1.
Battle of Austerlitz
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The Battle of Austerlitz, also known as the Battle of the Three Emperors, was one of the most important and decisive engagements of the Napoleonic Wars. The battle occurred near the town of Austerlitz in the Austrian Empire, Austerlitz brought the War of the Third Coalition to a rapid end, with the Treaty of Pressburg signed by the Austrians later in the month. The battle is cited as a tactical masterpiece, in the same league as other historic engagements like Cannae or Arbela. After eliminating an Austrian army during the Ulm Campaign, French forces managed to capture Vienna in November 1805, the Austrians avoided further conflict until the arrival of the Russians bolstered Allied numbers. Napoleon sent his army north in pursuit of the Allies, and he deployed the French army below the Pratzen Heights and deliberately weakened his right flank, enticing the Allies to launch a major assault there in the hopes of rolling up the whole French line. A forced march from Vienna by Marshal Davout and his III Corps plugged the gap left by Napoleon just in time. Meanwhile, the heavy Allied deployment against the French right weakened the allied center on the Pratzen Heights, with the Allied center demolished, the French swept through both enemy flanks and sent the Allies fleeing chaotically, capturing thousands of prisoners in the process. The Allied disaster significantly shook the faith of Emperor Francis in the British-led war effort, France and Austria agreed to an armistice immediately and the Treaty of Pressburg followed shortly after, on 26 December. Pressburg took Austria out of both the war and the Coalition while reinforcing the earlier treaties of Campo Formio and of Lunéville between the two powers, the treaty confirmed the Austrian loss of lands in Italy and Bavaria to France, and in Germany to Napoleons German allies. It also imposed an indemnity of 40 million francs on the defeated Habsburgs and allowed the fleeing Russian troops free passage through hostile territories and back to their home soil. Critically, victory at Austerlitz permitted the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine and these achievements, however, did not establish a lasting peace on the continent. Prussian worries about growing French influence in Central Europe sparked the War of the Fourth Coalition in 1806, Europe had been in turmoil since the start of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1792. In 1797, after five years of war, the French Republic subdued the First Coalition, an alliance of Austria, Prussia, Great Britain, Spain, in March 1802, France and Britain agreed to end hostilities under the Treaty of Amiens. For the first time in ten years, all of Europe was at peace, but many problems persisted between the two sides, making implementation of the treaty increasingly difficult. The British government resented having to return the Cape Colony and most of the Dutch West Indian islands to the Batavian Republic, Napoleon was angry that British troops had not evacuated the island of Malta. The tense situation only worsened when Napoleon sent a force to crush the Haitian Revolution. In May 1803, Britain declared war on France, in December 1804, an Anglo-Swedish agreement led to the creation of the Third Coalition. Having been defeated twice in recent memory by France, and being keen on revenge, before the formation of the Third Coalition, Napoleon had assembled an invasion force, called the Armée dAngleterre around six camps at Boulogne in Northern France
2.
United States Army
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The United States Armed Forces are the federal armed forces of the United States. They consist of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, from the time of its inception, the military played a decisive role in the history of the United States. A sense of unity and identity was forged as a result of victory in the First Barbary War. Even so, the Founders were suspicious of a permanent military force and it played an important role in the American Civil War, where leading generals on both sides were picked from members of the United States military. Not until the outbreak of World War II did a standing army become officially established. The National Security Act of 1947, adopted following World War II and during the Cold Wars onset, the U. S. military is one of the largest militaries in terms of number of personnel. It draws its personnel from a pool of paid volunteers. As of 2016, the United States spends about $580.3 billion annually to fund its military forces, put together, the United States constitutes roughly 40 percent of the worlds military expenditures. For the period 2010–14, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute found that the United States was the worlds largest exporter of major arms, the United States was also the worlds eighth largest importer of major weapons for the same period. The history of the U. S. military dates to 1775 and these forces demobilized in 1784 after the Treaty of Paris ended the War for Independence. All three services trace their origins to the founding of the Continental Army, the Continental Navy, the United States President is the U. S. militarys commander-in-chief. Rising tensions at various times with Britain and France and the ensuing Quasi-War and War of 1812 quickened the development of the U. S. Navy, the reserve branches formed a military strategic reserve during the Cold War, to be called into service in case of war. Time magazines Mark Thompson has suggested that with the War on Terror, Command over the armed forces is established in the United States Constitution. The sole power of command is vested in the President by Article II as Commander-in-Chief, the Constitution also allows for the creation of executive Departments headed principal officers whose opinion the President can require. This allowance in the Constitution formed the basis for creation of the Department of Defense in 1947 by the National Security Act, the Defense Department is headed by the Secretary of Defense, who is a civilian and member of the Cabinet. The Defense Secretary is second in the chain of command, just below the President. Together, the President and the Secretary of Defense comprise the National Command Authority, to coordinate military strategy with political affairs, the President has a National Security Council headed by the National Security Advisor. The collective body has only power to the President
3.
Easter egg
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Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are decorated eggs that are usually used as gifts on the occasion of Easter or springtime celebration. As such, Easter eggs are common during the season of Eastertide, in addition, one ancient tradition was the staining of Easter eggs with the colour red in memory of the blood of Christ, shed as at that time of his crucifixion. This Christian use of eggs may have influenced by practices in pre-dynastic period in Egypt, as well as amid the early cultures of Mesopotamia. The practice of decorating eggshells as part of spring rituals is ancient, the Christian custom of Easter eggs, specifically, started among the early Christians of Mesopotamia, who stained eggs with red colouring in memory of the blood of Christ, shed at His crucifixion. The blessing is for consumption as a food, rather than decorated, from the Greek Church the custom was adopted by either the Roman Catholics or the Protestants and then spread through Europe. Both Thompson, as well as British orientalist Thomas Hyde state that in addition to dying the eggs red, to what we said on p.290 I can add some significant facts. The heathen Easter had much in common with May-feast and the reception of spring, however, John W. Martens, a professor at the University of St. Although the Christian tradition is to use dyed or painted chicken eggs and these eggs can be hidden for children to find on Easter morning, which may be left by the Easter Bunny. They may also be put in a filled with real or artificial straw to resemble a birds nest. The Easter egg tradition may also have merged into the celebration of the end of the privations of Lent in the West, historically, it was traditional to use up all of the households eggs before Lent began. Eggs were originally forbidden during Lent as well as on other traditional fast days in Western Christianity, likewise, in Eastern Christianity, meat, eggs, and dairy are all prohibited during the Lenten fast. This established the tradition of Pancake Day being celebrated on Shrove Tuesday, in the Orthodox Church, Great Lent begins on Clean Monday, rather than Wednesday, so the households dairy products would be used up in the preceding week, called Cheesefare Week. During Lent, since chickens would not stop producing eggs during this time and this surplus, if any, had to be eaten quickly to prevent spoiling. Then, with the coming of Easter, the eating of eggs resumes, some families cook a special meatloaf with eggs in it to be eaten with the Easter dinner. One would have forced to hard boil the eggs that the chickens produced so as not to waste food. In Hungary, eggs are used sliced in potato casseroles around the Easter period, some Christians symbolically link the cracking open of Easter eggs with the empty tomb of Jesus. In the Orthodox churches, Easter eggs are blessed by the priest at the end of the Paschal Vigil, the egg is seen by followers of Christianity as a symbol of resurrection, while being dormant it contains a new life sealed within it. During Paschaltide, in some traditions the Pascal greeting with the Easter egg is even extended to the deceased, in Greece, women traditionally dye the eggs with onion skins and vinegar on Thursday
4.
Adolf Hitler
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Adolf Hitler was a German politician who was the leader of the Nazi Party, Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and Führer of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. As dictator of the German Reich, he initiated World War II in Europe with the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and was central to the Holocaust, Hitler was born in Austria, then part of Austria-Hungary, and raised near Linz. He moved to Germany in 1913 and was decorated during his service in the German Army in World War I and he joined the German Workers Party, the precursor of the NSDAP, in 1919 and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923 he attempted a coup in Munich to seize power, the failed coup resulted in Hitlers imprisonment, during which he dictated the first volume of his autobiography and political manifesto Mein Kampf. Hitler frequently denounced international capitalism and communism as being part of a Jewish conspiracy, by 1933, the Nazi Party was the largest elected party in the German Reichstag, which led to Hitlers appointment as Chancellor on 30 January 1933. Hitler aimed to eliminate Jews from Germany and establish a New Order to counter what he saw as the injustice of the post-World War I international order dominated by Britain, Hitler sought Lebensraum for the German people in Eastern Europe. His aggressive foreign policy is considered to be the cause of the outbreak of World War II in Europe. He directed large-scale rearmament and on 1 September 1939 invaded Poland, resulting in British, in June 1941, Hitler ordered an invasion of the Soviet Union. By the end of 1941 German forces and the European Axis powers occupied most of Europe, failure to defeat the Soviets and the entry of the United States into the war forced Germany onto the defensive and it suffered a series of escalating defeats. In the final days of the war, during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, Hitler married his long-time lover, on 30 April 1945, less than two days later, the two killed themselves to avoid capture by the Red Army, and their corpses were burned. Hitler and the Nazi regime were also responsible for the killing of an estimated 19.3 million civilians, in addition,29 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of military action in the European Theatre of World War II. The number of civilians killed during the Second World War was unprecedented in warfare, Hitlers father Alois Hitler Sr. was the illegitimate child of Maria Anna Schicklgruber. The baptismal register did not show the name of his father, in 1842, Johann Georg Hiedler married Aloiss mother Maria Anna. Alois was brought up in the family of Hiedlers brother, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, in 1876, Alois was legitimated and the baptismal register changed by a priest to register Johann Georg Hiedler as Aloiss father. Alois then assumed the surname Hitler, also spelled Hiedler, Hüttler, the Hitler surname is probably based on one who lives in a hut. Nazi official Hans Frank suggested that Aloiss mother had been employed as a housekeeper by a Jewish family in Graz, and that the familys 19-year-old son Leopold Frankenberger had fathered Alois. No Frankenberger was registered in Graz during that period, and no record has been produced of Leopold Frankenbergers existence, Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 in Braunau am Inn, a town in Austria-Hungary, close to the border with the German Empire. He was one of six born to Alois Hitler and Klara Pölzl
5.
Artillery
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Artillery is a class of large military weapons built to fire munitions far beyond the range and power of infantrys small arms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach fortifications, and led to heavy, as technology improved, lighter, more mobile field artillery developed for battlefield use. This development continues today, modern self-propelled artillery vehicles are highly mobile weapons of great versatility providing the largest share of an armys total firepower, in its earliest sense, the word artillery referred to any group of soldiers primarily armed with some form of manufactured weapon or armour. In common speech, the artillery is often used to refer to individual devices, along with their accessories and fittings. However, there is no generally recognised generic term for a gun, howitzer, mortar, and so forth, the United States uses artillery piece, the projectiles fired are typically either shot or shell. Shell is a widely used term for a projectile, which is a component of munitions. By association, artillery may also refer to the arm of service that customarily operates such engines, in the 20th Century technology based target acquisition devices, such as radar, and systems, such as sound ranging and flash spotting, emerged to acquire targets, primarily for artillery. These are usually operated by one or more of the artillery arms, Artillery originated for use against ground targets—against infantry, cavalry and other artillery. An early specialist development was coastal artillery for use against enemy ships, the early 20th Century saw the development of a new class of artillery for use against aircraft, anti-aircraft guns. Artillery is arguably the most lethal form of land-based armament currently employed, the majority of combat deaths in the Napoleonic Wars, World War I, and World War II were caused by artillery. In 1944, Joseph Stalin said in a speech that artillery was the God of War, although not called as such, machines performing the role recognizable as artillery have been employed in warfare since antiquity. The first references in the historical tradition begin at Syracuse in 399 BC. From the Middle Ages through most of the era, artillery pieces on land were moved by horse-drawn gun carriages. In the contemporary era, the artillery and crew rely on wheeled or tracked vehicles as transportation, Artillery used by naval forces has changed significantly also, with missiles replacing guns in surface warfare. The engineering designs of the means of delivery have likewise changed significantly over time, in some armies, the weapon of artillery is the projectile, not the equipment that fires it. The process of delivering fire onto the target is called gunnery, the actions involved in operating the piece are collectively called serving the gun by the detachment or gun crew, constituting either direct or indirect artillery fire. The term gunner is used in armed forces for the soldiers and sailors with the primary function of using artillery. The gunners and their guns are usually grouped in teams called either crews or detachments, several such crews and teams with other functions are combined into a unit of artillery, usually called a battery, although sometimes called a company
6.
Army
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An army or ground force is a fighting force that fights primarily on land. In the broadest sense, it is the military branch. It may also include other branches of the such as the air force via means of aviation corps. Within a national force, the word army may also mean a field army. They differ from army reserves who are activated only during such times as war or natural disasters, in several countries, the army is officially called the Land Army to differentiate it from an air force called the Air Army, notably France. In such countries, the army on its own retains its connotation of a land force in common usage. By convention, irregular military is understood in contrast to regular armies which grew slowly from personal bodyguards or elite militia, regular in this case refers to standardized doctrines, uniforms, organizations, etc. Regular military can also refer to full-time status, versus reserve or part-time personnel, other distinctions may separate statutory forces, from de facto non-statutory forces such as some guerrilla and revolutionary armies. Armies may also be expeditionary or fencible, india has had some of the earliest armies in the world. During the Indus Valley Civilization however, there was just a small force as they didnt fear invasion at the time. After the Aryan invasion, kingdoms and city-states started forming armies to protect their cities, one of the first known recorded battles, the Battle of the Ten Kings, happened when a Hindu king defeated an alliance of ten kings. During the Iron Age, the Maurya and Nanda Empires had large armies, in the Gupta age, large armies of longbowmen were recruited to fight off invading horse archer armies. Elephants, pikemen and cavalry were other featured troops, in Rajput times, the main piece of equipment was iron or chain-mail armour, a round shield, either a curved blade or a straight-sword, a chakra disc and a katar dagger. China has existed as a culture for thousands of years, the states of China raised armies for at least 1000 years before the Spring and Autumn Annals. By the Warring States period, the crossbow had been perfected enough to become a military secret, thus any political power of a state rested on the armies and their organization. China underwent political consolidation of the states of Han, Wei, Chu, Yan, Zhao and Qi, until by 221 BCE, Qin Shi Huang, sun Tzus The Art of War remains one of Chinas Seven Military Classics, even though it is two thousand years old. Since no political figure could exist without an army, measures were taken to only the most capable leaders could control the armies. Civil bureaucracies arose to control the power of the states
7.
Weapon
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A weapon, arm, or armament is any device used with intent to inflict damage or harm to living beings, structures, or systems. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of such as hunting, crime, law enforcement, self-defense. In a broader context, weapons may be construed to include anything used to gain a strategic, something that has been re-purposed, converted, or enhanced to become a weapon of war is termed weaponized, such as a weaponized virus or weaponized lasers. The use of objects as weapons has been observed among chimpanzees, however, this can not be confirmed using physical evidence because wooden clubs, spears, and unshaped stones would not have left an unambiguous record. The earliest unambiguous weapons to be found are the Schöninger Speere, the first defensive structures and fortifications appeared in the Bronze Age, indicating an increased need for security. Weapons designed to breach fortifications followed soon after, for example the battering ram was in use by 2500 BC, although early Iron Age swords were not superior to their bronze predecessors, once iron-working developed, around 1300 BC in Greece Alex Webb, Metalworking in Ancient Greece. Domestication of the horse and widespread use of spoked wheels by ca.2000 BC, led to the light, the mobility provided by chariots were important during this era. Spoke-wheeled chariot usage peaked around 1300 BC and then declined, ceasing to be militarily relevant by the 4th century BC. Cavalry developed once horses were bred to support the weight of a man, the horse extended the range and increased the speed of attacks. Ships built as weapons or warships such as the trireme were in use by the 7th century BC and these ships were eventually replaced by larger ships by the 4th century BC. European warfare during the Post-classical history was dominated by groups of knights supported by massed infantry. They were involved in combat and sieges which involved various siege weapons. Knights on horseback developed tactics for charging with lances providing an impact on the enemy formations, whereas infantry, in the age before structured formations, relied on cheap, sturdy weapons such as spears and billhooks in close combat and bows from a distance. As armies became more professional, their equipment was standardized and infantry transitioned to pikes, pikes are normally seven to eight feet in length, in conjunction with smaller side-arms. In Eastern and Middle Eastern warfare, similar tactics were developed independent of European influences, the introduction of gunpowder from the Far East at the end of this period revolutionized warfare. Formations of musketeers, protected by pikemen came to dominate open battles, the European Renaissance marked the beginning of the implementation of firearms in western warfare. Guns and rockets were introduced to the battlefield, firearms are qualitatively different from earlier weapons because they release energy from combustible propellants such as gunpowder, rather than from a counter-weight or spring. This energy is released very rapidly and can be replicated without much effort by the user, therefore even early firearms such as the arquebus were much more powerful than human-powered weapons. During the U. S. Civil War various technologies including the gun and ironclad warship emerged that would be recognizable and useful military weapons today
8.
Working animal
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A working animal is an animal, usually domesticated, that is kept by humans and trained to perform tasks. They may be members of the family, such as guide dogs or other assistance dogs, or they may be animals trained to provide tractive force. The latter types of animals are called animals or beasts of burden. Most working animals are either service animals or draft animals and they may also be used for milking or herding, jobs that require human training to encourage the animal to cooperate. Some, at the end of their lives, may also be used for meat or other products such as leather. The history of working animals may predate agriculture, with used by our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Around the world, millions of animals work in relationship with their owners, domesticated species are often bred to be suitable for different uses and conditions, especially horses and working dogs. Working animals are raised on farms, though some are still captured from the wild, such as dolphins. People have found uses for a variety of abilities found in animals. The strength of horses, elephants and oxen is used in pulling carts, the keen sense of smell of dogs is used to search for drugs and explosives as well helping to find game while hunting and to search for missing or trapped people. Several animals including camels, donkeys, horses and dogs are used for transport, either riding or to pull wagons, other animals including dogs and monkeys provide assistance to blind or disabled people. Conversely, not all domesticated animals are working animals, for example, while cats may perform work catching mice, it is an instinctive behavior, not one that can be trained by human intervention. Other domesticated animals, such as sheep, or rabbits, may have uses for meat, hides and wool. Finally, small pets such as most birds or hamsters are generally incapable of performing work other than that of providing simple companionship. Some animals are used due to physical strength in tasks such as ploughing or logging. Such animals are grouped as a draught or draft animal, others may be used as pack animals, for animal-powered transport, the movement of people and goods. People ride some animals directly as mounts, Alternatively, one or more animals in harness may be used to pull vehicles and they include equines such as horses, ponies, donkeys, and mules, elephants, yaks, and camels. Dromedary camels in arid areas of Australia, North Africa and the Middle East, on occasion, reindeer, though usually driven, may be ridden
9.
Crew
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A crew is a body or a class of people who work at a common activity, generally in a structured or hierarchical organization. A location in which a crew works is called a crewyard or a workyard, the word has nautical resonances, the tasks involved in operating a ship, particularly a sailing ship, providing numerous specialities within a ships crew, often organised with a chain of command. Traditional nautical usage strongly distinguishes officers from crew, though the two groups combined form the ships company, members of a crew are often referred to by the title Crewman. Crew also refers to the sport of rowing, where teams row competitively in racing shells, for a specific sporting usage, see rowing crew. For filmmaking usage, see film crew, for live music usage, see road crew. For analogous entities in research on human judgment and decision-making, see team, for stagecraft usage, see stage crew. For video production usage, see television crew, for the comic strip, see Motleys Crew. For the sports team, see Columbus Crew, for the 2014 video game, see The Crew. For crews in aviation and the industry, see groundcrew and aircrew. Tank crew Boat crew Yacht Job Descriptions and Salary Guide
10.
Infantry
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Infantry is the general branch of an army that engages in military combat on foot. As the troops who engage with the enemy in close-ranged combat, infantry units bear the largest brunt of warfare, Infantry can enter and maneuver in terrain that is inaccessible to military vehicles and employ crew-served infantry weapons that provide greater and more sustained firepower. In English, the 16th-century term Infantry describes soldiers who walk to the battlefield, and there engage, fight, the term arose in Sixteenth-Century Spain, which boasted one of the first professional standing armies seen in Europe since the days of Rome. It was common to appoint royal princes to military commands, and the men under them became known as Infanteria. in the Canadian Army, the role of the infantry is to close with, and destroy the enemy. In the U. S. Army, the closes with the enemy, by means of fire and maneuver, in order to destroy or capture him, or to repel his assault by fire, close combat. In the U. S. Marine Corps, the role of the infantry is to locate, close with, and destroy the enemy fire and maneuver. Beginning with the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century, artillery has become a dominant force on the battlefield. Since World War I, combat aircraft and armoured vehicles have become dominant. In 20th and 21st century warfare, infantry functions most effectively as part of a combined arms team including artillery, armour, Infantry relies on organized formations to be employed in battle. These have evolved over time, but remain a key element to effective infantry development and deployment, until the end of the 19th century, infantry units were for the most part employed in close formations up until contact with the enemy. This allowed commanders to control of the unit, especially while maneuvering. The development of guns and other weapons with increased firepower forced infantry units to disperse in order to make them less vulnerable to such weapons. This decentralization of command was made possible by improved communications equipment, among the various subtypes of infantry is Medium infantry. This refers to infantry which are heavily armed and armored than heavy infantry. In the early period, medium infantry were largely eliminated due to discontinued use of body armour up until the 20th century. In the United States Army, Stryker Infantry is considered Medium Infantry, since they are heavier than light infantry, Infantry doctrine is the concise expression of how infantry forces contribute to campaigns, major operations, battles, and engagements. It is a guide to action, not a set of hard, doctrine provides a very common frame of reference across the military forces, allowing the infantry to function cooperatively in what are now called combined arms operations. Doctrine helps standardise operations, facilitating readiness by establishing common ways of accomplishing infantry tasks, doctrine links theory, history, experimentation, and practice
11.
Horse artillery
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Horse artillery was a type of light, fast-moving, and fast-firing artillery which provided highly mobile fire support, especially to cavalry units. Horse artillery units existed in armies in Europe, the Americas and this was in contrast to the rest of the field artillery, in which the pieces were heavier and the crew marched on foot, or in some cases rode on the guns or caissons. Once in position, horse artillery crews were trained to quickly dismount, deploy or unlimber their guns, then rapidly fire grapeshot, shells or round shot at the enemy. They could then just as rapidly limber-up, remount, and be ready to move to a new position, Horse artillery was highly versatile and often supported friendly cavalry units by disrupting enemy infantry formations such as infantry squares with rapid concentrated fire. This would leave the enemy vulnerable to cavalry charges. Their mobility also enabled them to outmaneuver enemy foot artillery units, a full battery could have a combined front of riders over 50 men strong. If the horse artillery was mistaken for cavalry, the enemy might receive an unpleasant surprise when the towed batteries wheeled around, highly proficient batteries could do so in less than a minute. Essentially a hybrid of cavalry and artillery, irregular horse artillery units were first used by Sweden in the 17th century during the Thirty Years War by Lennart Torstenson. Gustavus Adolphus had previously tried intermixing infantry units with cavalry, others tried to combine firepower with mobility by using novel cavalry tactics such as the caracole, but these slowed the cavalry down and proved largely ineffective. The best solutions involved creating hybrid units of mounted infantry, most notably dragoons, Frederick understood that the greatest threat to massed infantry was concentrated artillery fire. He realized that small and relatively light guns could severely disrupt or destroy infantry units if they could be brought in close enough. But since even light foot artillery travelled at the speed of a marching soldier, through relentless drill and discipline Frederick emphasized mobility and speed in all phases of their operations. The unit consisted of a battery of six 6-pound cannons with 48 men, the battery was wiped out and reformed twice in that same year at the Battle of Kunersdorf and the Battle of Maxen. French artilleryman, engineer and general Jean-Baptiste de Gribeauval had served with the mission to Prussia. After that war he made numerous improvements to French cannons which made them lighter, faster. These improvements proved an advantage to horse artillery as well. Later, the British army officer Henry Shrapnel invented a new type of ammunition that was put to effective use by horse artillery units. The popularity of the new type of unit caught on quickly with other armies, austria organized a limited amount of cavalry artillery in 1778 where most of the gun crew rode specially designed, padded gun carriages called Wursts, rather than on separate horses, into battle
12.
Cavalry
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Cavalry or horsemen were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback. Cavalry were historically the most mobile of the combat arms, an individual soldier in the cavalry is known by a number of designations such as cavalryman, horseman, dragoon or trooper. The designation of cavalry was not usually given to any military forces that used animals, such as camels. Cavalry had the advantage of improved mobility, and a man fighting from horseback also had the advantages of greater height, speed, another element of horse mounted warfare is the psychological impact a mounted soldier can inflict on an opponent. In Europe cavalry became increasingly armoured, and eventually became known for the mounted knights, in the period between the World Wars, many cavalry units were converted into motorized infantry and mechanized infantry units, or reformed as tank troops. Most cavalry units that are horse-mounted in modern armies serve in purely ceremonial roles, modern usage of the term generally refers to specialist units equipped with tanks or aircraft. The shock role, traditionally filled by heavy cavalry, is filled by units with the armored designation. Before the Iron Age, the role of cavalry on the battlefield was largely performed by light chariots, the chariot originated with the Sintashta-Petrovka culture in Central Asia and spread by nomadic or semi-nomadic Indo-Iranians. The power of mobility given by mounted units was recognized early on, Cavalry techniques were an innovation of equestrian nomads of the Central Asian and Iranian steppe and pastoralist tribes such as the Persian Parthians and Sarmatians. The photograph above left shows Assyrian cavalry from reliefs of 865–860 BC, at this time, the men had no spurs, saddles, saddle cloths, or stirrups. Fighting from the back of a horse was more difficult than mere riding. The cavalry acted in pairs, the reins of the archer were controlled by his neighbours hand. Even at this time, cavalry used swords, shields. The sculpture implies two types of cavalry, but this might be a simplification by the artist, Later images of Assyrian cavalry show saddle cloths as primitive saddles, allowing each archer to control his own horse. As early as 490 BC a breed of horses was bred in the Nisaean plain in Media to carry men with increasing amounts of armour. However, chariots remained in use for purposes such as carrying the victorious general in a Roman triumph. The southern Britons met Julius Caesar with chariots in 55 and 54 BC, the last mention of chariot use in battle was by the Caledonians at the Mons Graupius, in 84 AD. During the classical Greek period cavalry were usually limited to citizens who could afford expensive war-horses
13.
Self-propelled artillery
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Self-propelled artillery is artillery equipped with its own propulsion system to move towards its target. Within the term are covered self-propelled guns and rocket artillery and they are high mobility vehicles, usually based on continuous tracks carrying either a large howitzer, field gun, a mortar or some form of rocket or missile launcher. They are usually used for long-range indirect bombardment support on the battlefield, in the past, self-propelled artillery has included direct-fire vehicles, such as assault guns and tank destroyers. These have been heavily armoured vehicles, the former providing close fire-support for infantry, modern self-propelled artillery vehicles may superficially resemble tanks, but they are generally lightly armoured, too lightly to survive in direct-fire combat. However, they protect their crews against shrapnel and small arms and are usually included as armoured fighting vehicles. Many are equipped with guns for defense against enemy infantry. The key advantage of self-propelled over towed artillery is that it can be brought into action much faster, before the towed artillery can be used, it has to stop, unlimber and set up the guns. To move position, the guns must be limbered up again, by comparison, self-propelled artillery can stop at a chosen location and begin firing almost immediately, then quickly move on to a new position. This shoot-and-scoot ability is useful in a mobile conflict and particularly on the advance. Conversely, towed artillery was and remains cheaper to build and maintain and it is also lighter and can be taken to places that self-propelled guns cannot reach. Since the Vietnam War, heavy transport helicopters have also used for rapid artillery deployment. So, despite the advantages of the artillery, towed guns remain in the arsenals of many modern armies. During the Thirty Years War, early 17th century experiments were made with early types of horse artillery, batteries towed light field guns where most or all of the crew rode horses into battle. The gunners were trained to quickly dismount, deploy the guns and provide instant fire support to cavalry, the Russian army organized small units of horse artillery that were distributed among their cavalry formations in the early 18th century. While not forming large batteries and employing only lighter 2- and 3-pound guns, they were still effective and this inspired Frederick the Great to organize the first regular horse artillery unit in 1759. The British Gun Carrier Mark I was the first example of a self-propelled gun and it was based on the first tank, the British Mark I and carried a heavy field gun. The gun could either be fired from the vehicle, or removed, in effect, the carrier replaced the use of a separate horse team or internal combustion engine powered artillery tractor, and allowed a new way for the gun to be used. The next major advance can be seen in the Birch gun developed by the British for their motorised warfare experimental brigade after the end of the War
14.
Field gun
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A field gun is an artillery piece. Perhaps the most famous use of the gun in terms of advanced tactics was Napoleons use of very large wheels on the guns that allowed them to be moved quickly even during a battle. As the evolution of artillery continued, almost all guns of any size became capable of being moved at some speed, even the German super-heavy guns in World War II were rail or caterpillar-track mobile. In British use, a gun was anything up to around 4.5 inches in calibre—larger guns were medium. Their largest gun was the 5.5 inch Medium, with a range of about 15, 000\16,000 yards. Since about the start of World War II, the term has been applied to artillery pieces that fire at a relatively low angle. Field guns also lack a specialized purpose, such as anti-tank or coastal artillery, the U. S. Army tried the long-range gun again in the 1960s with the M107175 mm gun. The M107 was used extensively in the Vietnam War and proved effective in artillery duels with the North Vietnamese forces and it was considered a high-maintenance item and was removed from service with U. S. forces after a rash of cracked barrels. Today the gun finds itself in an area that seems to be gone for good, the need for a long-range weapon is filled by rocket artillery, or aircraft. Modern gun-artillery such as the L118 105mm light gun is used to fire support for infantry. Man-packed mortars lack the range or hitting power of gun-artillery, in between is the rifled towed mortar, this weapon is light enough to be towed by a Land Rover, has a range of over 6, 000m and fires a bomb comparable in weight to an artillery shell
15.
Gun howitzer
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Gun-howitzer is a type of artillery weapon that is intended to fulfill both the role of ordinary cannon or field gun, and that of a howitzer. It is thus able to both direct and indirect fire. To be able to serve as a howitzer, gun-howitzers are typically built to achieve up to 60—70° of elevation, for effective direct fire, the gun-howitzers typically employ a fairly long barrel, usually not shorter than 30 calibres. Its ammunition also has a muzzle velocity and often large calibre. Historically the first gun-howitzer was the French canon obusier of 19th century, field Artillery Weapons of the Civil War
16.
Howitzer
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In the taxonomies of artillery pieces used by European armies in the 17th to 20th centuries, the howitzer stood between the gun and the mortar. Howitzers, like other artillery equipment, are organized in groups called batteries. The English word howitzer comes from the Czech word houfnice, from houf, crowd, haufen, sometimes in the compound Gewalthaufen, also designated a pike square formation in German. This is particularly true in the forces of the United States. Because of this practice, the howitzer is used in some armies as a generic term for any kind of artillery piece that is designed to attack targets using indirect fire. Thus, artillery pieces that bear resemblance to howitzers of earlier eras are now described as howitzers. Most other armies in the reserve the word howitzer for guns with barrel lengths 15 to 25 times their caliber. The British had a method of nomenclature. In the 18th century, they adopted projectile weight for guns replacing the old naming system of culverin, saker, mortars had been categorized by calibre in inches in the 17th century and this was inherited by howitzers. The modern howitzers were invented in Sweden towards the end of the 17th century, originally intended for use in siege warfare, they were particularly useful for delivering cast-iron shells filled with gunpowder or incendiary materials into the interior of fortifications. In the middle of the 18th century, a number of European armies began to introduce howitzers that were enough to accompany armies in the field. Though usually fired at the high angles of fire used by contemporary siege howitzers. Rather, as the guns of the day were usually restricted to inert projectiles. Many, for the sake of simplicity and rapidity of fire, the Abus gun was an early form of howitzer in the Ottoman Empire. In 1758 the Russian Empire introduced a type of howitzer, with a conical chamber, called a licorne. The most famous of these gun-howitzers was the Napoleon 12-pounder, a weapon of French design that saw service in the American Civil War. The longest-serving artillery piece of the 19th century was the mountain howitzer, in 1859, the armies of Europe began to rearm field batteries with rifled field guns. These new field pieces used cylindrical projectiles that, while smaller in caliber than the spherical shells of smoothbore field howitzers, moreover, their greater range let them create many of the same effects that previously required the sharply curved trajectories of smoothbore field howitzers
17.
Mortar (weapon)
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A mortar is a device that fires projectiles at low velocities and short ranges. The mortar has traditionally used as a weapon to propel explosive mortar bombs in high-arcing ballistic trajectories. The weapon is typically muzzle-loading with a short, often smooth-bore barrel, Modern mortars are light and easily portable. They can be used for fire support with a variety of ammunition. Mortars have been used for hundreds of years, originally in siege warfare, many historians consider the first mortars to have been used at the 1453 siege of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror. A European account of the 1456 siege of Belgrade by Giovanni da Tagliacozzo said that the Ottoman Turks used seven mortars that fired stone shots one Italian mile high. The time of flight of these was long enough that casualties could be avoided by posting observers to give warning of their trajectories. However, earlier mortars were used in Korea in a 1413 naval battle when Korean gunsmiths developed the Wangu, the earliest version of the Wangu dates back to 1407. Choe Hae-san, the son of Choe Mu-seon, is credited with inventing the first Wangu. Early mortars, such as the Pumhart von Steyr, were large and heavy. Simply made, these weapons were no more than iron bowls reminiscent of the kitchen, an early transportable mortar was invented by Baron Menno van Coehoorn. This mortar fired a shell, which had a fuse lit by the hot gases when fired. This innovation was taken up, necessitating a new form of naval ship. Mortars played a significant role in the Venetian conquest of Morea, an early use of these more mobile mortars as field weapons was by British forces in the suppression of the 1719 Jacobite rising at the Battle of Glen Shiel. High angle trajectory mortars held an advantage over standard field guns in the rough terrain of the West Highlands of Scotland. Coehorn-type mortars of approximately 180 pounds weight were used by both sides during the American Civil War and these answered as coehorns, and shells were successfully thrown from them into the trenches of the enemy. The mortar had fallen out of use by the Napoleonic era. The German Army studied the Siege of Port Arthur, where heavy artillery had been unable to destroy defensive structures like barbed wire, the solution they developed was a short-barrelled rifled muzzle-loading mortar called the Minenwerfer, and was built in three sizes
18.
Mountain gun
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Mountain guns are artillery pieces designed for use in mountain warfare and areas where usual wheeled transport is not possible. They are similar to infantry support guns, and are capable of being broken down into smaller loads. Due to their ability to be broken down into smaller packages, during the American Civil War these small portable guns were widely used and were called mountain howitzers. Mountain guns are largely outdated, their role being filled by mortars, multiple rocket launchers, recoilless rifles, most modern artillery is manufactured from light-weight materials and can be transported fully assembled by helicopters
19.
Multiple rocket launcher
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A multiple rocket launcher or multiple launch rocket system is a type of rocket artillery system. Rockets have different capabilities than artillery, like longer range, and different payloads, typically considerably larger warheads than a similarly sized artillery platform, unguided rocket artillery is notoriously inaccurate and slow to reload, compared to artillery. To overcome this, rockets are combined in systems that can launch multiple rockets simultaneously, modern rockets can use GPS or inertial guidance, to combine the advantages of rockets with high accuracy. The first multiple rocket launchers were made in Song dynasty China and it was designed to launch multiple rocket arrows from a gunpowder box. The first self-propelled multiple rocket launchers — and arguably the most famous — were the Soviet BM-13 Katyusha, first used during World War II and they were simple systems in which a rack of launch rails was mounted on the back of a truck. This set the template for modern multiple rocket launchers, the Americans mounted tubular launchers atop M4 Sherman tanks to create the T34 Calliope rocket launching tank, only used in small numbers, as their closest equivalent to the Katyusha. The Germans began using a towed six-tube multiple rocket launcher during World War II, simple MRL types still have a reputation of having a devastating morale effect on ill-disciplined or already shaken troops. The material effect depends on circumstances, as well-covered field fortification provide much protection, simple MRL rocket types have a rather long minimum firing range for the same reason. An approach to lessen this limit is the addition of drag rings to the rocket nose, the increased drag slows the rocket down relative to a clean configuration and creates a less flat trajectory. Pre-packaged MRL munitions such as with MLRS do not offer this option, the Convention on Cluster Munitions has led to the destruction and cessation of production of most cluster munitions for MRLs. Large submunitions, smoke agents and unitary high explosive warheads are permitted under the Convention. Some of the not banned submunitions are relatively large Explosively Formed Projectile warheads with sensors which search the ground for tanks to attack in a spiral pattern during their descent, western examples are SMArt 155,155 Bonus and SADARM. Modern MRL systems can use modern land navigation for quick and accurate positioning, the accurate determination of the battery position was previously enough effort to make a dispersed operation of the battery impractical. MRL systems with GPS can have their MRLs dispersed and shoot from dispersed positions at a single target, radars are in use to track weather balloons to determine winds or to track special rockets which self-destruct in the air. The tracking allows to determine the influence of winds and propellant temperatures on the flight path. These observations can then be factored into the solution for the rocket salvo for effect. Such tracking radars can also be used to predict the range error of individual rockets and this requires that the rockets were originally aimed too far, as the range can only be shortened by the air brakes, not extended. A more sophisticated system makes use of data and one-way radio datalink to initiate a two dimensional correction of the rockets flight path with steering by fins or nose thrusters
20.
Rocket artillery
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Rocket artillery is a type of artillery equipped with rocket launchers instead of conventional guns or mortars. Types of rocket artillery pieces include multiple rocket launchers, the use of rockets as some form of artillery dates back to medieval China where devices such as fire arrows were used. Fire arrows were used in multiple launch systems and transported via carts. Devices such as the Korean hwacha were able to fire hundreds of fire arrows simultaneously, the use of medieval rocket artillery was picked up by the invading Mongols and spread to the Ottoman Turks who in turn used them on the European battlefield. The use of war-rockets is well documented in Medieval Europe, in 1408 Duke John the Fearless of Burgundy used 300 incendiary rockets in the siege of Liège. The city dwellers coped with this tactic by covering their roofs with dirt, the earliest successful utilization of rocket artillery is associated with Tipu Sultan of Mysore. Tipu Sultans father Hyder Ali successfully established the powerful Sultanate of Mysore, Tipu Sultan used them against the larger forces of the British East India Company during the Anglo-Mysore Wars especially during the Battle of Pollilur. Although the rockets were quite primitive, they had an effect on the enemy due to the noise. Although the hammered soft iron he used was crude, the strength of the container of black powder was much higher than the earlier paper construction. Thus a greater pressure was possible, with a resultant greater thrust of the propulsive jet. The rocket body was lashed with leather thongs to a bamboo stick. Range was perhaps up to three-quarters of a mile, although individually these rockets were not accurate, dispersion error became less important when large numbers were fired rapidly in mass attacks. They were particularly effective against cavalry and were hurled into the air, after lighting, or skimmed along the hard dry ground. Hyder Alis son, Tipu Sultan, continued to develop and expand the use of rocket weapons, in battles at Seringapatam in 1792 and 1799 these rockets were used with considerable effect against the British. The Indian rocket experiences, including Munros book of 1789, eventually led to the Royal Arsenal beginning a military rocket R&D program in 1801, several rocket cases were collected from Mysore and sent to Britain for analysis. The development was chiefly the work of Col and he was told that the British at Seringapatam had suffered more from the rockets than from the shells or any other weapon used by the enemy. In at least one instance, an eye-witness told Congreve, a rocket had killed three men and badly wounded others. In the Battle of Pollilur and in the battles at Seringapatam in 1792 and 1799 these rockets were used with effect against the British
21.
Siege
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A siege is a military blockade of a city or fortress with the intent of conquering by attrition or assault. This derives from sedere, Latin for to sit, Siege warfare is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict characterized by one party holding a strong, static defensive position. Consequently, an opportunity for negotiation between combatants is not uncommon, as proximity and fluctuating advantage can encourage diplomacy, a siege occurs when an attacker encounters a city or fortress that cannot be easily taken by direct assault and refuses to surrender. Failing a military outcome, sieges can often be decided by starvation, thirst, or disease and this form of siege, though, can take many months or even years, depending upon the size of the stores of food the fortified position holds. During the process of circumvallation, the force can be set upon by another force of enemies due to the lengthy amount of time required to starve a position. During the Warring States era of ancient China, there is textual and archaeological evidence of prolonged sieges and siege machinery used against the defenders of city walls. Siege machinery was also a tradition of the ancient Greco-Roman world, during the Renaissance and the early modern period, siege warfare dominated the conduct of war in Europe. Leonardo da Vinci gained as much of his renown from the design of fortifications as from his artwork, Medieval campaigns were generally designed around a succession of sieges. In the Napoleonic era, increasing use of more powerful cannon reduced the value of fortifications. In the 20th century, the significance of the classical siege declined, with the advent of mobile warfare, a single fortified stronghold is no longer as decisive as it once was. Modern sieges are more commonly the result of smaller hostage, militant, the Assyrians deployed large labour forces to build new palaces, temples, and defensive walls. Some settlements in the Indus Valley Civilization were also fortified, by about 3500 BC, hundreds of small farming villages dotted the Indus River floodplain. Many of these settlements had fortifications and planned streets, mundigak in present-day south-east Afghanistan has defensive walls and square bastions of sun-dried bricks. City walls and fortifications were essential for the defence of the first cities in the ancient Near East, the walls were built of mudbricks, stone, wood, or a combination of these materials, depending on local availability. They may also have served the purpose of showing presumptive enemies the might of the kingdom. The great walls surrounding the Sumerian city of Uruk gained a widespread reputation, the walls were 9.5 km in length, and up to 12 m in height. Later, the walls of Babylon, reinforced by towers, moats, in Anatolia, the Hittites built massive stone walls around their cities atop hillsides, taking advantage of the terrain. In Shang Dynasty China, at the site of Ao, large walls were erected in the 15th century BC that had dimensions of 20 m in width at the base and enclosed an area of some 2,100 yards squared
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Early modern warfare
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This entire period is contained within the Age of Sail, which characteristic dominated the eras naval tactics, including the use of gunpowder in naval artillery. In the Horn of Africa, the Adals conquest of Ethiopia and the involving of the Ottomans, Mamluks, the earliest surviving bronze hand cannon, dates to 1288, during the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty of China. Gunpowder warfare was used in the Mongol invasions of Japan in 1274 and 1281, Japanese scrolls contain illustrations of bombs used by the Yuan-Mongol forces against mounted samurai. In 1326 the earliest known European picture of a gun appeared in a manuscript by Walter de Milemete, in 1350, Petrarch wrote that the presence of cannons on the battlefield was as common and familiar as other kinds of arms. Early artillery played a role in the 100 Years War. The period from 1500–1801 saw an advance in techniques of fortification in Europe. Whereas medieval castles had relied on high walls to keep out attackers, to do this, engineers developed a style of fortress known as the trace italienne or Italian style. These had low, thick, sloping walls, that would absorb or glance off cannon fire. In addition, they were shaped like stars, with bastions protruding at sharp angles, the reason for this was to ensure that every bastion could be supported with fire from an adjacent bastion, leaving no dead ground for an attacker to take cover in. These new fortifications quickly negated the advantages cannon had offered to besiegers, a polygonal fort is a fortification in the style that evolved around the middle of the 18th century, in response to the development of explosive shells. The polygonal style of fortification is described as a flankless fort. Many such forts were built in the United Kingdom and the British Empire during the government of Lord Palmerston and their low profile makes them easy to overlook. In response to the vulnerabilities of star forts, military engineers evolved a much simpler but more robust style of fortification. An example of style can be seen at Fort McHenry in Baltimore in the United States of America. The power of aristocracies vis à vis states diminished throughout Western Europe during this period, aristocrats 200- to 400-year-old ancestral castles no longer provided useful defences against artillery. The nobilitys importance in warfare also eroded as medieval heavy cavalry lost its role in battle. The heavy cavalry - made up of armored knights - had begun to fade in importance in the Late Middle Ages, the English longbow and the Swiss pike had both proven their ability to devastate larger armed forces of mounted knights. However, the use of the longbow required a lifetime of training, making it impossible to amass very large forces of archers
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Metallurgy
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The production of metals involves the processing of ores to extract the metal they contain, and the mixture of metals, sometimes with other elements, to produce alloys. Metallurgy is distinguished from the craft of metalworking, although metalworking relies on metallurgy, as medicine relies on medical science, Metallurgy is subdivided into ferrous metallurgy and non-ferrous metallurgy or colored metallurgy. Ferrous metallurgy involves processes and alloys based on iron while non-ferrous metallurgy involves processes, the production of ferrous metals accounts for 95 percent of world metal production. The roots of metallurgy derive from Ancient Greek, μεταλλουργός, metallourgós, worker in metal, from μέταλλον, métallon, metal + ἔργον, érgon, in the late 19th century it was extended to the more general scientific study of metals, alloys, and related processes. In English, the pronunciation is the more common one in the UK. The /ˈmetələrdʒi/ pronunciation is the common one in the USA. The earliest recorded metal employed by humans appears to be gold, small amounts of natural gold have been found in Spanish caves used during the late Paleolithic period, c.40,000 BC. Silver, copper, tin and meteoric iron can also be found in native form, egyptian weapons made from meteoric iron in about 3000 BC were highly prized as daggers from heaven. Certain metals, notably tin, lead and copper, can be recovered from their ores by simply heating the rocks in a fire or blast furnace, a process known as smelting. The first evidence of this extractive metallurgy dates from the 5th and 6th millennia BC and was found in the sites of Majdanpek, Yarmovac and Plocnik. To date, the earliest evidence of copper smelting is found at the Belovode site, other signs of early metals are found from the third millennium BC in places like Palmela, Los Millares, and Stonehenge. However, the ultimate beginnings cannot be ascertained and new discoveries are both continuous and ongoing. These first metals were single ones or as found, about 3500 BC, it was discovered that by combining copper and tin, a superior metal could be made, an alloy called bronze, representing a major technological shift known as the Bronze Age. The extraction of iron from its ore into a metal is much more difficult than for copper or tin. The process appears to have been invented by the Hittites in about 1200 BC, the secret of extracting and working iron was a key factor in the success of the Philistines. Historical developments in ferrous metallurgy can be found in a variety of past cultures. A 16th century book by Georg Agricola called De re metallica describes the highly developed and complex processes of mining metal ores, metal extraction, Agricola has been described as the father of metallurgy. Extractive metallurgy is the practice of removing valuable metals from an ore, in order to convert a metal oxide or sulphide to a purer metal, the ore must be reduced physically, chemically, or electrolytically
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Cannon
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A cannon is any piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or other usually explosive-based propellants to launch a projectile, which may or may not be explosive. The word cannon is derived from languages, in which the original definition can usually be translated as tube, cane. The Greeks invented the first type—a steam cannon—designed by Archimedes during the Siege of Syracuse, ctesibius built a steam cannon in Alexandria and in the fifteenth century Leonardo da Vinci designed another, the Architonnerre, based on Archimedes work. The earliest form of artillery was developed in Song China, over time replacing siege engines. In the Middle East, the first use of the cannon is argued to be during the 1260 Battle of Ain Jalut between the Mamluk Sultanate and Mongol Empire. The first cannon in Europe were in use in the Iberian Peninsula by the mid-13th century and it was during this period, the Middle Ages, that cannon became standardised, and more effective in both the anti-infantry and siege roles. After the Middle Ages most large cannon were abandoned in favour of greater numbers of lighter, Cannon also transformed naval warfare in the early modern period, as European navies took advantage of their firepower. In World War I, the majority of fatalities were caused by artillery. Most modern cannon are similar to those used in the Second World War, Cannon was widely known as the earliest form of a gun and artillery, before early firearms were invented. The word has been used to refer to a gun since 1326 in Italy, both Cannons and Cannon are correct and in common usage, with one or the other having preference in different parts of the English-speaking world. Cannons is more common in North America and Australia, while cannon as plural is more common in the United Kingdom, Cannon in general have the form of a truncated cone with an internal cylindrical bore for holding an explosive charge and a projectile. The thickest, strongest, and closed part of the cone is located near the explosive charge, as any explosive charge will dissipate in all directions equally, the thickest portion of the cannon is useful for containing and directing this force. Field artillery cannon in Europe and the Americas were initially made most often of bronze, though later forms were constructed of cast iron and eventually steel. However, cast iron cannon have a tendency to burst without having any previous weakness or wear. The following terms refer to the components or aspects of a classical western cannon as illustrated here. In what follows, the words near, close, and behind will refer to those parts towards the thick, closed end of the piece, and far, front, in front of, and before to the thinner, open end. Bore, The hollow cylinder bored down the centre of the cannon, including the base of the bore or bottom of the bore, the diameter of the bore represents the cannons calibre. Chamber, The cylindrical, conical, or spherical recess at the nearest end of the bottom of the bore into which the gunpowder is packed
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Light cavalry
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Light cavalry, often called Light Horse, comprises lightly armed and lightly armoured troops mounted on horses, as opposed to heavy cavalry, where the riders are heavily armored. Light cavalry was used infrequently by the Greeks and Romans, but were popular among the armies of Central Asia, the Arabs, Hungarians, Huns, Mongols, Turks, Parthians, and Persians were all adept light cavalrymen and horse archers. With the decline of feudalism and knighthood in Europe, light cavalry became more prominent in the armies of the continent, many were equipped with firearms, as their predecessors had been with bows. European examples of light cavalry included stradiots, hobelars, hussars, chasseurs à cheval, cossacks, chevau-légers, uhlans and some dragoons. Armies of the ancient Roman-Germanic wars made use of cavalry as patrolling squads, or armed scouts. During the Punic Wars, one of Carthages main advantages over Roman armies was its use of Numidian light cavalry. Partly because of this, the Roman general Scipio Africanus recruited his own cavalry from Sicily before his invasion of Tunisia during the Second Punic War, a variety of types of light cavalry were developed in medieval armies. Hobelar, Originally Irish, later popular in English and Scottish armies of the 14th and 15th centuries Koursores, the name derives from the Latin term cursarius meaning raider. Horse archers were used extensively in steppe warfare throughout Central Asia. Light cavalry played a key role in mounted scouting, escorting and skirmishing during the Napoleonic era, Light horse also served a function in major set-piece battles. While lacking the sheer power of heavy cavalry, light cavalry were still extremely effective against unprepared infantry and artillery. In the aftermath of battles, light cavalry were used to press a victors advantage or to screen retreating forces from further attack, hussars, distinctively dressed light cavalry of Hungarian origin. Locally recruited Hussar regiments were incorporated in most Napoleonic armies although by this period their functions, uhlans, originally Polish light cavalry armed with lances as their primary weapon. Locally recruited lancer regiments with this designation were later used by the Russian, Prussian and Austrian armies. The long reach of the lance made them a shock force against dispersed infantry. Dragoons, Originally a type of mounted infantry armed with muskets, dragoons had by the eighteenth century evolved into heavy. The latter performed the functions of light cavalry, although they might on occasion still undertake dismounted action using carbines. Sowars, An Indian horseman armed with a sword or light lance, Light horsemen with this designation had comprised the bulk of Mughul and other Indian cavalry forces during the 18th century
26.
Limbers and caissons
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A limber is a two-wheeled cart designed to support the trail of an artillery piece, or the stock of a field carriage such as a caisson or traveling forge, allowing it to be towed. A caisson is a cart designed to carry artillery ammunition. The British term was ammunition wagon, Caissons are used to bear the casket of the deceased in some state and military funerals in certain Western cultures, including the United States. As artillery pieces developed trunnions and were placed on carriages featuring two wheels and a trail, a limber was devised and this was a simple cart with a pintle. When the piece was to be towed, it was raised over the limber and then lowered, horses or other draft animals were harnessed in single file to haul the limber. There was no provision for carrying ammunition on the limber, the British developed a new system of carriages, which was adopted by the French, then copied from the French by the United States. During the American Civil War, U. S. Army equipment was identical to Confederate Army equipment, essentially identical to French equipment, and similar to that of other nations. The field artillery limber assumed its archetypal form – two wheels, an ammunition chest, a hook at the rear, and a central pole with horses harnessed on either side. The artillery piece had a ring at the end of the trail. To move the piece, the lunette was dropped over the pintle hook, the connection was secured by inserting a pintle hook key into the pintle. The quantity of ammunition in the chest, which could be detached from the limber, an ammunition chest for the M1857 light 12-pounder gun carried 28 rounds. The cover of the ammunition chest was made of copper to prevent stray embers from setting the chest on fire. Six horses were the team for a field piece, with four being considered the minimum team. Horses were harnessed in pairs on either side of the limber pole, a driver rode on each left-hand horse and held reins for both the horse he rode and the horse to his right. In addition to hauling the artillery piece, the limber also hauled the caisson, there was one caisson for each artillery piece in a battery. The exception to this rule would be in horse-artillery batteries, where the cannoneers rode saddle horses, while firing the piece, if possible, the crew kept the two ammunition chests on the caisson full, preferably supplying the gun from the third ammunition chest on the caissons limber. When the ammunition from the ammunition chest on the limber was exhausted, the pieces limber. The empty ammunition chest was removed, and then the middle chest on the caisson was moved forward onto the limber, a fully loaded ammunition chest for a Napoleon 12-pounder weighed 650 pounds, so the chest was dragged and pushed, rather than lifted, into place
27.
Trunnion
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A trunnion is a cylindrical protrusion used as a mounting or pivoting point. First associated with cannon, they are an important military development, alternatively, a trunnion is a shaft that positions and supports a tilting plate. This is a misnomer, as in reality it is a cradle for the true trunnion, in mechanical engineering, it is one part of a rotating joint where a shaft is inserted into a full or partial cylinder. In a cannon, the trunnions are two projections cast just forward of the center of mass of the cannon and fixed to a two-wheeled movable gun carriage. As they allowed the muzzle to be raised and lowered easily, with the creation of larger and more powerful siege guns in the early 15th century, a new way of mounting them had to be specially designed. Stouter gun carriages were created with reinforced wheels, axles, guns would be up to eight feet in length and shoot iron projectiles weighing from twenty-five to fifty pounds. These wrought iron balls when discharged were comparable in range and accuracy with stone-firing bombards, trunnions were mounted near the center of mass to allow the barrel to be elevated to any desired angle, without having to dismount it from the carriage upon which it rested. Some guns had a set of trunnions placed several feet back from the first pair. The gun would recoil causing the carriage to move backwards several feet and it became easier to rapidly transport these large siege guns, maneuver them from transportation mode to firing position, and they could go wherever a team of men or horses could pull them. Due to its capabilities, the French- and Burgundy-designed siege gun, equipped with its trunnions, king Charles VIII and the French army used this new gun in the 1494 invasion of Italy. Although deemed masters of war and artillery at that time, Italians had not anticipated the innovations in French siege weaponry. Prior to this, field guns were huge, large-caliber bombards, superguns that. Cities that had proudly withstood sieges for up to seven years fell swiftly with the advent of new weapons. Defensive tactics and fortifications had to be altered since these new weapons could be transported so speedily and these towers would be deemed trace Italienne. Whoever could afford these new weapons had the advantage over their neighbors and smaller sovereignties. Smaller states, such as the principalities of Italy, began to conglomerate, preexisting stronger entities, such as France or the Habsburg emperors, were able to expand their territories and maintain tighter control. With the threat of their land and castles being seized, the nobility began to pay their taxes, on firearms, the barrel is sometimes mounted in a trunnion, which in turn is mounted to the receiver. This usage is common for tubular or pressed metal frame guns, such as the AK-47, PPSh-41, Uzi, Sten, and others
28.
Ming dynasty
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The Ming dynasty was the ruling dynasty of China – then known as the Empire of the Great Ming – for 276 years following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming, described by some as one of the greatest eras of orderly government, although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng, regimes loyal to the Ming throne – collectively called the Southern Ming – survived until 1683. He rewarded his supporters and employed them as a counterweight against the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats. One, Zheng He, led seven enormous voyages of exploration into the Indian Ocean as far as Arabia, the rise of new emperors and new factions diminished such extravagances, the capture of the Zhengtong Emperor during the 1449 Tumu Crisis ended them completely. The imperial navy was allowed to fall into disrepair while forced labor constructed the Liaodong palisade, haijin laws intended to protect the coasts from Japanese pirates instead turned many into smugglers and pirates themselves. The growth of Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch trade created new demand for Chinese products and produced an influx of Japanese. This abundance of specie remonetized the Ming economy, whose money had suffered repeated hyperinflation and was no longer trusted. While traditional Confucians opposed such a prominent role for commerce and the newly rich it created, combined with crop failure, floods, and epidemic, the dynasty collapsed before the rebel leader Li Zicheng, who was defeated by the Manchu-led Eight Banner armies who founded the Qing dynasty. The Mongol-led Yuan dynasty ruled before the establishment of the Ming dynasty, consequently, agriculture and the economy were in shambles, and rebellion broke out among the hundreds of thousands of peasants called upon to work on repairing the dykes of the Yellow River. A number of Han Chinese groups revolted, including the Red Turbans in 1351, the Red Turbans were affiliated with the White Lotus, a Buddhist secret society. Zhu Yuanzhang was a peasant and Buddhist monk who joined the Red Turbans in 1352. In 1356, Zhus rebel force captured the city of Nanjing, with the Yuan dynasty crumbling, competing rebel groups began fighting for control of the country and thus the right to establish a new dynasty. In 1363, Zhu Yuanzhang eliminated his archrival and leader of the rebel Han faction, Chen Youliang, in the Battle of Lake Poyang, arguably the largest naval battle in history. Known for its ambitious use of ships, Zhus force of 200,000 Ming sailors were able to defeat a Han rebel force over triple their size, claimed to be 650. The victory destroyed the last opposing rebel faction, leaving Zhu Yuanzhang in uncontested control of the bountiful Yangtze River Valley, Zhu Yuanzhang took Hongwu, or Vastly Martial, as his era name. Hongwu made an effort to rebuild state infrastructure. He built a 48 km long wall around Nanjing, as well as new palaces, Hongwu organized a military system known as the weisuo, which was similar to the fubing system of the Tang dynasty. With a growing suspicion of his ministers and subjects, Hongwu established the Jinyiwei, some 100,000 people were executed in a series of purges during his rule
29.
Huolongjing
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The Huolongjing is a 14th-century military treatise compiled and edited by Jiao Yu and Liu Bowen of the early Ming dynasty in China. Its intended function was to serve as an outline for the use of fire weapons involving gunpowder. The Huolongjing provides information on various compositions, which are given names such as magic gunpowder, poison gunpowder. Among the bombs described, there are hollow cast iron grenade bombs, shrapnel bombs, mine devices include land mines and naval mines as well as the latters use of a complex trigger mechanism. Although the book was published sometime during the 14th century as a compilation of material written since the late 13th century, the Huolongjings main purpose was to provide a collected summary of gunpowder weapons in use up until the end of the 14th century. He described the uses of magic gunpowder, poison gunpowder, or blinding and burning gunpowder in warfare. For this, Jiao Yu wrote, even flying in the air cannot escape the effects of the explosion. During the 14th century, Chinese gunpowder solutions had reached their maximum explosive potential, at least six formulas in use by the Chinese that were considered to have reached the maximum explosive force for gunpowder. The root of all this was the 1044 military handbook, the Wujing Zongyao, later, Wei Xing of the Song Dynasty was said to have created a gunpowder formula of saltpetre, sulphur, and willow charcoal for his projectile carriages for launching fire–stones up to 400 yards. Its value in festival entertainment could be seen in firework displays and he advised that a piece of hemp cloth should be used to strengthen the wad of paper and sealed with molten pine resin. Although he described the fire arrow in great detail, it was mentioned by the much earlier Xia Shaozeng, although written in 1630, the Wulixiaoshi of Fang Yizhi said that fire arrows were presented to Emperor Taizu of Song in 960. By the time of Jiao Yu, the fire arrow had taken on a new meaning. The simple transition of this was to use a tube instead of a bow or ballista firing gunpowder-impregnated fire arrows. The historian Joseph Needham wrote that this discovery came sometime before Jiao Yu during the late Southern Song Dynasty, at the front end there is a carton tube bound on to the stick, where the rising gunpowder is lit. When you want to fire it off, you use a frame shaped like a dragon, in the late 14th century, the rocket launching tube was combined with the fire lance. This involved three tubes attached to the same staff, as the first rocket tube was fired, a charge was ignited in the leading tube which expelled a blinding lachrymatory powder at the enemy, and finally the second rocket was fired. An illustration of this appears in the Huolongjing, and a description of its effectiveness in obfuscating the location of the rockets from the enemy is provided, the Huolongjing also describes and illustrates two kinds of mounted rocket launchers that fired multiple rockets. Rockets described in the Huolongjing were not all in the shape of fire arrows
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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
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Direct fire
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Direct fire refers to the launching of a projectile directly at a target within the line-of-sight of the firer. The firing weapon must have a device and an unobstructed view to the target. A weapon engaged in direct fire exposes itself to fire from the target. This is in contrast to indirect fire, which refers to firing a projectile on a trajectory or delivering munitions by guided or unguided missiles. Indirect fire does not need a line of sight to the target because the shots are normally directed by a forward observer. As such, indirect fire weapons can shoot over obstacles or friendly units, examples of direct fire weapons include most ancient and modern weapons such as bows, handguns, rifles, machine guns, and recoilless rifles. The term is most often used in the context of artillery, direct fire remained the dominant method of operating artillery throughout most of human history, with indirect fire used for sieges and involving specific siege guns. After World War II new technology continued to diminish the role of direct fire, another is when artillery is forced to defend itself, such as in a surprise attack. This could be the result of rapid maneuvering by ground forces, direct fire artillery can also be massed to counter a penetration by enemy tanks. In particular self-propelled artillery are ideally suited for this role on account of their mobility, armor protection, and faster rate of fire compared to other weapons. A final situation is in urban warfare, where locating the enemy can be difficult, the physical structures give the better protection. In these cases direct fire artillery can unleash tremendous firepower to destroy enemy fortified positions. Gun laying Fire-control radar Director Telescopic sight Bailey, J B A. Field Artillery and Firepower
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Gun
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A gun is a normally tubular weapon or other device designed to discharge projectiles or other material. The projectile may be solid, liquid, gas or energy and may be free, as bullets and artillery shells, or captive as with Taser probes. Alternatively, acceleration via electromagnetic field generation may be employed in case the tube may be dispensed with. The first devices identified as guns appeared in China around CE1000, by the 12th century the technology was spreading through the rest of Asia, and into Europe by the 13th century. The origin of the English word gun is considered to derive from the given to a particular historical weapon. Domina Gunilda was the given to a remarkably large ballista. This name in turn may have derived from the Old Norse womans proper name Gunnhildr which combines two Norse words referring to battle, in any case the term gonne or gunne was applied to early hand-held firearms by the late 14th or early 15th century. The first device identified as a gun, a tube that used gunpowder to fire a spear. The Chinese had previously invented gunpowder in the 9th century, the earliest depiction of a gunpowder weapon is the illustration of a fire-lance on a mid-10th century silk banner from Dunhuang. The Dean Shoucheng Lu, an account of the siege of Dean in 1132, in due course, the proportion of saltpeter in the propellant was increased to maximise its explosive power. To better withstand that explosive power, the paper and bamboo of which fire-lance barrels were originally made came to be replaced by metal, and to take full advantage of that power, the shrapnel came to be replaced by projectiles whose size and shape filled the barrel more closely. English Privy Wardrobe accounts list ribaldis, a type of cannon, in the 1340s, the earliest surviving firearm in Europe has been found from Otepää, Estonia and it dates to at least 1396. Around the late 14th century in Europe, smaller and portable hand-held cannons were developed, in the late 15th century the Ottoman empire used firearms as part of its regular infantry. The first successful rapid-fire firearm is the Gatling Gun, invented by Richard Gatling, the worlds first sub-machine gun able to be maneuvered by a single soldier is the MP18.1, invented by Theodor Bergmann. It was introduced into service in 1918 by the German Army during World War I as the weapon of the Stosstruppen. The first assault rifle was introduced during World War II by the Germans and it was the first firearm which bridges the gap between long range rifles, machine guns, and short range sub-machine guns. Since the mid-20th century guns that fire beams of energy rather than solid projectiles have been developed, most guns use compressed gas confined by the barrel to propel the bullet up to high speed, though devices operating in other ways are sometimes called guns. In firearms the high-pressure gas is generated by combustion, usually of gunpowder and this principle is similar to that of internal combustion engines, except that the bullet leaves the barrel, while the piston transfers its motion to other parts and returns down the cylinder
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Indirect fire
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Indirect fire is aiming and firing a projectile without relying on a direct line of sight between the gun and its target, as in the case of direct fire. Aiming is performed by calculating azimuth and elevation angles, and may include correcting aim by observing the fall of shot and calculating new angles. There are two dimensions in aiming a weapon, In the horizontal plane, and In the vertical plane, which is governed by the distance to the target and the energy of the propelling charge. The projectile trajectory is affected by conditions, the velocity of the projectile. Direct fire sights may include mechanisms to compensate for some of these, handguns and rifles, machine guns, anti-tank guns, tank main guns, many types of unguided rockets, and guns mounted in aircraft are examples of weapons primarily designed for direct fire. NATO defines indirect fire as Fire delivered at a target which cannot be seen by the aimer, the implication is that azimuth and/or elevation aiming is done using instrumental methods. Hence indirect fire means applying firing data to azimuth and elevation sights, indirect fire can be used when the target is visible from the firing position. However, it is used when the target is at longer range. Longer range uses a higher trajectory, and in maximum range is achieved with an elevation angle of 45 degrees. Indirect fire is most commonly associated with field artillery and it is also used with mortars and naval guns against shore targets, sometimes with machine guns, and has been used with tank and anti-tank guns and by anti-aircraft guns against surface targets. It is reasonable to assume that original purpose of fire was to enable fire from a ‘covered position’, one where gunners can not be seen. The concealment aspect remains important, but from World War I equally important was the capability to concentrate the fire of many batteries at the target or set of targets. The physical laws of ballistics means that guns firing larger and heavier projectile can send them further than smaller-calibre guns firing lighter shells. By the end of the 20th century, the maximum range for the most common guns was about 24 to 30 km. During World War I, covered positions moved further back and indirect fire evolved to allow any point within range to be attacked, firepower mobility, without moving the firers. If the target cannot be seen from the gun position, there has to be a means of identifying targets, the position of some targets may be identified by a headquarters from various sources of information, observers on the ground, in aircraft, or in observation balloons. The development of electrical communication immensely simplified reporting, and enabled many widely dispersed firers to concentrate their fire on one target, until the introduction of smart munitions the trajectory of the projectile could not be altered once fired. For several centuries Coehorn mortars were fired indirectly because their fixed elevation meant range was determined by the amount of propelling powder
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Artillery observer
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Also known as Fire Support Specialist or FISTer, an observer usually accompanies a tank or infantry manoeuvre unit. More recently a mission controller for an Army Unmanned Air System may also perform this function, spotters ensure that indirect fire hits targets which the troops at the fire support base cannot see. Broadly, there are two different approaches to artillery observation. Either the observer has command authority and orders fire, including the type and amount of ammunition to be fired, to batteries. Or the observer requests fire from a headquarters at some level, which decides if fire will be provided, by which batteries. The first is characterised by the British, the second by the United States, in World War II both Germany and the Soviet Union tended towards the British method. Because artillery is an indirect fire weapon system, the guns are rarely in line-of-sight of their target, the observer serves as the eyes of the guns, by sending target locations and if necessary corrections to the fall of shot, usually by radio. In the US System the observer sends a request for fire, the FDC then decides how much fire to permit and may request additional fire from a higher artillery headquarters. FDC convert the target information into firing data for the batterys weapons. In the British system the observer sends an order to his own and any other batteries authorised to them. Each battery command post converts the fire orders into firing data for its own guns, until post-World War II the observer would usually order actual firing data to the guns of his own troop, this was enabled by the use of calibrating sights on the guns. In the U. S. Armored/Cavalry FIST teams usually consist of just one FSO, brigade COLT teams operate in groups of two individuals, a Fire support specialist in the grade of E-1 to E-4 and a Fire Support Sergeant in the grade of E-5. Currently in unit training is beginning to incorporate more air support. In the U. S. FO teams are attached to infantry weapons companies to provide indirect fire support to the companys movements. For centuries the Battery Commander had been responsible for controlling the fire of his battery and this continued with the introduction of indirect fire in the early years of the 20th Century. However, the First World War introduced 24 hour, seven days a week fighting, furthermore indirect fire had increased the distance between the guns and their targets, and between the observers and their guns. This led to the use of observing officers to act on behalf of the battery commander, in the 1938 re-organisation of the Royal Artillery batteries were divided into troops, with the troop commanders as observing officers at an. These officers and their parties could operate as either as an Observation Post or accompany the supported arm as Forward Observation Officers, during World War II it became the practice for close support battery commanders to become part of the tank regiment or infantry battalion headquarters they were supporting
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Forward observer
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Also known as Fire Support Specialist or FISTer, an observer usually accompanies a tank or infantry manoeuvre unit. More recently a mission controller for an Army Unmanned Air System may also perform this function, spotters ensure that indirect fire hits targets which the troops at the fire support base cannot see. Broadly, there are two different approaches to artillery observation. Either the observer has command authority and orders fire, including the type and amount of ammunition to be fired, to batteries. Or the observer requests fire from a headquarters at some level, which decides if fire will be provided, by which batteries. The first is characterised by the British, the second by the United States, in World War II both Germany and the Soviet Union tended towards the British method. Because artillery is an indirect fire weapon system, the guns are rarely in line-of-sight of their target, the observer serves as the eyes of the guns, by sending target locations and if necessary corrections to the fall of shot, usually by radio. In the US System the observer sends a request for fire, the FDC then decides how much fire to permit and may request additional fire from a higher artillery headquarters. FDC convert the target information into firing data for the batterys weapons. In the British system the observer sends an order to his own and any other batteries authorised to them. Each battery command post converts the fire orders into firing data for its own guns, until post-World War II the observer would usually order actual firing data to the guns of his own troop, this was enabled by the use of calibrating sights on the guns. In the U. S. Armored/Cavalry FIST teams usually consist of just one FSO, brigade COLT teams operate in groups of two individuals, a Fire support specialist in the grade of E-1 to E-4 and a Fire Support Sergeant in the grade of E-5. Currently in unit training is beginning to incorporate more air support. In the U. S. FO teams are attached to infantry weapons companies to provide indirect fire support to the companys movements. For centuries the Battery Commander had been responsible for controlling the fire of his battery and this continued with the introduction of indirect fire in the early years of the 20th Century. However, the First World War introduced 24 hour, seven days a week fighting, furthermore indirect fire had increased the distance between the guns and their targets, and between the observers and their guns. This led to the use of observing officers to act on behalf of the battery commander, in the 1938 re-organisation of the Royal Artillery batteries were divided into troops, with the troop commanders as observing officers at an. These officers and their parties could operate as either as an Observation Post or accompany the supported arm as Forward Observation Officers, during World War II it became the practice for close support battery commanders to become part of the tank regiment or infantry battalion headquarters they were supporting
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Field artillery team
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In the land-based field artillery, the field artillery team is organized to direct and control indirect artillery fire on the battlefield. Since World War I, to conduct indirect artillery fire, three components have evolved in this organization, the forward observer, the fire direction center. On the battlefield, the artillery team consists of some combinations of all of these elements. Modern artillery batteries shoot at targets measured in distances of kilometers and miles, the term indirect fire is therefore used to describe firing at targets that gunners cannot see, as opposed to observed direct fire. In most cases, the target is either over the horizon or on the side of some physical obstruction, such as a hill. The fire direction center, in turn, uses these coordinates to calculate a left-right aiming direction, an angle, a number of bags of propellant. The fuse is then mated to the artillery projectile, an often overlooked but very critical component of the Field Artillery team is the Advance Party. The Advance Party consists of the Battery Commander, his Driver, First Sergeant, Gunnery Sergeant, FDC Guide, Gun Guides, initially, the Party looks to find suitable positions for an artillery unit to perform fire missions from. Then they perform what is known as route reconnaissance, the primary purpose of this reconnaissance is to determine the suitability of the route of the units movement. Several factors are taken into consideration, once a location is determined, and having arrived at the new position, the advance party conducts a security sweep and prepares the position for occupation. The purpose of the advance party security with METT-T and the absence of troops, mines, booby traps, NBC hazards. Natural cover must be used to the maximum, security is continuous throughout advance party operations. Once a location is determined to be safe, the party prepares the position for eventual howitzer emplacement. This entire process is covered in U. S. Army Field Manual 6-50 Chapter 2 and this position can be anywhere from a few hundred meters to 20–30 km distant from the guns. Modern day FOs are also trained in the rudiments of calling close air support, naval gunfire support, firing begins with an adjustment phase where only a single gun fires, and if the rounds are not accurate, the FO will issue instructions to adjust fire in four dimensions. When the degree of accuracy is acceptable, the FO will then typically call fire for effect, a Fire For Effect or FFE calls for all of the guns or tubes to fire a round. The FO does not talk to the guns directly - he deals solely with the FDC, the forward observer can also be airborne, one of the original roles of aircraft in the military was airborne artillery spotting. The fire direction center concept was developed at the Field Artillery School at Ft and they introduced a firing chart, adopted the practice of locating battery positions by survey, and designated targets with reference to the base point on the chart
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Cannoneer
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Cannoneer as a term for an artilleryman dates from the 16th century. As of 2016 the United States Army uses as titles for such a soldier, a cannon crewmember or cannoneer for short. These artillery-men support infantry units in training, and on battlefields play a part in combat operations ranging from urban to jungle terrains. Artillery originated for use against ground targets—against infantry, cavalry, fortifications, armor and it can be used in a direct or indirect manner depending on circumstances. It can also be utilized in airborne and air-assault missions
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Projectile
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A projectile is any object thrown into space by the exertion of a force. Although any object in motion through space may be called a projectile, mathematical equations of motion are used to analyze projectile trajectory. Blowguns and pneumatic rifles use compressed gases, while most other guns and cannons utilize expanding gases liberated by sudden chemical reactions, light-gas guns use a combination of these mechanisms. Railguns utilize electromagnetic fields to provide a constant acceleration along the length of the device. Some projectiles provide propulsion during flight by means of an engine or jet engine. In military terminology, a rocket is unguided, while a missile is guided, note the two meanings of rocket, an ICBM is a guided missile with a rocket engine. An explosion, whether or not by a weapon, causes the debris to act as high velocity projectiles. An explosive weapon, or device may also be designed to produce high velocity projectiles by the break-up of its casing. Many projectiles, e. g. shells, may carry a charge or another chemical or biological substance. Aside from explosive payload, a projectile can be designed to cause damage, e. g. fire. Typical kinetic energy weapons are blunt projectiles such as rocks and round shots, pointed ones such as arrows, among projectiles that do not contain explosives are those launched from railguns, coilguns, and mass drivers, as well as kinetic energy penetrators. Other types of weapons are accelerated over time by a rocket engine. In either case, it is the energy of the projectile that destroys its target. Some kinetic weapons for targeting objects in spaceflight are anti-satellite weapons, since in order to reach an object in orbit it is necessary to attain an extremely high velocity, their released kinetic energy alone is enough to destroy their target, explosives are not necessary. For example, the energy of TNT is 4.6 MJ/kg, and this saves costly weight and there is no detonation to be precisely timed. This method, however, requires direct contact with the target, some hit-to-kill warheads are additionally equipped with an explosive directional warhead to enhance the kill probability. With regard to weapons, the Arrow missile and MIM-104 Patriot PAC-2 have explosives, while the Kinetic Energy Interceptor, Lightweight Exo-Atmospheric Projectile. A kinetic projectile can also be dropped from aircraft and this is applied by replacing the explosives of a regular bomb with a non-explosive material, for a precision hit with less collateral damage
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Binoculars
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Binoculars or field glasses are two telescopes mounted side-by-side and aligned to point in the same direction, allowing the viewer to use both eyes when viewing distant objects. Most are sized to be held using both hands, although sizes vary widely from opera glasses to large pedestal mounted military models. Almost from the invention of the telescope in the 17th century the advantages of mounting two of them side by side for binocular vision seems to have been explored, most early binoculars used Galilean optics, that is, they used a convex objective and a concave eyepiece lens. The Galilean design has the advantage of presenting an image but has a narrow field of view and is not capable of very high magnification. This type of construction is used in very cheap models. They also have large exit pupils making centering less critical and the field of view works well in those applications. These are typically mounted on a frame or custom-fit onto eyeglasses. An improved image and higher magnification is achieved in binoculars employing Keplerian optics, since the Keplerian configuration produces an inverted image, different methods were used to turn the image right way up. In aprismatic binoculars with Keplerian optics each tube has one or two additional lenses between the objective and the ocular and these lenses are used to erect the image. The binoculars with erecting lenses have a disadvantage, their length is too long. Such binoculars were popular in the 1800s, but became obsolete shortly after the Karl Zeiss company introduced improved prism binoculars in the 1890s, Optical prisms added to the design are another way to turn the image right way up, usually in a Porro prism or roof-prisms design. Porro prism binoculars are named after Italian optician Ignazio Porro who patented this image erecting system in 1854, Binoculars of this type use a Porro prism in a double prism Z-shaped configuration to erect the image. This feature results in binoculars that are wide, with lenses that are well separated. Thus, the size of binoculars is reduced, Binoculars using roof prisms may have appeared as early as the 1870s in a design by Achille Victor Emile Daubresse. Most roof prism binoculars use either the Abbe-Koenig prism or the Schmidt-Pechan prism designs to erect the image and they have objective lenses that are approximately in line with the eyepieces. Roof-prisms designs create an instrument that is narrower and more compact than Porro prisms, there is also a difference in image brightness. Roof-prisms designs also require tighter tolerances for alignment of their optical elements and this adds to their expense since the design requires them to use fixed elements that need to be set at a high degree of collimation at the factory. Porro prisms binoculars occasionally need their prism sets to be re-aligned to bring them into collimation, the fixed alignment in roof-prism designs means the binoculars normally will not need re-collimation
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Laser rangefinder
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A laser rangefinder is a rangefinder which uses a laser beam to determine the distance to an object. Due to the speed of light, this technique is not appropriate for high precision sub-millimeter measurements. The pulse may be coded to reduce the chance that the rangefinder can be jammed and it is possible to use Doppler effect techniques to judge whether the object is moving towards or away from the rangefinder, and if so, how fast. The precision of the instrument is determined by the rise or fall time of the laser pulse, one that uses very sharp laser pulses and has a very fast detector can range an object to within a few millimeters. Some of the light might reflect off leaves or branches which are closer than the object, giving an early return. All these effects have to be taken into account, the distance between point A and B is given by D = c t 2 where c is the speed of light in the atmosphere and t is the amount of time for the round-trip between A and B. T = φ ω where φ is the delay made by the light traveling. Time of flight - this measures the time taken for a pulse to travel to the target. With the speed of light known, and a measurement of the time taken. Many pulses are fired sequentially and the response is most commonly used. This technique requires very accurate sub-nanosecond timing circuitry, multiple frequency phase-shift - this measures the phase shift of multiple frequencies on reflection then solves some simultaneous equations to give a final measure. Interferometry - the most accurate and most useful technique for measuring changes in distance rather than absolute distances, rangefinders provide an exact distance to targets located beyond the distance of point-blank shooting to snipers and artillery. They can also be used for military reconciliation and engineering, handheld military rangefinders operate at ranges of 2 km up to 25 km and are combined with binoculars or monoculars. When the rangefinder is equipped with a magnetic compass and inclinometer it is capable of providing magnetic azimuth, inclination. Some rangefinders can also measure a targets speed in relation to the observer, some rangefinders have cable or wireless interfaces to enable them to transfer their measurement data to other equipment like fire control computers. Some models also offer the possibility to use night vision modules. Most handheld rangefinders use standard or rechargeable batteries, the more powerful models of rangefinders measure distance up to 25 km and are normally installed either on a tripod or directly on a vehicle or gun platform. In the latter case the module is integrated with on-board thermal, night vision
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Observation post
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An observation post or O. P. temporary or fixed, is a position from which soldiers can watch enemy movements, to warn of approaching soldiers, or to direct artillery fire. This is especially important as the observer in the post should be rotated every 20–30 minutes, observation posts should be manned with at least two personnel, and should be provided a means of communication with their chain of command, preferably by phone instead of by radio. Often being positioned in secret very close to the enemy, an observation post is usually a small construct, often consisting largely of camouflage materials, however, where frontlines are expected to be stable for a longer time, an observation post may develop into a bunker-like installation. It is not unusual for soldiers to occupy a hide for long periods of time, to avoid detection they have to remove all their own waste, this is achieved with the aid of clingfilm, plastic bags and empty water bottles. One example of makeshift observation posts is Gaza Baptist Church, which was commandeered by both Fatah and Hamas troops during the Fatah–Hamas conflict
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Aviation in World War I
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World War I was the first major conflict involving the large-use of aircraft. Tethered observation balloons had already employed in several wars. Germany employed Zeppelins for reconnaissance over the North Sea and Baltic and also for strategic bombing raids over Britain, aeroplanes were just coming into military use at the outset of the war. Initially, they were used mostly for reconnaissance, pilots and engineers learned from experience, leading to the development of many specialized types, including fighters, bombers, and ground-attack aeroplanes. Ace fighter pilots were portrayed as modern knights, and many became popular heroes, the war also saw the appointment of high-ranking officers to direct the belligerent nations air war effort. This legislation was rooted in a fear that airplanes would be used to attack undefended cities, at the start of the war, there was some debate over the usefulness of aircraft in warfare. Many senior officers, in particular, remained sceptical, early scepticism and low expectations quickly turned to unrealistic demands beyond the capabilities of the primitive aircraft available. Even so, air reconnaissance played a role in the war of movement of 1914. On 22 August 1914, British Captain L. E. O, wadham reported German General Alexander von Klucks army was preparing to surround the BEF, contradicting all other intelligence. The British High Command took note of the report and started to withdraw toward Mons, later, during the First Battle of the Marne, observation aircraft discovered weak points and exposed flanks in the German lines, allowing the allies to take advantage of them. In Germany the great successes of the early Zeppelin airships had largely overshadowed the importance of heavier-than-air aircraft, out of a paper strength of about 230 aircraft belonging to the army in August 1914 only 180 or so were of any use. The French military aviation exercises of 1911,1912, and 1913 had pioneered cooperation with the cavalry and artillery, Great Britain had started late and initially relied largely on the French aircraft industry, especially for aircraft engines. The initial British contribution to the total allied airwar effort in August 1914 was three squadrons with about 30 serviceable machines. By the end of the war, Great Britain had formed the worlds first air force to be independent of either army or naval control, by the end of 1914 the line between the Germans and the Allies stretched from the North Sea to the Alps. The initial war of movement largely ceased, and the front became static, three main functions of short range reconnaissance squadrons had emerged by March 1915. The first was photographic reconnaissance, building up a complete map of the enemy trench system. The first air cameras used glass plates, artillery spotting enabled the ranging of artillery on targets invisible to the gunners. Radio telephony was not yet practical from an aircraft, so communication was a problem, by March 1915, a two-seater on artillery observation duties was typically equipped with a primitive radio transmitter transmitting using Morse code, but had no receiver
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Barrage (artillery)
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A barrage is a particular method of delivering massed artillery fire from a few or many batteries. Individual guns or howitzers are aimed at points, typically 20–30 yards apart, the lines are usually 100 yards apart and fire is lifted from one line to the next and one or several lines may be simultaneously engaged by different firing units. The artillery usually fired at a steady rate, using high explosive or shrapnel shells. Offensive barrages move forward in front of the troops, the pattern of barrage movement may be creeping, rolling or block. Barrage fire is not aimed at targets, it is aimed at areas in which there are known or expected targets. It contrasts with a concentration, in which the aim at a specific target in an area typically 150–250 metres diameter. The barrage was developed by the British in the Second Boer War, by late 1916 the creeping barrage was the standard means of applying artillery fire to support an infantry attack, with the infantry following the advancing barrage as closely as possible. Its employment in this way recognised the importance of fire in neutralizing, rather than destroying. It was found that a moving barrage immediately followed by the assault could be far more effective than weeks of preliminary bombardment. Barrages remained in use in World War II and later, but only as one of a variety of artillery tactics made possible by improvements in predicted fire, target location, the term barrage is widely, and technically incorrectly, used in the popular media for any artillery fire. The moving barrage was developed during the Boer War, one of several tactical innovations instituted under command of General Redvers Buller and it was a response to Boer defensive positions, notably at Tugela Heights and effective long range rifle fire. Artillery usually fired over open sights at visible targets, until the Second Boer War when indirect fire started to be used, the largest unit accustomed to firing at a single target was the brigade, normally 18 guns. Trench warfare led to the necessity for indirect firing through the use of observers, more sophisticated artillery fire plans, gunners had to use increasingly complicated calculations to lay the guns. Individual guns were aimed so that their fall of shot was co-ordinated with others to form a pattern, in the case of a barrage, the term “barrage” was first used in World War I in English in the orders for the Battle of Neuve Chapelle in 1915. A lifting barrage was a development in which the barrage lifted periodically to a further back. A moving barrage was a barrage that lifted in small increments, usually 100 yards every few minutes, so that it moved forward slowly, British normal practice evolved to fire at two lines simultaneously. Eventually, three patterns of advancing the barrage developed, in a creeping barrage, fire moved from one line to the next. In a block barrage, the block moved as block to the lines that were not previously engaged
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Close air support
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The requirement for detailed integration because of proximity, fires or movement is the determining factor. CAS may need to be conducted during shaping operations with Special Operations Forces, if the mission requires detailed integration with the fire, the term battlefield air interdiction is not currently used in U. S. joint doctrine. Close air support requires excellent coordination with ground forces, in advanced modern militaries, this coordination is typically handled by specialists such as Joint Fires Observers s, Joint Terminal Attack Controllers s, and Forward Air Controllers s. The use of aircraft in the air support of ground forces dates back to World War I. By that point, the startling and demoralizing effect that attack from the air could have on the troops in the trenches had been made clear, at the Battle of the Somme,18 British armed reconnaissance planes strafed the enemy trenches after conducting surveillance operations. The success of this improvised assault spurred innovation on both sides, in 1917, following the Second Battle of the Aisne the British debuted the first ground-attack aircraft, a modified F. E 2b fighter carrying 20-lb bombs and mounted machine-guns. After exhausting their ammunition the planes returned to base for refuelling and rearming, other modified planes used in this role were the Airco DH.5 and Sopwith Camel—the latter was particularly successful in this role. Aircraft support was first integrated into a plan on a large scale at the 1917 Battle of Cambrai. British doctrine at the time came to two forms of air support, trench strafing, and ground strafing —attacking tactical ground targets away from the land battle. As well as strafing with machine-guns, the planes were modified with bomb racks, the Germans were also quick to adopt this new form of warfare and were able to deploy aircraft in a similar capacity at Cambrai. While the British used single-seater planes, the Germans preferred the use of heavier two-seaters with a machine gunner in the aft cockpit. The Germans adopted the powerful Hannover CL. II and built the first purpose built ground attack aircraft, during the 1918 Spring Offensive the Germans employed 30 squadrons, or Schlasta, of ground attack fighters and were able to achieve some initial tactical success. The British later deployed the Sopwith Salamander as a ground attack aircraft. It was during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of 1918 that Close Air Support was first proven to be an important factor in ultimate victory, combined with a ground assault led by General Edmund Allenby, three Turkish armies soon collapsed into a full rout. In the words of the squadrons official report, No 1 Squadron made six heavy raids during the day. The panic and slaughter beggared description, the close air support doctrine was further developed in the interwar period. Most theorists advocated the adaptation of fighters or light bombers into the role, during this period, airpower advocates crystallized their views on the role of air-power in warfare. Aviators and ground officers developed largely opposing views on the importance of CAS, the inter-war period saw the use of CAS in a number of conflicts, including the Russo-Polish War, the Spanish Civil War, colonial wars in the Middle East and the Gran Chaco War
