1.
M67 Flame Thrower Tank
–
Flame Thrower Tank M67 is a postwar medium flame tank that was designed in the United States. It was designed in the years 1952–1954 on the M48 tank chassis, during the production, which lasted from 1955 to 1956 or 1959,109 M67 tanks were produced for the Marine Corps and US Army. R. P. Patton, A History of American Medium Tank Volume I
2.
M1919 Browning machine gun
–
The M1919 Browning is a.30 caliber medium machine gun that was widely used during the 20th century, especially during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. The M1919 saw service as an infantry, coaxial, mounted, aircraft. Many M1919s were rechambered for the new 7. 62×51mm NATO round, the M1919 was an air-cooled development of the standard US machine gun of World War I, the John M. Browning-designed water-cooled M1917. The emergence of machine guns in the 1950s pushed the M1919 into secondary roles in many cases. The United States Navy also converted many to 7. 62mm NATO, many NATO countries also converted their examples to 7.62, and these remained in service well into the 1990s, as well as up to the present day in some countries. A similar conversion of the M1917 also produced the larger M2 Machine Gun, using the basic operating principles and layout. The M1919 is distinguished by its size and the use of a pierced cheese-grater-like guard around the barrel used on most versions. The M1919 originally fired the.30 cal M1906 ball cartridge, a metal M1 link was later adopted, forming a disintegrating belt. The cocking handle was pulled back with the palm of the hand facing up. This advanced the first round of the belt in front of the bolt for the extractor/ejector on the bolt to grab the first cartridge, the cocking handle was pulled and released a second time. This removed the first cartridge from the belt, advanced the next round into position to be grabbed and moved the first round down into the chamber of the ready for firing. As the bolt went into battery, the extractor grabbed the next round on the belt that was advanced and was resting in the feedway waiting to be loaded. If the trigger was held down, the gun would continue to fire in full automatic, the guns original design was as a water-cooled machine gun. When it was decided to try to lighten the gun and make it air-cooled, gunners were trained to manage the barrel heat by firing in controlled bursts of three to five rounds, with a delay between bursts to delay its heating. When the gun was ready to fire, a round would be in the chamber and the bolt and barrel group would be locked together, with the locking block at the rear of the bolt. As the assembly of bolt, barrel and barrel extension recoiled to the rear of the gun upon firing, the recoiling barrel extension struck the accelerator assembly, a half-moon shaped spring-loaded piece of metal pivoting from the receiver below the bolt and behind the barrel extension. The tips of the accelerators two curving fingers engaged the bottom of the bolt and caused it to move rapidly to the rear. The extractor-ejector was a mechanism that pivoted over the front of the bolt, the rearward movement of the bolt caused the rear end of the feed lever to pull to the right, causing the feeding pawl at the other end to move left over the belt
3.
Tank
–
A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat, with heavy firepower, strong armour, and tracks providing good battlefield maneuverability. The first tanks were designed to overcome the deadlock of trench warfare, now they are a mainstay of ground forces. Modern tanks are versatile mobile land weapon platforms, mounting a large-calibre cannon in a rotating gun turret. In both offensive and defensive roles, they are units that are capable of performing tasks which are required of armoured units on the battlefield. As a result of advances, tanks underwent tremendous shifts in capability in the years since their first appearance. Tanks in World War I were developed separately and simultaneously by Great Britain and this was a prototype of a new design that would become the British Armys Mark I tank, the first tank used in combat in September 1916 during the Battle of the Somme. The name tank was adopted by the British during the stages of their development. While the British and French built thousands of tanks in World War I, Germany was unconvinced of the tanks potential, Tanks of the interwar period evolved into the much larger and more powerful designs of World War II. Tanks in the Cold War were designed with these weapons in mind, improved engines, transmissions and suspensions allowed tanks of this period to grow larger. Aspects of gun technology changed significantly as well, with advances in shell design, during the Cold War, the main battle tank concept arose and became a key component of modern armies. Modern tanks seldom operate alone, as they are organized into combined arms units which involve the support of infantry and they are also usually supported by reconnaissance or ground-attack aircraft. The tank is the 20th century realization of an ancient concept, the internal combustion engine, armour plate, and continuous track were key innovations leading to the invention of the modern tank. Many sources imply that Leonardo da Vinci and H. G. Wells in some way foresaw or invented the tank, leonardos late 15th century drawings of what some describe as a tank show a man-powered, wheeled vehicle with cannons all around it. However the human crew would not have power to move it over larger distance. In the 15th century, Jan Žižka built armoured wagons containing cannons, the caterpillar track arose from attempts to improve the mobility of wheeled vehicles by spreading their weight, reducing ground pressure, and increasing their traction. Experiments can be traced back as far as the 17th century and it is frequently claimed that Richard Lovell Edgeworth created a caterpillar track. It is true that in 1770 he patented a machine, that should carry and lay down its own road and his own account in his autobiography is of a horse-drawn wooden carriage on eight retractable legs, capable of lifting itself over high walls. The description bears no similarity to a caterpillar track, armoured trains appeared in the mid-19th century, and various armoured steam and petrol-engined vehicles were also proposed
4.
Flamethrower
–
A flamethrower is a mechanical incendiary device designed to project a long, controllable stream of fire. They were first used by the Greeks in the 1st Century AD, in modern times, they were used during World War I, and more widely in World War II. Some flamethrowers project a stream of ignited flammable liquid, some project a long gas flame, most military flamethrowers use liquids, but commercial flamethrowers tend to use high-pressure propane and natural gas, which is considered safer. They are used by the military and by people needing controlled burning capacity and they can be designed to be either carried by the operator or mounted on a vehicle. Modern flamethrowers were first used during the trench warfare conditions of World War I and they can be vehicle mounted, as on a tank, or man-portable. The man-portable flamethrower consists of two elements, a backpack and the gun, the backpack element usually consists of two or three cylinders. In a two-cylinder system, one cylinder holds compressed, inert propellant gas, a three-cylinder system often has two outer cylinders of flammable liquid and a central cylinder of propellant gas to maintain the balance of the soldier carrying it. The gas propels the liquid out of the cylinder through a flexible pipe. The igniter can be one of several systems, A simple type is an electrically-heated wire coil, another used a small pilot flame. The flamethrower is a potent weapon with great impact upon unprepared soldiers. This has led to calls for the weapon to be banned. It is primarily used against battlefield fortifications, bunkers, and other protected emplacements, typically, popular visual media depict the flamethrower as short-ranged and only effective for a few meters. Flamethrowers pose many risks to the operator, the first disadvantage was the weapons weight, which impairs the soldiers mobility. The weapon is limited to only a few seconds of time since it uses fuel very quickly, requiring the operator to be precise. The weapon was very visible on the battlefield, which caused operators to become immediately singled out as prominent targets, Flamethrower operators were rarely taken prisoner, especially when their target survived an attack by the weapon, captured flamethrower users were in some cases summarily executed. Finally, the effective range was short in comparison with that of other battlefield weapons of similar size. To be effective, flamethrower soldiers must approach their target, risking exposure to enemy fire, vehicular flamethrowers also have this problem, they may have considerably greater range than a man-portable flamethrower, but their range is still short compared with that of other infantry weapons. The risk of an operator being caught in the explosion of his weapon due to enemy hits on the tanks is exaggerated in Hollywood films
5.
Combined arms
–
Combined arms is an approach to warfare which seeks to integrate different combat arms of a military to achieve mutually complementary effects. The mixing of arms is sometimes pushed down below the level where homogeneity ordinarily prevails, combined arms operations dates back to antiquity, where armies would usually field a screen of skirmishers to protect their spearmen during the approach to contact. Especially in the case of the Greek hoplites however, the focus of military thinking lay almost exclusively on the heavy infantry. Philip II of Macedon greatly improved upon the combined arms tactics of the Greek city-states and combined the newly created Macedonian Phalanx with heavy cavalry. The Phalanx would hold the line in place, until the heavy cavalry could smash. The pre-Marian Roman Legion was a combined force and consisted of five classes of troops. Lightly equipped velites acted as skirmishers armed with light javelins, the fifth class were the equites, the cavalry, used for scouting, pursuit and to guard the flanks. The army of the Han Dynasty is also an example, fielding mêlée infantry, crossbowmen, civilizations such as the Carthaginians and Sassanids also were known to have fielded a combination of infantry supported by powerful cavalry. At the Battle of Hastings English infantry fighting from behind a wall were defeated by a Norman army consisting of archers, infantry. One of the used by the Normans was to tempt the English to leave the shield wall to attack retreating Norman infantry only to destroy them in the open with cavalry. Both Hastings and Falkirk showed how combined arms could be used to defeat enemies relying on one arm. The lightly protected longbowmen could down their French opponents at a distance and this is the crux of combined arms, to allow a combination of forces to achieve what would be impossible for its constituent elements to do alone. During the Middle Ages military forces used combined arms as a method of winning battles, some historians claim that during the Middle Ages there was no strategic or tactical art to military combat. Kelly DeVries uses the Merriam-Webster definition of combat “as a general military engagement. ”In the pursuit of a leaders goals and self-interest tactical and strategic thinking was used along with taking advantage of the terrain and weather in choosing when and where to give battle. The simplest example is the combination of different specialties such as archers, infantry, cavalry, at times, each force fought on its own and won or lost depending on the opposing military competence. During the Middle Ages leaders utilized a combination of skilled and unskilled forces to win battles. An army that has multiple skills available can engage a force that is comprised mainly of one or two types of troops. Each type of military formation –infantry, archers, cavalry, or peasant –has certain advantages that the other does not have
6.
Fortification
–
Fortifications are military constructions or buildings designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and also used to solidify rule in a region during peace time. Humans have constructed defensive works for many thousands of years, in a variety of increasingly complex designs, the term is derived from the Latin fortis and facere. From very early history to modern times, walls have been a necessity for cities to survive in a changing world of invasion. Some settlements in the Indus Valley Civilization were the first small cities to be fortified, in ancient Greece, large stone walls had been built in Mycenaean Greece, such as the ancient site of Mycenae. A Greek Phrourion was a collection of buildings used as a military garrison. These construction mainly served the purpose of a tower, to guard certain roads, passes. Though smaller than a fortress, they acted as a border guard rather than a real strongpoint to watch. The art of setting out a camp or constructing a fortification traditionally has been called castramentation since the time of the Roman legions. Fortification is usually divided into two branches, permanent fortification and field fortification, there is also an intermediate branch known as semi-permanent fortification. Castles are fortifications which are regarded as being distinct from the fort or fortress in that they are a residence of a monarch or noble. Roman forts and hill forts were the antecedents of castles in Europe. The Early Middle Ages saw the creation of towns built around castles. Medieval-style fortifications were made obsolete by the arrival of cannons in the 14th century. Fortifications in the age of black powder evolved into much lower structures with greater use of ditches and earth ramparts that would absorb, Walls exposed to direct cannon fire were very vulnerable, so were sunk into ditches fronted by earth slopes. The arrival of explosive shells in the 19th century led to yet another stage in the evolution of fortification, steel-and-concrete fortifications were common during the 19th and early 20th centuries. However the advances in warfare since World War I have made large-scale fortifications obsolete in most situations. Demilitarized zones along borders are arguably another type of fortification, although a passive kind, many military installations are known as forts, although they are not always fortified. Larger forts may be called fortresses, smaller ones were known as fortalices
7.
World War II
–
World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
8.
United States
–
Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
9.
Soviet Union
–
The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
10.
Nazi Germany
–
Nazi Germany is the common English name for the period in German history from 1933 to 1945, when Germany was governed by a dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Under Hitlers rule, Germany was transformed into a fascist state in which the Nazi Party took totalitarian control over all aspects of life. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich from 1933 to 1943, the period is also known under the names the Third Reich and the National Socialist Period. The Nazi regime came to an end after the Allied Powers defeated Germany in May 1945, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933. The Nazi Party then began to eliminate all opposition and consolidate its power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator of Germany by merging the powers and offices of the Chancellery, a national referendum held 19 August 1934 confirmed Hitler as sole Führer of Germany. All power was centralised in Hitlers person, and his word became above all laws, the government was not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of factions struggling for power and Hitlers favour. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending, extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of Autobahnen. The return to economic stability boosted the regimes popularity, racism, especially antisemitism, was a central feature of the regime. The Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be the purest branch of the Aryan race, millions of Jews and other peoples deemed undesirable by the state were murdered in the Holocaust. Opposition to Hitlers rule was ruthlessly suppressed, members of the liberal, socialist, and communist opposition were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. The Christian churches were also oppressed, with many leaders imprisoned, education focused on racial biology, population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed, recreation and tourism were organised via the Strength Through Joy program, and the 1936 Summer Olympics showcased the Third Reich on the international stage. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels made effective use of film, mass rallies, the government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. Beginning in the late 1930s, Nazi Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands and it seized Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939. Hitler made a pact with Joseph Stalin and invaded Poland in September 1939. In alliance with Italy and smaller Axis powers, Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940, reichskommissariats took control of conquered areas, and a German administration was established in what was left of Poland. Jews and others deemed undesirable were imprisoned, murdered in Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the tide gradually turned against the Nazis, who suffered major military defeats in 1943
Media related to Flame tanks at Wikimedia Commons