliber 55 grain bullets or 5. 56mm 55 grain bullets are the same caliber, the word bullet is often used colloquially to refer to a cartridge, which is a combination of the bullet, paper or metallic case/shell, powder, and primer. This use of bullet, when cartridge is intended, leads to confusion when the components of a cartridge are discussed or intended, the bullets used in many cartridges are fired at a muzzle velocity faster than the speed of sound. Meaning they are supersonic and thus can travel a substantial distance, bullet speed through air depends on a number of factors such as barometric pressure, humidity, air temperature, and wind speed. Subsonic cartridges fire bullets slower than the speed of sound and so there is no sonic crack and this means that a subsonic cartridge such as.45 ACP can be effectively suppressed to be substantially quieter than a supersonic cartridge such as the.223 Remington. Bullets do not normally contain explosives, but damage the target by impact. The first use of gunpowder in Europe was recorded in 1247 and it had been used in China for hundreds of years. Later in 1364 hand cannon appeared, early projectiles were made of stone. Stone was used in cannon and hand cannon, in cannon it was eventually found that stone would not penetrate stone fortifications which gave rise to the use of heavier metals for the round projectiles. Hand cannon projectiles developed in a similar following the failure of stone from siege cannon. The first recorded instance of a ball from a hand cannon penetrating armor occurred in 1425. In this photograph of shot retrieved from the wreck of the Mary Rose which was sunk in 1545, the round shot are clearly of different sizes and some are stone while others are cast iron. The development of the hand culverin and matchlock arquebus brought about the use of cast lead balls as projectiles, bullet is derived from the French word boulette, which roughly means little ball
18.
Rifling
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In firearms, rifling consists of helical grooves in the internal surface of a guns barrel, which impart a spin to a projectile around its long axis. This spin serves to stabilize the projectile, improving its aerodynamic stability. Rifling is often described by its twist rate, which indicates the distance the rifling takes to complete one revolution, such as 1 turn in 10 inches. A shorter distance indicates a faster twist, meaning that for a given velocity the projectile will be rotating at a spin rate. Barrels intended for long, small-diameter bullets, such as the ultra-low-drag, 80-grain 0.223 inch bullets, extremely long projectiles such as flechettes may require high twist rates, these projectiles must be inherently stable, and are often fired from a smoothbore barrel. Muskets were smoothbore, large caliber weapons using ball-shaped ammunition fired at low velocity. Due to the high cost and great difficulty of manufacturing, and the need to load readily from the muzzle. Consequently, on firing the ball bounced off the sides of the barrel when fired, barrel rifling was invented in Augsburg, Germany in 1498. In 1520 August Kotter, an armourer of Nuremberg, Germany improved upon this work, though true rifling dates from the mid-16th century, it did not become commonplace until the nineteenth century. The most successful weapons using rifling with black powder were breech loaders such as the Queen Anne pistol, the grooves most commonly used in modern rifling have fairly sharp edges. More recently, polygonal rifling, a throwback to the earliest types of rifling, has become popular, polygonal barrels tend to have longer service lives because the reduction of the sharp edges of the land reduces erosion of the barrel. Supporters of polygonal rifling also claim higher velocities and greater accuracy, polygonal rifling is currently seen on pistols from CZ, Heckler & Koch, Glock, Tanfoglio, and Kahr Arms, as well as the Desert Eagle. Such guns have achieved significant increases in velocity and range. Examples include the South African G5 and the German PzH2000, gain-twist rifling begins with very little change in the projectiles angular momentum during the first few inches of bullet travel after ignition during the transition from chamber to throat. This enables the bullet to remain undisturbed and trued to the case mouth. After engaging the rifling the bullet is progressively subjected to accelerated angular momentum as burning powder propels it down the barrel. By only gradually increasing the rate, torque is spread along a much longer section of barrel. Gain-twist rifling was used as early as the American Civil War, colt Army and Navy revolvers both employed gain-twist rifling
19.
Primer (firearms)
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In firearm ballistics, the primer is a component of pistol, rifle, and shotgun rounds. Early primers were simply the same black powder used to fire the weapon and this external powder was connected though a tube in the barrel that led to the main charge. As powder wont burn when wet, this led to difficulty, or even the inability, modern primers are shock sensitive chemicals. In smaller weapons the primer is usually integrated into the rear of a cartridge, in larger weapons like cannon the primer is a separate component placed inside the barrel to the rear of the main propellant charge. The first step to firing a firearm of any sort is igniting the propellant, the earliest firearms were cannons, which were simple closed tubes. There was an aperture, the touchhole, drilled in the closed end of the tube. This hole was filled with finely ground powder, which was ignited with a hot ember or torch. With the advent of firearms, this became an undesirable way of firing a gun. The first attempt to make the process of firing a small arm easier was the matchlock, the matchlock incorporated a lock that was actuated by a trigger, originally called a tricker. The lock was a lever which pivoted when pulled. The match was a burning fuse made of plant fibers that were soaked in a solution of nitrates, charcoal, and sulfur. This slow-match was ignited before the gun was needed, and it would slowly burn, after the gun was loaded and the touchhole primed with powder, the burning tip of the match was positioned so that the lock would bring it into contact with the touchhole. To fire the gun, it was aimed and the trigger pulled and this brought the match down to the touchhole, igniting the powder. With careful attention the slow-burning match could be burning for long periods of time. The next revolution in technology was the wheel-lock. It used a spring-loaded, serrated steel wheel which rubbed against a piece of iron pyrite, a key was used to wind the wheel and put the spring under tension. Once tensioned, the wheel was held in place by a trigger, when the trigger was pulled, the serrated edge of the steel rubbed against the pyrite, generating sparks. These sparks were directed into a pan, called the flash pan, the flashpan usually was protected by a spring-loaded cover that would slide out of the way when the trigger was pulled, exposing the powder to the sparks
20.
Rim (firearms)
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A rim is an external flange that is machined, cast, molded, stamped or pressed around the bottom of a firearms cartridge. Thus, rimmed cartridges are sometimes called flanged cartridges, almost all cartridges feature an extractor or headspacing rim, in spite of the fact that some cartridges are known as rimless cartridges. These types are rimmed, rimless, semi-rimmed, rebated rim and these categories describe the size of the rim in relation to the base of the case. The rimmed cartridge, sometimes called flanged cartridge, is the oldest of the types and has a rim that is larger in diameter than the base of the cartridge. Rimmed cartridges use the rim to hold the cartridge in the chamber of the firearm, because the rimmed cartridge headspaces on the rim, the case length is of less importance than rimless cartridges. This allows some firearms chambered for similar rimmed cartridges to safely chamber and fire shorter cartridges, rimmed cartridges are well suited to certain types of actions, such as revolvers, where the rim helps hold the cartridge in position, and break-action firearms. Semi-automatic handguns have been chambered in rimmed cartridges as well, for example a LAR Grizzly or Desert Eagle in.357 or.44 Magnum, under the metric cartridge designation system, a capitalized R added at the end of the designation denotes a rimmed cartridge. For example,7. 62×54mmR is a cartridge, while 7. 62×51mm is a rimless cartridge.45 Auto Rim. Examples of rimmed handgun cartridges include the.38 Special.357 Magnum, rimmed rifle cartridge examples include the.22 Hornet.303 British and 7. 62×54mmR. Rimless cases are not well suited to break-open and revolver actions, though they can be used with modifications, such as a spring-loaded extractor or, in a revolver. Crimping affects the length of the cartridge, and thus cannot be used on cartridges which headspace on the case mouth. Examples of rimless handgun cartridges include the 9mm Parabellum.40 S&W, rimless rifle examples include the.223 Remington.308 Winchester. 30-06 Springfield and 7. 92×57mm Mauser. On a semi-rimmed case the rim projects slightly beyond the base of the case, the tiny rim provides minimal interference feeding from a box magazine, while still providing enough surface to headspace on. Semi-rimmed cases are less common than the other types, if the chamber is cut shallow, so the case headspaces off the mouth, the rim is used for extraction only, a standard chamber will use the rim for both headspacing and extraction. Examples of more commonly encountered rimless handgun cartridges are.25 ACP.32 ACP and.38 ACP, while the.308 Marlin Express.338 Marlin Express and.444 Marlin are rifle cartridges that are semi-rimmed. Rebated rim cartridges have a rim that is smaller in diameter than the base of the case. Functionally the same as a case, the rebated rim provides some additional benefits when considered in conjunction with other cartridges. One example of a rebated rim cartridge is the.50 Action Express, by using the same rim dimensions as the.44 Magnum, a Desert Eagle could be converted from.44 Magnum to.50 AE by merely changing the barrel and magazine
21.
Rifle
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A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called lands, which contact with the projectile. When the projectile leaves the barrel, this spin lends gyroscopic stability to the projectile and prevents tumbling and this allows the use of aerodynamically-efficient bullets and thus improves range and accuracy. The word rifle originally referred to the grooving, and a rifle was called a rifled gun, the word rifle is now used for any long hand-held aimed device activated by a trigger, such as Air rifles and the Personnel halting and stimulation response rifle. Rifles are used in warfare, hunting and shooting sports, formerly, rifles only fired a single projectile with each squeeze of the trigger. Modern rifles are capable of firing more than one round per trigger squeeze, some fire in an automatic mode. Thus, modern automatic rifles overlap to some extent in design, in fact, many light machine guns are adaptations of existing automatic rifle designs. A militarys light machine guns are chambered for the same caliber ammunition as its service rifles. Generally, the difference between a rifle and a machine gun comes down to weight, cooling system. Modern military rifles are fed by magazines, while machine guns are generally belt-fed, many machine guns allow the operator to quickly exchange barrels in order to prevent overheating, whereas rifles generally do not. Most machine guns fire from a bolt in order to reduce the danger of cook-off. Machine guns are often crewed by more than one soldier, the rifle is an individual weapon, the term rifle is sometimes used to describe larger crew-served rifled weapons firing explosive shells, for example, recoilless rifles. In many works of fiction a rifle refers to any weapon that has a stock and is shouldered before firing, the origins of rifling are difficult to trace, but some of the earliest practical experiments seem to have occurred in Europe during the 15th century. Archers had long realized that a twist added to the feathers of their arrows gave them greater accuracy. This might also have led to a increase in accuracy. Rifles were created as an improvement in the accuracy of smooth bore muskets, the black powder used in early muzzle-loading rifles quickly fouled the barrel, making loading slower and more difficult. Since musketeers could not afford to take the time to stop and clean their barrels in the middle of a battle, rifles were limited to use by sharpshooters, muskets were smoothbore, large caliber weapons using ball-shaped ammunition fired at relatively low velocity. Due to the high cost and great difficulty of manufacturing, and the need to load readily from the muzzle
22.
M14 rifle
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The M14 rifle, officially the United States Rifle,7.62 mm, M14, is an American selective fire automatic rifle that fires 7. 62×51mm NATO ammunition. It gradually replaced the M1 Garand rifle in U. S. Army service by 1961 and in U. S. Marine Corps service by 1965. It was the standard infantry rifle for U. S. military personnel in the contiguous United States, Europe. The M14 was used for U. S. Army, Navy and Marine Corps basic, the M14 was the last American battle rifle issued in quantity to U. S. military personnel. The M14 is the basis for the M21 and M25 sniper rifles which were replaced by the M24 Sniper Weapon System. A new version of the M14, the M14 Enhanced Battle Rifle has been in service since 2002, the M14 was developed from a long line of experimental weapons based upon the M1 rifle. Although the M1 was among the most advanced infantry rifles of the late 1930s, modifications were already beginning to be made to the basic M1 rifles design during the last months of World War II. Changes included adding fully automatic firing capability and replacing the eight-round en bloc clips with a box magazine holding 20 rounds. Winchester, Remington, and Springfield Armorys own John Garand offered different conversions, garands design, the T20, was the most popular, and T20 prototypes served as the basis for a number of Springfield test rifles from 1945 through the early 1950s. The two men were transferred to Springfield Armory in late 1945, where work on the T25 continued. The T25 was designed to use the T65 service cartridge, a Frankford Arsenal design based upon. 30-06 cartridge case used in the M1 service rifle, after experimenting with several bullet designs, the T65 was finalized for adoption as the 7. 62×51mm NATO cartridge. Olin Industries later introduced the cartridge on the market as the.308 Winchester. After a series of revisions by Earle Harvey and other members of the.30 light rifle design group following the 1950 Fort Benning tests, the T25 was renamed the T47. Lloyd Corbett, an engineer in Harveys rifle design group, added various refinements to the T44 design, including an operating rod. The T47, which did not have a roller and performed worse in dust. A Newsweek article in July 1953 hinted that the T48/FAL might be selected over the T44, during the winter of 1953–54, both rifles competed in the winter rifle trials at U. S. Army facilities in the Arctic. FN engineers opened the gas ports in an attempt to improve functioning, as a result, the T44 was ranked superior in cold weather operation to the T48. In June 1954, funding was made available to manufacture newly fabricated T44 receivers specially designed for the shorter T65 cartridge
23.
M60 machine gun
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The M60, officially the United States Machine Gun, Caliber 7.62 mm, M60, is a family of American general-purpose machine guns firing 7. 62×51mm NATO cartridges from a disintegrating belt of M13 links. There are several types of ammunition approved for use in the M60, including ball, tracer, introduced in 1957, it has served with every branch of the U. S. military and still serves with other armed forces. S. The M60 is a machine gun that fires the 7. 62×51mm NATO cartridge commonly used in larger rifles. It is generally used as a weapon and operated by a team of two or three individuals. The team consists of the gunner, the assistant gunner, the guns weight and the amount of ammunition it can consume when fired make it difficult for a single soldier to carry and operate. The gunner carries the weapon and, depending on his strength and stamina, the assistant carries a spare barrel and extra ammunition, and reloads and spots targets for the gunner. The ammunition bearer carries additional ammunition and the tripod with associated traversing and elevation mechanism, if issued, the M60 can be accurately fired at short ranges from the shoulder thanks to its design. This was a requirement for the design and a hold-over in concept from the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle. It may also be fired from the bipod, M122 tripod. M60 ammunition comes in a cloth bandolier containing a box of 100 pre-linked rounds. The M60 uses the M13 ammunition link, a change from the older M1 link system with which it was not compatible, the cloth bandolier is reinforced to allow it to be hung from the current version of the feed tray. The later models changed the ammunition box attachment point and made this adaptation unnecessary, the M60 machine gun began development in the late 1940s as a program for a new, lighter 7.62 mm machine gun. It was partly derived from German guns of World War II, early prototypes, notably the T52 and T161 bore a close resemblance to both the M1941 Johnson machine gun and the FG42. The final evaluation version was designated the T161E3 and it was intended to replace the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle and M1919A6 Browning machine gun in the squad automatic weapon role, and in the medium machine gun role. One of the weapons tested against it during its procurement process was the FN MAG, the U. S. Army officially adopted the T161E3 as the M60 in 1957. The M60 later served in the Vietnam War as an automatic weapon with many U. S. units. Every soldier in the squad would carry an additional 200 linked rounds of ammunition for the M60. The up-gunned M113 armored personnel carrier ACAV added two M60 gunners beside the main.50 caliber machine gun, and the Patrol Boat, during the Vietnam War, the M60 received the nickname The Pig due to its bulky size
24.
M16 rifle
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The M16 rifle, officially designated Rifle, Caliber 5.56 mm, M16, is a United States military adaptation of the Armalite AR-15 rifle. The original M16 was a select-fire,5. 56×45mm rifle with a 20-round magazine, in 1964, the M16 entered American military service and the following year was deployed for jungle warfare operations during the Vietnam War. In 1969, the M16A1 replaced the M14 rifle to become the U. S. militarys standard service rifle, the M16A1 improvements include a bolt-assist, chrome plated bore and a new 30-round magazine. In 1983, the USMC adopted the M16A2 rifle and the U. S. Army adopted it in 1986, the M16A2 fires the improved 5. Adopted in 1998, the M16A4 is the generation of the M16 series. It is equipped with a carrying handle and Picatinny rail for mounting optics. The M16 has also widely adopted by other militaries around the world. Total worldwide production of M16s has been approximately 8 million, making it the most-produced firearm of its 5.56 mm caliber. The U. S. Army has largely replaced the M16 in combat units with the shorter and lighter M4 carbine, however, early experiments with select-fire versions of the M1 Garand proved disappointing. During the Korean War, the select-fire M2 carbine largely replaced the gun in US service. However, combat experience suggested that the.30 Carbine round was under-powered, American weapons designers concluded that an intermediate round was necessary, and recommended a small-caliber, high-velocity cartridge. This culminated in the development of the 7. 62×51mm NATO cartridge, the US also adopted the M60 general purpose machine gun. Its NATO partners adopted the FN FAL and HK G3 rifles, as well as the FN MAG, the first confrontations between the AK-47 and the M14 came in the early part of the Vietnam War. Battlefield reports indicated that the M14 was uncontrollable in full-auto and that soldiers could not carry enough ammo to maintain fire superiority over the AK-47, and, while the M2 carbine offered a high rate of fire, it was under-powered and ultimately outclassed by the AK-47. A replacement was needed, a medium between the traditional preference for high-powered rifles such as the M14, and the firepower of the M2 Carbine. As a result, the Army was forced to reconsider a 1957 request by General Willard G. Wyman, continental Army Command to develop a.223 caliber select-fire rifle weighing 6 lb when loaded with a 20-round magazine. This request ultimately resulted in the development of a version of the Armalite AR-10. However, despite overwhelming evidence that the AR-15 could bring more firepower to bear than the M14, in January 1963, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara concluded that the AR-15 was the superior weapon system and ordered a halt to M14 production
25.
Sniper rifle
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A sniper rifle is a man-portable, high precision, shoulder-fired rifle, for military or law enforcement use, designed to ensure more accurate shooting at longer ranges than other small arms. A typical sniper rifle is built for high levels of accuracy, fitted with a telescopic sight, the military role of a sniper dates back to the turn of the 18th century, but the true sniper rifle is a much more recent development. Some sniper rifles are based on the designs of standard rifles, the Whitworth rifle was arguably the first long-range sniper rifle in the world. His rifle was far more accurate than the Pattern 1853 Enfield, at trials in 1857, which tested the accuracy and range of both weapons, Whitworths design outperformed the Enfield at a rate of about three to one. Also, the Whitworth rifle was able to hit the target at a range of 2,000 yards, during the Crimean War, the first optical sights were designed for fitting onto the rifles. Much of this work was the brainchild of Colonel D. Davidson. This allowed a marksman to more accurately observe and target objects at a distance than ever before. The telescopic sight, or scope, was fixed and could not be adjusted. By the 1870s, the perfection of breech loading magazine rifles led to sniper rifles having effective ranges of up to a mile away from its target. During the Boer War, the latest breech-loading rifled guns with magazine, the British were equipped with the Lee–Metford rifle, while the Boers had received the latest Mauser rifles from Germany. In the open terrain of South Africa, the marksman was a component in battle. The Lovat Scouts was a British Army unit formed in 1899 that was renowned for the expert marksmanship, the men wore ghillie suits for camouflage and were expertly skilled in observation. Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard said of them that men never lived. After the Boer War, the Scouts became the first official unit in the British Army. It was not until World War I that sniper rifles began to be used regularly in battle. In Germany, these trained snipers were given rifles with telescopic sights, german gunsmiths fitted the scope above the barrel for optimal accuracy. During the War, the accuracy of the rifle was greatly improved. By the end of World War II snipers were reported to provide reasonable accuracy over 600 m with anything over this range being unpredictable
26.
Medium machine gun
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A medium machine gun, in modern terms, usually refers to a belt-fed automatic firearm firing a full-power rifle cartridge. In the late 19th century, Gatling guns and other externally powered types, such as the Nordenfelt, were made in different ranges of calibers. Thanks to their barrels, overheating was not a major issue. When Hiram Maxim developed his recoil-powered machine gun used a single barrel. As depicted in a photo of Maxim, it could be picked up complete with its 15-pound tripod with one arm. It was similar to later-design medium machine guns, but it could not be fired for extended periods, as a result, he created a water-jacket cooling system to enable it to fire for extended periods. This added significant weight, as did changes to more powerful cartridges and this class of heavy, water-cooled machine gun would eventually be regarded as the classic heavy machine guns. Many new designs were developed, some powered by air or recoil, also, instead of the rather heavy water jacket, new designs introduced other types of cooling, such as barrel replacement, metal fins, and/or heat sinks or some combination of all of them. Machine guns then diverged into heavier and lighter designs, the later model water-cooled Maxim gun and its derivatives, were all substantial weapons. The.303 inch Vickers, for example, weighed 33 lb alone, the heavier designs could, and in some cases did, literally fire for days on end. The need was to be able to cut down, potentially, the heavy machine gun was mounted on a tripod and was often water-cooled, a well-trained and well-supplied crew could fire for hours on end. Carefully positioned heavy machine guns could stop a force before they reached their objectives. The first machine guns in use before World War I covered a range of characteristics. In addition to these designs, there were also a number of lighter types. During the same period, a number of new air-cooled designs were developed that, instead of weighing well over 30 lb, were lighter and more mobile. In World War I, they were to be as important as the designs, and were used to support squads and infantry on the move, on aircraft. The two that would become critical were new medium and light machine guns, the new medium machine guns offered less, or more difficult-to-use, cooling than the heavier designs, but more than the lightest. Light machine guns were introduced as lighter, more portable automatic weapons and they still fired the same full-power rifle caliber ammunition, but used lighter barrels without extra cooling and were fired from a bipod
27.
M240 machine gun
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The M240, officially Machine Gun,7. 62mm, M240, is the US military designation for the FN MAG, a family of belt-fed, gas-operated medium machine guns firing the 7. 62×51mm NATO cartridge. The M240 has been used by the United States Armed Forces since the late-1970s and it is used extensively by infantry, most often rifle companies as well as ground vehicles, watercraft and aircraft. Despite being heavier than weapons, it is highly regarded for reliability. All variants are fed from disintegrating belts, and are capable of firing most types of 7.62 mm NATO ammunition, M240 variants can use non-disintegrating belts. There are significant differences in weight and some features among some versions which restrict interchangeability of parts, the M240s used by the US military are currently manufactured by FN Manufacturing, a US-based branch of FN Herstal. Manufactured by Fabrique Nationale, the FN MAG was chosen by the U. S. military for different roles after large world-wide searches, the MAG is a belt-fed, gas-operated, air-cooled, crew-served, fixed headspace weapon. Its versatility is demonstrated by its ability to be mounted on the M122A1 tripod and it was first adopted by the U. S. Army in 1977, as a coaxial tank gun, and slowly adopted for more applications in the 1980s and 1990s. The M240 and M240E1 were adopted for use on vehicles and this led to further adoption in more uses, especially for the Army and Marine infantry. While possessing many of the basic characteristics as its predecessor. The MAG actually has a more complex gas system than the M60, compared to other machine guns, its rating of 26,000 mean rounds between failure is quite high for its weight—in the 1970s when it was first adopted it achieved about 7,000 MRBF. It is not as reliable as some very heavy older designs and it would go on to be deployed in this role in the 1980s, but was additionally adopted for infantry and other uses. It was deployed in new roles in the 1990s and 2000s. As mentioned, during the 1970s the Army was looking for new 7.62 mm machine guns for vehicle/AFV mounts, the 1950s-era M73 had been rather troubled, and the derivative M73E1/M219 was not much of an improvement. A number of designs of the period from various countries were considered and they underwent comprehensive testing alongside the older M219 for comparison. Two main criteria analyzed were mean rounds between stoppages and mean rounds between failures, the results for the evaluated machine guns were the following, The test applies only to the 1970s-era versions tested. The MAG itself underwent some improvements and the M60E2 was a specialized coaxial variant that differed from some of the other types, the qualities of the M60 variants vary considerably, such as between the M60E4 and the M60C. That aside, for these types the clear winner was the MAG and it went on to replace many older types for the vehicle/coaxial role in the 1980s. The M240 proved popular enough that it was adapted by the later on, spawning the M240B
28.
.30-06 Springfield
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The.30 refers to the caliber of the bullet, and the 06 refers to the year the cartridge was adopted—1906. It replaced the. 30-03, 6mm Lee Navy, and. 30-40 Krag cartridges and it remains a very popular sporting round, with ammunition produced by all major manufacturers. In the early 1890s, the U. S. military adopted the smokeless powder. 30-40 Krag rimmed cartridge, the 1894 version of that cartridge used a 220-grain round-nose bullet. Around 1901, the U. S. started developing an experimental rimless cartridge for a Mauser action with box magazine and that led to the 1903. 30-03 rimless service round that used the same 220-grain round-nose bullet as the Krag. The. 30-03 achieved a velocity of 2,300 ft/s. Consequently, the round-nosed U. S. 30-03 service cartridge was falling behind. For these reasons, the U. S. military developed a new, lighter, cartridge in 1906, the cartridge was loaded with Military Rifle 21 propellant, and its maximum range was claimed to be 4,700 yd. The M1903 Springfield rifle, which had been introduced alongside the. 30-03 cartridge, was modified to accept the new. 30-06 Springfield cartridge. Modifications to the rifle included shortening the barrel at its breech and resizing the chamber, other changes to the rifle included elimination of the troublesome rod bayonet of the earlier Springfield rifles. The M1906 maximum range was originally overstated, when the M1906 cartridge was developed, the range tests had been done to only 1,800 yards, distances beyond that were estimated, but the estimate for extreme range was wrong by almost 40 percent. The range discrepancy became evident during World War I, before the widespread employment of light mortars and artillery, long-range machine gun barrage or indirect fires were considered important in U. S. infantry tactics. When the US entered World War I, it did not have machine guns, so it acquired British. When those weapons were replaced with US machine guns firing the M1906 round. Firing tests performed around 1918 at Borden Brook Reservoir, Miami, patrone was inroduced in 1914 and used a 197. 5-grain s. S. - schweres Spitzgeschoß boat-tail bullet which had a maximum range of approximately 5,140 yd. Its maximum range was approximately 5,500 yd. Additionally, wartime surplus totaled over 2 billion rounds of ammunition. Army regulations called for training use of the oldest ammunition first, as a result, the older. 30-06 ammunition was expended for training, stocks of.30 M1 Ball ammunition were allowed to slowly grow until all of the older M1906 ammunition had been fired. By 1936, it was discovered that the range of the.30 M1 Ball ammunition with its boat-tailed spitzer bullets was beyond the safety limitations of many ranges. An emergency order was made to manufacture quantities of ammunition that matched the ballistics of the earlier M1906 cartridge as soon as possible
29.
Milliradian
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A milliradian, often called a mil or mrad, is an SI derived unit for angular measurement which is defined as a thousandth of a radian. Mils are used in adjustment of firearm sights by adjusting the angle of the sight compared to the barrel, Mils are also used for comparing shot groupings, or to compare the difficulty of hitting different sized targets at different distances. Using optics with mil markings in the one can make a range estimation of a known size target, or vice versa to determine a target size if the distance is known. In such applications it is useful to use a unit for target size that is a thousandth of the unit for range, for instance by using the metric units millimeters for target size and meters for range. This coincides with the definition of the milliradian where the arc length is defined as 1/1000 of the radius, a common adjustment value in firearm sights is 1 cm at 100 meters which equals 10 mm/100 m = 1/10 mil. The true definition of a milliradian is based on a circle with a radius of one. There are other definitions used for mapping and artillery which are rounded to more easily be divided into smaller parts. The milliradian was first used in the mid nineteenth century by Charles-Marc Dapples, degrees and minutes were the usual units of angular measurement but others were being proposed, with grads under various names having considerable popularity in much of northern Europe. However, Imperial Russia used a different approach, dividing a circle into equilateral triangles, around the time of the start of World War I, France was experimenting with the use of milliemes for use with artillery sights instead of decigrades. The United Kingdom was also trialing them to replace degrees and minutes and they were adopted by France although decigrades also remained in use throughout World War I. The United States, which copied many French artillery practices, adopted mils, before 2007 the Swedish defence forces used streck which is closer to the milliradian but then changed to NATO mils. After the Bolshevik Revolution and the adoption of the system of measurement the Red Army expanded the 600 unit circle into a 6000 mil one. Hence the Russian mil has a different origin than those derived from French artillery practices. In the 1950s, NATO adopted metric units of measurement for land, Mils, meters, and kilograms became standard, although degrees remained in use for naval and air purposes, reflecting civil practices. The approximation error by using the linear formula will increase as the angle increases. New shooters are often explained the principle of subtensions in order to understand that a milliradian is an angular measurement, subtension is the physical amount of space covered by an angle and varies with distance. Thus, the corresponding to a mil varies with range. Subtensions always change with distance, but a mil is always a mil regardless of distance, therefore ballistic tables and shot corrections are given in mils thereby avoiding the need of mathematical calculations
30.
.300 Winchester Magnum
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The.300 Winchester Magnum is a belted, bottlenecked magnum rifle cartridge that was introduced by Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1963. The.300 Winchester Magnum is a cartridge designed to fit in a standard rifle actions. It is based on the.375 H&H Magnum, which has blown out, shortened. The.300 Winchester is extremely versatile and has been adopted by a range of users including hunters, target shooters, military units. It is a selection for hunting moose, elk. Military and law enforcement departments adopted the cartridge for long range sniping, as a testament to its accuracy, since its introduction it has gone on to win several 1, 000-yard competitions. Prior to the design of the.300 Winchester Magnum there were several cartridges that provided what could be best described as a level of energy. The heritage of.30 caliber magnums can be traced back to the.30 Newton in 1913, beginning with the.270 Weatherby Magnum in 1943, Roy Weatherby introduced a line of cartridges based on a standard length magnum case. This was accomplished by taking the.30 Super Belted Rimless H&H case and having it blown out and shortened so that it could be cycled through a standard length bolt-action rifle. Then in 1944 he designed the.300 Weatherby Magnum, which essentially was a version of the.30 Super Belted Rimless H&H. The Weatherby’s standard length magnum case was soon noticed, in 1958 Winchester introduced three cartridges – the.264 Winchester Magnum.338 Winchester Magnum and the.458 Winchester Magnum, all based on the shortened and blown out.375 H&H Magnum case. The popular.30 caliber’s omission from that lineup was not missed, the.300 Winchester Magnum was introduced in 1963 by Winchester for use in the Model 70 rifle. The introduction of the.300 Winchester Magnum was not unforeseen, rather, its introduction was anticlimactic. Winchester developed the.300 Winchester Magnum by taking the.338 Winchester Magnum, which was introduced in 1958 and this caused the cartridge to have a neck shorter than the diameter of the bullet. There has been speculation that if the cartridge was released earlier. Since its introduction the cartridge has remained extremely popular, the.300 Winchester Magnums high availability in popular rifles such as Winchesters Model 70 and Remington Model 700 made the cartridge a popular choice among the shooting public. Although the.300 H&H Magnum. 30-338 Winchester Magnum and the.308 Norma Magnum had a start on the.300 Winchester Magnum these cartridges soon faded into obsolescence. Only the.300 Winchester Magnum was to survive as a readily available cartridge, other cartridges, while available, are more expensive
31.
World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
32.
Semi-automatic firearm
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A semi-automatic, or self-loading firearm, is one that performs all steps necessary to prepare it to discharge again after firing—assuming cartridges remain in the firearms feed device. Typically, this includes extracting and ejecting the spent cartridge case from the chamber, re-cocking the firing mechanism. For the other forms, the mechanism would require cycling manually prior to firing the next round. An automatic or a selective-fire firearm set to fire automatically would be able to discharge continuously as long as the trigger is held until the magazine or feed device runs out of ammunition. Obviously, this additional feature complicates the design of the sear and disconnector, the first successful design for a semi-automatic rifle is attributed to German-born gunsmith Ferdinand Ritter von Mannlicher, who unveiled the design in 1885. The Model 85 was followed by the equally innovative Mannlicher Models 91,93 and 95 semi-automatic rifles.5 mm ammunition that were fed into the M1894 by a stripper clip. The Auto-5 relied on long recoil operation, this remained the dominant form in semi-automatic shotguns for approximately 50 years. Production of the Auto-5 was ended in 1999, in 1903 and 1905, the Winchester Repeating Arms Company introduced the first semi-automatic rimfire and centerfire rifles designed especially for the civilian market. The Winchester Model 1903 and Winchester Model 1905 operated on the principle of blowback in order to function semi-automatically, johnson, the Model 1903 achieved commercial success and continued to be manufactured until 1932 when the Winchester Model 63 replaced it. Winchester introduced a medium caliber semi-automatic sporting rifle, the Model 1907 as an upgrade to the Model 1905, utilizing a system of operation. Both the Models of 1905 and 1907 saw limited military and police use, in 1906, Remington Arms introduced the Remington Auto-loading Repeating Rifle. Remington advertised this rifle, renamed the Model 8 in 1911 and this is a locked-breech, long recoil action designed by John Browning. The Model 81 superseded the Model 8 in 1936 and was offered in.300 Savage as well as the original Remington calibers, the first semi-automatic rifle adopted and widely issued by a major military power was the Fusil Automatique Modele 1917. This is a breech, gas-operated action which is very similar in its mechanical principles to the future M1 Garand in the United States. The M1917 was fielded during the stages of WWI but it did not receive a favorable reception. However its shortened and improved version, the Model 1918, gave complete satisfaction during the Moroccan Rif War from 1920 to 1926, the Lebel bolt-action rifle remained the standard French infantry rifle until replaced in 1936 by the MAS-36 despite the various semi-automatic rifles designed between 1918 and 1935. In 1937, the American M1 Garand was the first semi-automatic rifle to replace its nations bolt-action rifle as the infantry weapon. The gas-operated M1 Garand was developed by Canadian-born John Garand for the U. S. government at the Springfield Armory in Springfield, after years of research and testing, the first production model of the M1 Garand was unveiled in 1937
33.
.276 Pedersen
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The.276 Pedersen round was an experimental 7 mm cartridge developed for the U. S. Army and used in the Pedersen rifle and early versions of what would become the M1 Garand. Developed in 1923 in the United States, it was intended to replace the. 30-06 Springfield in new semi-automatic rifles, when first recommended for adoption, M1 Garand rifles were chambered for the.276 Pedersen, which held ten rounds in its unique en-bloc clips. The.276 Pedersen was a shorter, lighter and lower pressure round than the. 30-06, the U. S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Douglas MacArthur rejected the.276 Pedersen Garand in 1932 after verifying that a. 30-06 version was feasible. Pedersens round fired a 0. 284-inch bullet, comparable to the contemporary Italian 6. 5×52mm Carcano or the Japanese 6. 5mm Arisaka, it produced velocities of around 2,400 feet per second with 140 or 150 grain projectiles. The case was two inches long with significant taper, tapered cases require the use of highly curved magazines similar to the Kalashnikov, although for the short magazines of the Pedersen and Garand rifles, this was immaterial. Both waxed and bare cartridges were made for the Pedersen and Garand rifle respectively, an armor-piercing T1 cartridge was developed and presumably a tracer. At the time of its introduction, the.276 Pedersen was a solution to a significant problem, a weapon of the same weight as the M1903 needed to fire a smaller cartridge. Pedersens cartridge was viewed as a compromise as it was underpowered compared to most military rifle cartridges and this decreased recoil energy made possible a reliable, lightweight semi-automatic rifle with existing technology. Despite overcoming these early problems, the Garand was chosen because it did not require the use of lubricated cartridge cases for reliable function. Immediately after World War II, British designers introduced a series of intermediate-power 7mm cartridges for a different reason than Pedersen and they sought an answer to the Germans highly successful 7. 92mm Kurz and various studies on the matter. The U. S. stuck with.30 caliber mostly out of a desire to have a common cartridge between rifle and machine gun combined with the necessity for effectiveness out to 2,000 yards. Interestingly, the British studies on various cartridges culminated in the.280 British cartridge, which shared ballistic similarities to the.276 Pedersen in caliber, bullet weight and velocity. Despite the failure to either the.276 Pedersen or later.280 British. Shortly after the 7. 62mm NATO cartridge was adopted, Armalite submitted their AR-10 for evaluation, although this suggestion was fruitless, the Army later engaged in many studies of a 6mm SAW cartridge. They, once again, sought to replace autoloading rifle and machine gun cartridges with one round, julian S. Hatcher Cartridges of the World. Chris McNab Book of Combat Arms 2005, Guns and Ammo Magazine Various articles in The American Rifleman. RifleShooter and Guns and Ammo magazines
34.
M1 Garand
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The M1 Garand is a.30 caliber semi-automatic rifle that was the standard U. S. service rifle during World War II and the Korean War and also saw limited service during the Vietnam War. Most M1 rifles were issued to U. S. forces, the Garand is still used by drill teams and military honor guards. It is also used by civilians for hunting, target shooting. The M1 rifle was named after its Canadian-American designer, John Garand and it was the first standard-issue semi-automatic military rifle. By all accounts the M1 rifle served with distinction, General George S. Patton called it the greatest battle implement ever devised. The M1 replaced the bolt action M1903 Springfield as the standard U. S. service rifle in the mid 1930s, although the name Garand is frequently pronounced /ɡəˈrænd/, the preferred pronunciation is /ˈɡærənd/, according to experts and people who knew John Garand, the weapons designer. French Canadian-born Garand went to work at the United States Armys Springfield Armory, in 1924, twenty-four rifles, identified as M1922s, were built at Springfield. At Fort Benning during 1925, they were tested against models by Berthier, Hatcher-Bang, Thompson, and Pedersen and this led to a further trial of an improved M1924 Garand against the Thompson, ultimately producing an inconclusive report. As a result, the Ordnance Board ordered a. 30-06 Garand variant, in March 1927, the cavalry board reported trials among the Thompson, Garand, and 03 Springfield had not led to a clear winner. This led to a gas-operated.276 model, in early 1928, both the infantry and cavalry boards ran trials with the.276 Pedersen T1 rifle, calling it highly promising. The.30 Garand, however, was dropped in favor of the.276.30 gas-operated Garand be resumed, twenty gas-operated.276 T3E2 Garands were made and competed with T1 Pedersen rifles in early 1931. The.276 Garand was the winner of these trials. The.30 caliber Garand was also tested, in the form of a single T1E1, a 4 January 1932 meeting recommended adoption of the.276 caliber and production of approximately 125 T3E2s. Meanwhile, Garand redesigned his bolt and his improved T1E2 rifle was retested, on 25 February 1932, Adjutant General John B. On 3 August 1933, the T1E2 became the semi-automatic rifle, caliber 30, in May 1934,75 M1s went to field trials,50 were to infantry,25 to cavalry units. The first production model was successfully proof-fired, function-fired, and fired for accuracy on July 21,1937, production difficulties delayed deliveries to the army until September 1937. Machine production began at Springfield Armory that month at a rate of ten rifles per day, despite going into production status, design issues were not at an end. The barrel, gas cylinder, and front sight assembly were redesigned and entered production in early 1940, production of the Garand increased in 1940 despite these difficulties, reaching 600 a day by 10 January 1941, and the army was fully equipped by the end of 1941
35.
Bolt action
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Bolt-action firearms are most often rifles, but there are some bolt-action shotguns and a few handguns as well. Examples of this date as far back as the early 19th century. From the late 19th century, all the way through both World Wars, the rifle was the standard infantry firearm for most of the worlds militaries. Bolt-action firearms are still popular for hunting and target shooting. The first bolt-action rifle was produced in 1824 by Johann Nikolaus von Dreyse, von Dreyse would perfect his Nadelgewehr by 1836, and it was adopted by the Prussian Army in 1841. It however was not the first bolt-action weapon to see combat as it was not fielded until 1864, during the American Civil War, the bolt-action Palmer carbine was patented in 1863, and by 1865,1000 were purchased for use as cavalry weapons. The French Army adopted its first bolt-action rifle, the Chassepot rifle, in 1866, ultimately the military turned to bolt-action rifles using a box magazine, the first of its kind was the M1885 Remington–Lee, but the first to be generally adopted was the British 1888 Lee–Metford. World War I marked the height of the bolt-action rifles use, there are, however, many semi-automatic sniper rifle designs, especially in the designated marksman role. Today, bolt-action rifles are used as hunting rifles. These rifles can be used to hunt anything from vermin, to deer, to game, especially big game caught on a safari. Bolt-action shotguns are considered a rarity among modern firearms, but were formerly a commonly used action for.410 entry-level shotguns, as well as for low-cost 12 gauge shotguns. The M26 Modular Accessory Shotgun System is the most advanced and recent example of a bolt-action shotgun, some pistols utilize a bolt action, although this is uncommon, and such examples are typically specialized target handguns. Most of the bolt-action designs involve the shooters doing a turn + pull handle movement to open the bolt, cock the firing pin, there are three major turning bolt-action system designs, the Mauser system, the Lee–Enfield system, and the Mosin–Nagant system. The vast majority of bolt-action rifles utilize one of three systems, with other designs seeing only limited use. The Mauser system is stronger than that of the Lee–Enfield due to two locking lugs just behind the head which make it better able to handle higher pressure cartridges. The 8×68mm S and 9. 3×64mm Brenneke magnum rifle cartridge families were designed for the Mauser M98 bolt action. A novel safety feature was the introduction of a locking lug present at the rear of the bolt that normally did not lock the bolt. The Mauser system features cock on opening, meaning the upward rotation of the bolt when the rifle is opened cocks the action, a drawback of the Mauser M98 system is that it cannot be cheaply mass-produced very easily
36.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
37.
Korean War
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The Korean War began when North Korea invaded South Korea. The United Nations, with the United States as the principal force, China came to the aid of North Korea, and the Soviet Union gave some assistance. Korea was ruled by Japan from 1910 until the days of World War II. In August 1945, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, as a result of an agreement with the United States, U. S. forces subsequently moved into the south. By 1948, as a product of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, Korea was split into two regions, with separate governments, both governments claimed to be the legitimate government of all of Korea, and neither side accepted the border as permanent. The conflict escalated into open warfare when North Korean forces—supported by the Soviet Union, on that day, the United Nations Security Council recognized this North Korean act as invasion and called for an immediate ceasefire. On 27 June, the Security Council adopted S/RES/83, Complaint of aggression upon the Republic of Korea and decided the formation, twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force, with the United States providing 88% of the UNs military personnel. After the first two months of war, South Korean forces were on the point of defeat, forced back to the Pusan Perimeter, in September 1950, an amphibious UN counter-offensive was launched at Inchon, and cut off many North Korean troops. Those who escaped envelopment and capture were rapidly forced back north all the way to the border with China at the Yalu River, at this point, in October 1950, Chinese forces crossed the Yalu and entered the war. Chinese intervention triggered a retreat of UN forces which continued until mid-1951, after these reversals of fortune, which saw Seoul change hands four times, the last two years of fighting became a war of attrition, with the front line close to the 38th parallel. The war in the air, however, was never a stalemate, North Korea was subject to a massive bombing campaign. Jet fighters confronted each other in combat for the first time in history. The fighting ended on 27 July 1953, when an armistice was signed, the agreement created the Korean Demilitarized Zone to separate North and South Korea, and allowed the return of prisoners. However, no treaty has been signed, and the two Koreas are technically still at war. Periodic clashes, many of which are deadly, continue to the present, in the U. S. the war was initially described by President Harry S. Truman as a police action as it was an undeclared military action, conducted under the auspices of the United Nations. In South Korea, the war is referred to as 625 or the 6–2–5 Upheaval. In North Korea, the war is referred to as the Fatherland Liberation War or alternatively the Chosǒn War. In China, the war is called the War to Resist U. S
38.
Clip (firearms)
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A clip is a device that is used to store multiple rounds of ammunition together as a unit, ready for insertion into the magazine or cylinder of a firearm. This speeds up the process of loading and reloading the firearm as several rounds can be loaded at once, several different types of clips exist, most of which are made of inexpensive metal stampings that are designed to be disposable, though they are often re-used. Detachable magazines are often referred to as clips. The defining difference is that clips are used to load magazines, a stripper clip or charger is a speed-loader that holds several cartridges together in a single unit for easier loading of a firearms magazine. A stripper clip is used only for loading the magazine and is not necessary for the firearm to function, several rifle designs utilize an en bloc clip to load the firearm. The en bloc clip was invented by two firearms inventors working on lines, James Paris Lee for his Lee rifle of 1890. Original Austrian Mannlicher clips were often uni-directional, but already the Gewehr 88, John Pedersen at first developed an irreversible clip for his rifle, later he redesigned the clip to be reversible. This design was utilized for the competing designs by John Garand. A moon clip is a ring-shaped or stellate piece of metal designed to hold a full cylinder of ammunition for a revolver together as a unit. Therefore, instead of loading or extracting one round at a time, a similar device known as the half-moon clip is semi-circular and designed to hold a half cylinder of ammunition —in which case two clips are necessary to fully load the cylinder. Such devices have most often used to chamber rimless semi-automatic pistol cartridges in a revolver
39.
Magazine (firearms)
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A magazine is an ammunition storage and feeding device within or attached to a repeating firearm. Magazines can be removable or integral to the firearm, the magazine functions by moving the cartridges stored in the magazine into a position where they may be loaded into the chamber by the action of the firearm. The detachable magazine is often referred to as a clip, although this is technically inaccurate, magazines come in many shapes and sizes, from those of bolt-action express rifles that hold only a few rounds to drum magazines for self-loading rifles that can hold one hundred rounds or more. Various jurisdictions ban what they define as high-capacity magazines, with the increased use of semi-automatic and automatic firearms, the detachable box magazine became increasingly common. Soon after the adoption of the M1911 pistol, the magazine was settled on by the military and firearms experts. The defining difference between clips and magazines is the presence of a mechanism in a magazine, typically a spring-loaded follower. Use of the clip to refer to detachable magazines is a point of strong disagreement. The first mass-produced repeater was the Volcanic Rifle which used a bullet with the base filled with powder and primer fed into the chamber from a spring-loaded tube called a magazine. It was named after a building or room used to store ammunition, the anemic power of the Rocket Ball ammunition used in the Volcanic doomed it to limited popularity. The Henry repeating rifle is a lever-action, breech-loading, tubular magazine fed rifle, designed by Benjamin Tyler Henry in 1860, it was one of the first firearms to use self-contained metallic cartridges. The Henry was introduced in the early 1860s and produced through 1866 in the United States by the New Haven Arms Company and it was adopted in small quantities by the Union in the Civil War and favored for its greater firepower than the standard issue carbine. Many later found their way West and was famed both for its use at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and being the basis for the iconic Winchester rifle which are made to this day. The Henry and Winchester rifles would go on to see service with a number of militaries including Turkey, switzerland and Italy adopted similar designs. The first magazine-fed firearm to achieve success was the Spencer repeating rifle. The Spencer used a magazine located in the butt of the gun instead of under the barrel. The Spencer was successful, but the rimfire ammunition did occasionally ignite in the magazine tube and it could also injure the user. The new bolt-action rifles began to favor with militaries in the 1880s and were often equipped with tubular magazines. The Mauser Model 1871 was originally a single-shot action that added a magazine in its 1884 update
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Springfield Armory
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The Springfield Armory, located in the city of Springfield, Massachusetts, was the primary center for the manufacture of U. S. military firearms from 1777 until its closing in 1968. The site is preserved as the Springfield Armory National Historic Site and it features the worlds largest collection of historic American firearms. Numerous firearm models produced at the Springfield Armory from 1794 to 1968 were referred to as Springfield rifles. In 1777, during the American Revolutionary War, George Washington scouted and approved the site of the Springfield Armory, after it was referred to him by General Henry Knox, his artillery chief. Additionally, Springfield is located just north of the Connecticut Rivers first waterfall, thus, Springfield was the first town on the Connecticut River protected from attack by seafaring naval vessels. The Armory site itself sits atop a high bluff like a citadel, overlooking a stretch of the Connecticut River. General Knox concurred with Washington that the plain just above Springfield is perhaps one of the most proper spots on every account for the location of an arsenal, in 1777, patriot colonists established The Arsenal at Springfield to manufacture cartridges and gun carriages for the war effort. During the Revolution, the arsenal stored muskets, cannon, patriots built barracks, shops, storehouses, and a magazine. Some doubt exists that the colonists manufactured arms during the Revolutionary War, after the war, the Army kept the facility to store arms for future needs. By the 1780s, the Springfield Arsenal functioned as a major ammunition, some time later, when manufacturing became important, the arsenal expanded to a second area south and west in Springfield, where water power was available. Around that time, the Mill River was dammed to form a lake called Watershops Pond. The main shops were behind the dam and a foundry was built below it and this factory was modernized, and the greater part of machining for Springfield and Garand rifles was conducted in it. George Washington appointed David Ames as first superintendent of the armory, John Ames was a blacksmith who had provided guns to the Colonial army. In 1786 and 1787, American Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays led an armed, on January 25,1787, thousands of Shays Regulators marched on the Springfield Armory, hoping to seize its weaponry and force a change of government. That day the Springfield Armory was defended by militia, who fired grape shot at the rebels. This confrontation proved decisive, as Shays Rebellion was crushed soon thereafter, Shays Rebellion directly influenced the United States Constitutional Convention, with future U. S. President George Washington citing it as his reason for coming out of retirement. In 1795, the Springfield Armory produced the new nations first musket, fueled by the Springfield Armory, the City of Springfield quickly became a national center for invention and development. In 1819 Thomas Blanchard developed a special lathe for the consistent mass production of rifle stocks, Thomas Blanchard worked at Springfield Armory for 5 years
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.50 BMG
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The.50 Browning Machine Gun is a cartridge developed for the Browning.50 caliber machine gun in the late 1910s. Entering service officially in 1921, the round is based on a greatly scaled-up. 30-06 cartridge, under STANAG4383, it is a standard cartridge for NATO forces as well as many non-NATO countries. The cartridge itself has made in many variants, multiple generations of regular ball, tracer, armor-piercing, incendiary. The rounds intended for machine guns are linked using metallic links, the.50 BMG cartridge is also used in long-range target and sniper rifles, as well as other. 50-caliber machine guns. A wide variety of ammunition is available, and the availability of match grade ammunition has increased the usefulness of.50 caliber rifles by allowing more fire than lower quality rounds. Armor-piercing incendiary tracer rounds were especially effective against aircraft, and the AP rounds and API rounds were excellent for destroying concrete bunkers, structures, the API and APIT rounds left a flash, report, and smoke on contact, useful in detecting strikes on enemy targets. The rounds dimensions and ballistic traits are totally different, decades later, the.50 BMG was chambered in high-powered rifles as well. An upgraded variant of the M2 Browning HB machine gun used during World War II is still in use today. Since the mid-1950s, some armored personnel carriers and utility vehicles have made to withstand 12.7 mm machine gun fire. A skilled sniper can effectively neutralize an infantry unit by eliminating several targets without revealing his precise location, the long range between firing position and target allows time for the sniper to avoid enemy retribution by either changing positions repeatedly, or by safely retreating. A common method for understanding the power of a cartridge is by comparing muzzle energies. The.50 BMG round can produce between 10,000 and 15,000 foot pounds, depending on its powder and bullet type, the.50 BMG cartridge has a capacity of 290 grains H2O. The round is a version of the. 30-06 Springfield but uses a case wall with a long taper to facilitate feeding. The common rifling twist rate for this cartridge is 1 in 15 in, with 8 lands, the primer type specified for this ammunition is Boxer primer that has a single centralized ignition point. However, some other countries produce the ammunition with Berdan primers that have two flash holes, the proof/test pressure is listed as 65,000 psi.50 BMG cartridges are also produced commercially with a plethora of different bullets and to a number of different specifications. Cartridge, Caliber.50, Tracer, M1 Tracer for observing fire, signaling, target designation and this bullet has a red tip. Cartridge, Caliber.50, Incendiary, M1 This cartridge is used against unarmored, the incendiary bullet has a light blue tip. Cartridge, Caliber.50, Ball, M2 This cartridge is used against personnel and this bullet has an unpainted tip
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