1.
Camp Funston
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Camp Funston was a U. S. Army training camp located on Fort Riley, southwest of Manhattan, Kansas. The camp was named for Brigadier General Frederick Funston, Camp Funston was one of sixteen Divisional Cantonment Training Camps established at the outbreak of World War I. Construction began during the summer of 1917 and eventually encompassed approximately 1,400 buildings on 2,000 acres, during World War I, nearly 50,000 recruits trained at the camp, commanded by Major General Leonard Wood. Notable units who received training at Camp Funston include the 89th Division, which was deployed to France in the spring of 1918, during World War I, Camp Funston also served as a detention camp for conscientious objectors many of which were Mennonite in faith. Since it was compulsory, Hutterites sent their young men to military camps, in March 1918, some of the first recorded American cases of what came to be the worldwide influenza epidemic, also known as Spanish Flu, were reported at Camp Funston. The Correctional Brigade environment was unique in that control was maintained by military discipline, instead of walls. Moreover, this system was asserted to be less expensive to establish. Today, Camp Funston is the location where the training of all military transition teams for service in Iraq and Afghanistan takes place. Previously, transition teams had trained at several U. S. Army installations, most notably Fort Carson, Colorado, Camp Atterbury, Indiana, Fort Hood, Texas. However, in early 2006, the U. S. Army decided to all training at Fort Riley, Kansas, in order to standardize. The first teams began training on June 1,2006, the 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division took over command and control of the TT mission in October 2006. The brigade is responsible for the formation and training of the TT teams and this mission will shift to Fort Polk, Louisiana later in 2009
2.
Fire control tower
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The U. S. Coast Artillery fire control system included many fire control towers, which were used between about 1900 and the end of WW2. For example, the control tower at Site 131-1A contained one OP. A shorthand notation was used to identify the stations, for instance, the top story of Site 131-1A was planned to contain base end station #3 and spotting station #3 for Battery #15. The overall plan document for the harbor defenses contained a list that linked the tactical numbers of all batteries to their names and that document also contained an organization chart that identified all the Command and Group codes, like G3. These towers were arrayed in networks along the coast on either side of the batteries they supported. The number and height of the towers was determined by the range of the guns involved, many fire control towers were also part of a harbors antiaircraft warning system. Spotters occupied cramped crows nests on the top floors of the towers that enabled them to lift a trapdoor in the towers roof and scan the sky for approaching aircraft. When an enemy craft was detected, bearings to it were measured from a pair of towers. A fire control tower was five to ten stories tall, depending on the height of the site at which it was built. Often made of poured concrete, its floors were usually unoccupied and were capped by occupied observation levels. Staircases ran up to the lowest observation level, and wooden ladders were used to climb to higher levels. But some fire control structures built atop hills or bluffs only needed to be one- or two-story buildings. Sometimes these buildings were camouflaged as private homes, and were referred to as fire control cottages, the center of octagonal concrete mounting pad on the eight floor of 131-1A was usually the surveyed point at the end of the baseline. A survey marker embedded in the roof directly above this pad defined this point. Other observing instruments on lower floors of the tower were usually lined up directly beneath the eighth floor mounting pad, Site 131-1A had electric lights, phones, and radio communications, and a time interval bell that was used for coordinating fire control information. Some fire control towers were also the points for coast surveillance or fire control radar antennas. Although our sample tower has a simple, square appearance, some versions of these towers in New England had round or partly octagonal plans, each major battery of Coast Artillery guns was supported by a network of fire control structures which were spread out along the nearby coast. Guns of longer range had larger numbers of fire stations in their networks
3.
San Francisco
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San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. It is the birthplace of the United Nations, the California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856, after three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II, San Francisco was a port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. Politically, the city votes strongly along liberal Democratic Party lines, San Francisco is also the headquarters of five major banking institutions and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co. Dolby, Airbnb, Weebly, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, Uber, Lyft, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, as of 2016, San Francisco is ranked high on world liveability rankings. The earliest archaeological evidence of habitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the system gradually ended, and its lands became privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7,1846, during the Mexican–American War, montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco on January 30 of the next year, despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography. The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers, with their sourdough bread in tow, prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. Some of these approximately 500 abandoned ships were used at times as storeships, saloons and hotels, many were left to rot, by 1851 the harbor was extended out into the bay by wharves while buildings were erected on piles among the ships. By 1870 Yerba Buena Cove had been filled to create new land, buried ships are occasionally exposed when foundations are dug for new buildings. California was quickly granted statehood in 1850 and the U. S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate, silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush
4.
California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
5.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
6.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
7.
Seacoast defense in the United States
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Seacoast defense was a major concern for the United States from its independence until World War II. Before airplanes, Americas enemies could only reach her from the sea, after the 1940s, it was recognized that fixed fortifications were obsolete and ineffective against aircraft and missiles. However, in prior eras foreign fleets were a realistic threat, the defenses heavily depended on fortifications but also included submarine minefields, nets and booms, ships, and airplanes. Therefore, all of the armed forces participated in seacoast defense, designs evolved and became obsolete with changes in the technology available to both the attacking forces and the defenders. At the beginning of the American Revolution, many coastal fortifications already protected the Atlantic coast, prior to independence from Britain, local communities or colonies bore the cost and responsibility for their own protection. Urgency would wax and wane based on the climate in Europe. Most defenses were artillery protected by earthworks, as protection from pirate raids, though seldom used, the forts were a deterrent. Additional forts, called Patriot batteries, were built during the Revolution, when the United States gained independence in 1783, the seacoast defense fortifications were in poor condition. Twenty significant forts at thirteen harbors were approved for construction, mostly with traditional low walled structures with low sloped earthworks protecting wood or brick walls. The conventional wisdom was that soft earth would cushion the effect of fire against the walls. The angled walls also reduced the chance for more destructive straight-on hits from cannonballs, most First System forts were relatively small, and with some exceptions mounted only one tier of cannon, on the roof of the fort. Additional water batteries outside the fort provided more firepower, lacking trained engineers to supervise the work, Secretary of War Henry Knox placed a number of European engineers under contract. Although some fine forts were constructed, for the most part enthusiasm and funding waned, most of the partially finished earthworks and wooden structures deteriorated before they were needed to defend against the British in 1812. In 1802, Congress separated the artillerists and engineers into separate corps and directed the Corps of Engineers to create a military academy at West Point, one of the driving forces for establishing the new academy was the need to divorce the United States from its reliance on foreign engineers. In 1807-1808, new concerns over a war with Great Britain, prompted President Thomas Jefferson to renew fortification programs. One common weakness among the typical low-walled open bastion or star forts was exposure to fire, especially to new devices designed to explode in mid air. Gun emplacements which were at an angle to the sea were vulnerable to a solid shot running parallel to the taking out a row of guns. In the late 1770s, a French engineer, the Marquis de Montalembert and his design protected a forts gunners by placing most of them in covered casemate walls with openings for the guns
8.
United States Army
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The United States Army is the largest branch of the United States Armed Forces and performs land-based military operations. After the Revolutionary War, the Congress of the Confederation created the United States Army on 3 June 1784, the United States Army considers itself descended from the Continental Army, and dates its institutional inception from the origin of that armed force in 1775. As a uniformed service, the Army is part of the Department of the Army. As a branch of the forces, the mission of the U. S. The branch participates in conflicts worldwide and is the major ground-based offensive and defensive force of the United States, the United States Army serves as the land-based branch of the U. S. Section 3062 of Title 10, U. S, the army was initially led by men who had served in the British Army or colonial militias and who brought much of British military heritage with them. As the Revolutionary War progressed, French aid, resources, a number of European soldiers came on their own to help, such as Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, who taught Prussian Army tactics and organizational skills. The army fought numerous pitched battles and in the South in 1780–81 sometimes used the Fabian strategy and hit-and-run tactics, hitting where the British were weakest, to wear down their forces. Washington led victories against the British at Trenton and Princeton, but lost a series of battles in the New York and New Jersey campaign in 1776, with a decisive victory at Yorktown, and the help of the French, the Continental Army prevailed against the British. After the war, though, the Continental Army was quickly given land certificates, State militias became the new nations sole ground army, with the exception of a regiment to guard the Western Frontier and one battery of artillery guarding West Points arsenal. However, because of continuing conflict with Native Americans, it was realized that it was necessary to field a trained standing army. The War of 1812, the second and last war between the United States and Great Britain, had mixed results. After taking control of Lake Erie in 1813, the U. S. Army seized parts of western Upper Canada, burned York and defeated Tecumseh, which caused his Western Confederacy to collapse. Following U. S. victories in the Canadian province of Upper Canada, British troops, were able to capture and burn Washington, which was defended by militia, in 1814. Two weeks after a treaty was signed, Andrew Jackson defeated the British in the Battle of New Orleans and Siege of Fort St. Philip, U. S. troops and sailors captured HMS Cyane, Levant, and Penguin in the final engagements of the war. Per the treaty, both sides, the United States and Great Britain, returned to the status quo. Both navies kept the warships they had seized during the conflict, the armys major campaign against the Indians was fought in Florida against Seminoles. It took long wars to defeat the Seminoles and move them to Oklahoma
9.
United States Army Coast Artillery Corps
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The U. S. Army Coast Artillery Corps was a corps level organization responsible for coastal, harbor, and anti-aircraft defense of the United States between 1901 and 1950. The CAC also operated heavy and railway artillery during World War I, as early as 1882 the need for heavy fixed artillery for seacoast defense was noted in Chester A. In 1885 the Endicott Board was convened under the subsequent Grover Cleveland administration and this board recommended a large-scale program of harbor defenses at 29 ports, including guns, mortars, and mine fields. Most of their recommendations were implemented and new defenses were constructed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers 1895-1905, as the defenses were constructed, each harbor or rivers installations were controlled by Artillery Districts, renamed Coast Defense Commands in 1913 and Harbor Defense Commands in 1925. An extensive fire control system was developed and provided for the forts of each Coast Artillery District, Army leaders realized that heavy fixed artillery required different training programs and tactics than mobile field artillery. Prior to 1901 each of the seven artillery regiments contained both heavy and light artillery batteries, in February 1901 the Artillery Corps was divided into two types, field artillery and coast artillery. The previous seven artillery regiments were dissolved, and 30 numbered companies of artillery and 126 numbered companies of coast artillery were authorized. 82 existing heavy artillery batteries were designated as coast artillery companies, the company-based organization was for flexibility, as each harbor defense command was differently equipped and a task-based organization was needed. The Coast Artillery would alternate between small unit and regimental organization several times over its history, the head of the Artillery Corps became the Chief of Artillery in the rank of brigadier general with jurisdiction over both types of artillery. The Coast Artillery became responsible for the installation and operation of the mine fields that were planted to be under observation, fired electrically. The mine component was considered to be among the armament of coastal defense works. In 1905, after the experiences of the Spanish–American War, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed a new board on fortifications and they updated some standards and reviewed the progress of the Endicott boards program. Most of the changes recommended by this board were technical, such as adding more searchlights, electrification, the board also recommended fortifications in territories acquired from Spain, Cuba and the Philippines, as well as Hawaii and a few other sites. Defenses in Panama were authorized by the Spooner Act of 1902, due to rapid development of the dreadnought battleship type, a new 14-inch gun was introduced in a few locations, primarily Los Angeles, the Philippines, and Panama. The Taft program fortifications differed slightly in construction and had fewer numbers of guns at a given location than those of the Endicott program. By the beginning of World War I, the United States had a defense system that was equal to any other nation. The rapidity of technological advances and changing techniques increasingly separated coastal defenses from field artillery, officers were rarely qualified to command both, requiring specialization. National Guard coast artillery units were formed by the states to attempt to bring the CAC up to strength in wartime
10.
Golden Gate National Recreation Area
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The Golden Gate National Recreation Area is a U. S. National Recreation Area protecting 80,002 acres of ecologically and historically significant landscapes surrounding the San Francisco Bay Area. Much of the park is land used by the United States Army. GGNRA is managed by the National Park Service and is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with more than 15 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world, the park is not one continuous locale, but rather a collection of areas that stretch from southern San Mateo County to northern Marin County, and includes several areas of San Francisco. The park is as diverse as it is expansive, it contains famous tourist attractions such as Muir Woods National Monument, Alcatraz, the park was created thanks to the cooperative legislative efforts of cosponsors Congressman William S. Mailliard and Congressman Phillip Burton. In 1972, President Richard Nixon signed into law An Act to Establish the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, the bill allocated $120 million for land acquisition and development. The National Park Service first purchased Alcatraz and Fort Mason from the U. S. Army, the Nature Conservancy then transferred the land to the GGNRA. These properties formed the basis for the park. Throughout the next 30 years, the National Park service acquired land and historic sites from the U. S. Army, private landowners and corporations, incorporating them into the GGNRA. Many decommissioned Army bases and fortifications were incorporated into the park, including Fort Funston, four Nike missile sites, The Presidio, the latest acquisition by the National Park Service is Mori Point, a small parcel of land on the Pacifica coast. In 1988, UNESCO designated the GGNRA and 12 adjacent protected areas the Golden Gate Biosphere Reserve, the property, located south of Pacifica and surrounding the communities of Moss Beach and Montara, is home to many diverse plant and animal species. The bill passed in the Senate, but did not pass the House of Representatives, Fort Baker - former Army post located on the northern side of the Golden Gate Headlands Center for the Arts - an artist residency program set in renovated military buildings in the Marin Headlands. Nike Missile Site SF-88 - a decommissioned Army surface-to-air missile site located near Fort Barry, located at the southwestern corner of the Presidio Battery Chamberlin - one of the last remaining coastal defense disappearing guns on the U. S. Trails lead across the ridge and to Sharp Park beach, the site includes recently restored wetlands and a pond, protecting endangered San Francisco garter snake and red-legged frog habitat. Rancho Corral de Tierra - the GGNRAs newest park, Golden Gate National Recreation Area Scenery Video, a video showing the scenery observed from the GGNRA, including footage from Lands End
11.
Frederick N. Funston
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Frederick Funston also known as Fighting Fred Funston, was a general in the United States Army, best known for his role in the Spanish–American War and the Philippine–American War. He received the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Philippine–American War, Funston was born in New Carlisle, Ohio to Edward H. Funston and Anne Eliza Mitchell Funston. In 1881 his family moved to Allen County, Kansas and his father, was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1884. While there, he joined the Phi Delta Theta fraternity and became friends with future Pulitzer Prize winner William Allen White and he worked as a trainman for the Santa Fe Railroad before becoming a reporter in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1890. After one year as a journalist, Funston moved into more scientific exploration, after a bout of malaria, Funstons weight dropped to an alarming 95 pounds and he was given a leave of absence by the Cubans. When Funston returned to the United States, he was commissioned as a colonel of the 20th Kansas Infantry in the United States Army on May 13,1898, in the early days of the Spanish–American War. In the fall, he met Eda Blankart at a patriotic gathering, within two weeks of the marriage, he landed in the Philippines as part of the U. S. forces that would become engaged in the Philippine–American War. Funston was in command in various engagements with Filipino nationalists, in April 1899, he took a Filipino position at Calumpit by swimming the Bagbag River, then crossing the Pampanga River under heavy fire. For his bravery, Funston was soon promoted to the rank of general of Volunteers. Funston played the key role in planning and executing the capture of Filipino President Emilio Aguinaldo on March 23,1901, the capture of Aguinaldo made Funston a national hero, although the anti-imperialist faction attempted to tarnish when the details of the capture became known. Funstons party, escorted by a company of Macabebe scouts, had gained access to Aguinaldos camp by posing as prisoners of Macabebe scouts, in recognition of his capture of Aguinaldo, Funston was appointed a brigadier general in the Regular Army at the age of 35. Funstons dangerous mission to capture Aguinaldo brought him a Regular Army commission just as he was scheduled to be mustered out of the volunteer service. In 1902, Funston returned to the United States to increased opposition to the Philippine–American War. Mark Twain, an opponent of U. S. imperialism, published a sarcasm-filled denunciation of Funstons mission. Poet Ernest Crosby also wrote a satirical, anti-imperialist novel, Captain Jinks, Hero, on March 29,1899, Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo arrived in San Isidro, Nueva Ecija, and proclaimed the town capital of the First Philippine Republic. He stayed in the house, using it as the de facto Philippine capitol, when the Americans occupied San Isidro, the Sideco house served as the headquarters of Gen. Frederick Funston, who would later capture General Aguinaldo in Palanan, Isabela. General Aguinaldos capture is said to have planned in this house. It is now occupied by a Christian organization, in 1906, Funston was in command of the Presidio of San Francisco when the 1906 San Francisco earthquake hit
12.
Artillery battery
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The term is also used in a naval context to describe groups of guns on warships. Historically the term referred to a cluster of cannon in action as a group. Such batteries could be a mixture of cannon, howitzer, or mortar types, a siege could involve many batteries at different sites around the besieged place. The term also came to be used for a group of cannon in a fixed fortification and they were usually organised with between six and 12 ordnance pieces, often including cannon and howitzers. By the late 19th century battery had become standard mostly replacing company or troop, in the 20th century the term was generally used for the company level sub-unit of an artillery branch including field, air-defence, anti-tank and position. 20th-century firing batteries have been equipped with mortars, guns, howitzers, rockets, during the Napoleonic Wars some armies started grouping their batteries into larger administrative and field units. Groups of batteries combined for field combat employment called Grand Batteries by Napoleon, administratively batteries were usually grouped in battalions, regiments or squadrons and these developed into tactical organisations. These were further grouped into regiments, simply group or brigades, to further concentrate fire of individual batteries, from World War I they were grouped into artillery divisions in a few armies. Coastal artillery sometimes had completely different organizational terms based on shore defence sector areas, the rank of a battery commander has also varied, but is usually a lieutenant, captain, or major. The number of guns, howitzers, mortars or launchers in a battery has also varied. In the 19th century four to 12 guns was usual as the number to maneuver into the gun line. By late 19th century the artillery battery was divided into a gun line. The gun line consisted of six guns and 12 ammunition mules, during the American Civil War, artillery batteries often consisted of six field pieces for the Union Army and four for the Confederate States Army, although this varied. Batteries were divided into sections of two guns apiece, each section normally under the command of a lieutenant, the full battery was typically commanded by a captain. Often, particularly as the war progressed, individual batteries were grouped into battalions under a major or colonel of artillery, in the 20th century it varied between four and 12 for field artillery, or even two pieces for very heavy pieces. Other types of such as anti-tank or anti-aircraft have sometimes been larger. Some batteries have been dual-equipped with two different types of gun or mortar, and taking whichever was more appropriate when they deployed for operations, from the late 19th century field artillery batteries started to become more complex organisations. Fixed artillery refers to guns or howitzers on mounts that were anchored in one spot, or on carriages intended to be moved only for the purposes of aiming
13.
California State Route 35
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State Route 35 in the U. S. It also provides views of the Silicon Valley Metropolitan Area. It was originally designated State Route 5, but this was changed with the creation of Interstate 5 in 1964 and this route is part of the California Freeway and Expressway System and is eligible for the State Scenic Highway System. However, only the portion from the Santa Cruz-Santa Clara County line to the SR92 junction is actually a scenic highway. The highway begins at the junction of Summit Road and State Route 17. It bears the name Skyline Boulevard for a majority of its route along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains to the west of Silicon Valley, passing cities such as San Jose, Saratoga, and Palo Alto. The southern portion of the road, starting at Highway 17 and ending at Black Road, is mostly a narrow, from Black Road going north the road has been upgraded. The road reaches its highest elevation near Sanborn Skyline County Park at about 3,000 ft, the ridge that the road follows forms the border between Santa Cruz and Santa Clara counties. However, the boundary is so irregular that the road weaves in, Highway 35 is co-routed with SR92 for 2 miles east, descending towards Crystal Springs Reservoir, which it crosses on a causeway, and then joins Interstate 280 northbound for 6 miles. However, on the side, Route 35 exists as a separate road to the west of the freeway between Bunker Hill Dr. and Route 92, as there is no connector road between 280 South and 92 West. Route 35 departs from 280 at the end of San Bruno, running to the west of the freeway, regaining the ridgetop separating South San Francisco. Because of its views and winding roadway, Skyline Boulevard. Many sports cars and motorcycles can be found congregating near the intersections with State Route 9 and State Route 84, mountain bikers are also commonly found at the many trailheads along the road. Numerous hiking trails originate from parking lots off Skyline in these open spaces. Whenever there is snow on the higher elevations, many people take their families up to see and play in the snow. For most of the route, State Route 35 offers vistas of both Silicon Valleys skyline, and also the Pacific Ocean, among the bayside streams are San Francisquito Creek, Redwood Creek, and San Bruno Creek. As old highway maps show, State Route 35 was originally designated State Route 5, the number was changed in the 1964 renumbering. The original state route 35 was located in southern California and ran north to south from State Route 22 to U. S.99, the highway continued west on Centralia Road and then north along Pioneer Blvd. until hitting San Antonio drive at Rosecrans Ave
14.
Lake Merced
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Lake Merced is a freshwater lake in the southwest corner of San Francisco, in the U. S. state of California. The San Francisco Police Department shooting range, as well as a shooting club. The lake is home of the Pacific Rowing Club and St. Ignatius College Prep Rowing Team, Lake Merced was originally christened Laguna de Nuestra Señora de la Merced by Captain Don Bruno de Heceta in 1775. The most probable cause of the shock was attributed to heavy rains forcing a passage through the sandbank at the north-west, the Lake is reported to have lost 30 feet of water. A map from 1881 shows that the Lake still had a passage to sea,29 years later, by purchasing all local supply, the company created a monopoly on San Franciscos water. It was not until 1908, when the city approved construction of OShaughnessy Dam creating the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, that the city gained municipal control. Prior to the construction of the dam, Lake Merced was to serve as the main reservoir. Around this time, Spring Valley sold off some of its land on Lake Merced, in 1940, Metropolitan Life bought the last of Spring Valleys land to build the Parkmerced apartment complex. Lake Merced at one time directly flowed into the ocean, the lake is fed by an underground spring, and at one time it did have an outlet to the ocean as shown on an 1869 United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Map. The salt level was always fluctuating, and therefore some species of fish inhabit the lake are salt. There is active recreational fishing at the lake, the lakes water level had been shrinking for decades, endangering the historic role of Lake Merced to support a healthy ecosystem. Due to better management of the aquifer and occasional additions of water, on September 13,1859, Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court David S. Terry killed United States Senator David C. Broderick in a duel at the lake
15.
Pacific Ocean
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The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of the Earths oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, the Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific is the deepest point in the world, reaching a depth of 10,911 metres. Both the center of the Water Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere are in the Pacific Ocean, the oceans current name was coined by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish circumnavigation of the world in 1521, as he encountered favourable winds on reaching the ocean. He called it Mar Pacífico, which in both Portuguese and Spanish means peaceful sea, important human migrations occurred in the Pacific in prehistoric times. Long-distance trade developed all along the coast from Mozambique to Japan, trade, and therefore knowledge, extended to the Indonesian islands but apparently not Australia. By at least 878 when there was a significant Islamic settlement in Canton much of trade was controlled by Arabs or Muslims. In 219 BC Xu Fu sailed out into the Pacific searching for the elixir of immortality, from 1404 to 1433 Zheng He led expeditions into the Indian Ocean. The east side of the ocean was discovered by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513 after his expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama and he named it Mar del Sur because the ocean was to the south of the coast of the isthmus where he first observed the Pacific. Later, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sailed the Pacific East to West on a Castilian expedition of world circumnavigation starting in 1519, Magellan called the ocean Pacífico because, after sailing through the stormy seas off Cape Horn, the expedition found calm waters. The ocean was often called the Sea of Magellan in his honor until the eighteenth century, sailing around and east of the Moluccas, between 1525 and 1527, Portuguese expeditions discovered the Caroline Islands, the Aru Islands, and Papua New Guinea. In 1542–43 the Portuguese also reached Japan, in 1564, five Spanish ships consisting of 379 explorers crossed the ocean from Mexico led by Miguel López de Legazpi and sailed to the Philippines and Mariana Islands. The Manila galleons operated for two and a half centuries linking Manila and Acapulco, in one of the longest trade routes in history, Spanish expeditions also discovered Tuvalu, the Marquesas, the Cook Islands, the Solomon Islands, and the Admiralty Islands in the South Pacific. In the 16th and 17th century Spain considered the Pacific Ocean a Mare clausum—a sea closed to other naval powers, as the only known entrance from the Atlantic the Strait of Magellan was at times patrolled by fleets sent to prevent entrance of non-Spanish ships. On the western end of the Pacific Ocean the Dutch threatened the Spanish Philippines, Spain also sent expeditions to the Pacific Northwest reaching Vancouver Island in southern Canada, and Alaska. The French explored and settled Polynesia, and the British made three voyages with James Cook to the South Pacific and Australia, Hawaii, and the North American Pacific Northwest, one of the earliest voyages of scientific exploration was organized by Spain in the Malaspina Expedition of 1789–1794. It sailed vast areas of the Pacific, from Cape Horn to Alaska, Guam and the Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, and the South Pacific. Growing imperialism during the 19th century resulted in the occupation of much of Oceania by other European powers, and later, Japan, in Oceania, France got a leading position as imperial power after making Tahiti and New Caledonia protectorates in 1842 and 1853 respectively. After navy visits to Easter Island in 1875 and 1887, Chilean navy officer Policarpo Toro managed to negotiate an incorporation of the island into Chile with native Rapanui in 1888, by occupying Easter Island, Chile joined the imperial nations
16.
Ocean Beach, San Francisco
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Ocean Beach is a beach on the west coast of San Francisco, California, United States, bordering the Pacific Ocean. It is adjacent to Golden Gate Park, the Richmond District, the Great Highway runs alongside the beach, and the Cliff House and the site of the former Sutro Baths sit at the northern end. The beach is a part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, during the late spring and summer, San Franciscos characteristic foggy weather frequently envelops the beach. The average temperature for the last 5 years has been 13.2 °C However, more beach-friendly weather occurs in late fall and early spring, when fog is less prevalent. The water at Ocean Beach is noteworthy for its strong currents and waves, the rapid rip currents and cold water make the ocean dangerous for casual swimmers and even those who simply want to set foot in it, and swimmers have been swept away and drowned. Nevertheless, the beach is one of the Bay Areas top surfing spots, the southern portion of the beach by Sloat Boulevard is one of the cleanest in the state. Surfers and other swimmers have died at Ocean Beach, one occurred in May 2006. Prior to that, it had been five years since a death at Ocean Beach. In 1998, a seven people lost their lives there. The Ocean Beach surfing community is served by four surf shops, seal Rock is a prominent local feature of the area. Third Eye Blinds Motorcycle Drive By was written about this beach, on November 6,2011, Ocean Beach hosted the Rip Curl Pro surfing competition, in which Kelly Slater won his 11th ASP world championship at the age of 39. This was the one of his championships won in the continental United States. Due in part to its sometimes inhospitable weather, the area was largely undeveloped throughout most of San Franciscos early history, when it was known as part of the Outside Lands. By 1890, trolley lines reached Ocean Beach, the Ferries and Cliff House Railroad, Park & Ocean Railroad, the Cliff House, which opened in 1863, and Sutro Baths, which opened in 1896, drew thousands of visitors. Following a brief stint as a camp after the 1906 earthquake. A small amusement park, Playland at the Beach, was built where Cabrillo, major development occurred in the 1920s and 1930s with construction of the Great Highway and housing in the adjacent Sunset and Richmond Districts. On January 25,1878, the King Philip, a clipper ship, drifted onto Ocean Beach. From time to time, the wreckage of the ship still emerges from the sands just offshore, 49-Mile Scenic Drive A non commercial Ocean Beach San Francisco website including a live webcam and weather
17.
Bank swallow
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The sand martin or European sand martin, bank swallow in the Americas, and collared sand martin in the Indian Subcontinent, is a migratory passerine bird in the swallow family. It has a range in summer, embracing practically the whole of Europe. It winters in eastern and southern Africa, South America and the Indian Subcontinent, the specific name means of the riverbank, it is derived from the Latin ripa riverbank. The pale martin of northern India and southeastern China is now split as a separate species Riparia diluta. It has paler grey-brown upperparts and a less distinct breast band and it winters in Pakistan and southern India. The 12 cm long sand martin is brown above, white below with a brown band on the breast, the bill is black. The young have rufous tips to the coverts and margins to the secondaries and its brown back, white throat, small size and quick jerky flight separate it at once from similar swallows, such as the common house martin, the American cliff swallow or other species of Riparia. Only the banded martin of sub-Saharan Africa is similar, but the sand martin only occurs there in winter, the sand martins twittering song is continuous when the birds are on the wing and becomes a conversational undertone after they have settled in the roost. The harsh alarm is heard when a falcon, crow or other suspected predator requires combined action to drive it away. Linnaeus already remarked on this species breeding habits, Habitat in Europae collibus arenosis abruptis, foramine serpentino—it lives in Europe and it has been observed that sand martins favour loess as a particular type of ground to nest in. Sand martins are generally found near bodies of water, such as rivers, lakes or even the ocean. The sand martin appears on its grounds as the first of its family, starting towards the end of March. In northern Ohio, they arrive in numbers by mid-April, about 10 days earlier than they did 100 years ago, at first, they flit over the larger bodies of water alone, in search of early flies. Later parties accompany other species, but for a time, varying according to weather. The sand martin departs early, at any rate from its more northerly haunts, in August, the gatherings at the nightly roost increase enormously, though the advent and departure of passage birds causes great irregularity in numbers. They are essentially gone from their range by the end of September. The food consists of insects, mostly gnats and other flies whose early stages are aquatic. The sand martin is sociable in its habits, from a dozen to many hundred pairs will nest close together
18.
Sand dune
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In physical geography, a dune is a hill of loose sand built by wind or the flow of water. Dunes occur in different shapes and sizes, formed by interaction with the flow of air or water, most kinds of dunes are longer on the windward side where the sand is pushed up the dune and have a shorter slip face in the lee of the wind. The valley or trough between dunes is called a slack, a dune field is an area covered by extensive sand dunes. Dunes occur, for example, in deserts and along some coasts. Some coastal areas have one or more sets of dunes running parallel to the shoreline directly inland from the beach, in most cases, the dunes are important in protecting the land against potential ravages by storm waves from the sea. Although the most widely distributed dunes are those associated with coastal regions, Dunes can form under the action of water flow, and on sand or gravel beds of rivers, estuaries and the sea-bed. The modern word dune came into English from French c,1790, which in turn came from Middle Dutch dūne. Crescent-shaped mounds are generally wider than they are long, the slipfaces are on the concave sides of the dunes. These dunes form under winds that blow consistently from one direction, some types of crescentic dunes move more quickly over desert surfaces than any other type of dune. A group of dunes moved more than 100 metres per year between 1954 and 1959 in Chinas Ningxia Province, and similar speeds have been recorded in the Western Desert of Egypt. The largest crescentic dunes on Earth, with mean crest-to-crest widths of more than three kilometres, are in Chinas Taklamakan Desert. They may be composed of clay, silt, sand, or gypsum, eroded from the floor or shore, transported up the concave side of the dune. Examples in Australia are up to 6.5 km long,1 km wide and they also occur in southern and West Africa, and in parts of the western United States, especially Texas. Straight or slightly sinuous sand ridges typically much longer than they are wide are known as linear dunes and they may be more than 160 kilometres long. Some linear dunes merge to form Y-shaped compound dunes, many form in bidirectional wind regimes. The long axes of these dunes extend in the resultant direction of sand movement, linear loess hills known as pahas are superficially similar. These hills appear to have formed during the last ice age under permafrost conditions dominated by sparse tundra vegetation. Radially symmetrical, star dunes are pyramidal sand mounds with slipfaces on three or more arms that radiate from the center of the mound
19.
12-inch coast defense mortar
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The coast defense mortar was a massive weapon of 12-inch caliber emplaced during the 1890s and early 20th century to defend U. S. harbors from seaborne attack. In 1886 when the Endicott Board set forth its plan for upgrading the coast defenses of the United States, it relied primarily on mortars, not guns, to defend American harbors. Over the years, provision was made for fortifications that would mount some 476 of these weapons,91 of these weapons were remounted as railway artillery in 1918-1919, but this was too late to see action in World War I. The railway mortars were deployed in small quantities, and none overseas. The fixed mortars in the Philippines saw action in the Japanese invasion in World War II, all of the fixed mortars in the United States were scrapped by 1944 as new weapons replaced them, and the railway mortars were scrapped after the war. Additional 12-inch mortars and other large-caliber weapons remain in the Philippines, the M1890 M1 12-inch mortar was one of the most powerful coast artillery pieces of its era, and was the most common type emplaced to guard U. S. harbors. This mortar and other models, the M1886, M1908, and M1912 and these weighed from 700 to 1,046 pounds and had heavy, hardened steel caps, designed to pierce a ships deck armor before the shell exploded. These mortars, firing the shells at an elevation of 45 degrees, had a range of 12,019 yards. Early on, coast defense mortars were also supplied with so-called torpedo shells weighing 800 or 1,000 pounds, the M1890M1 mortar was most often installed on an M1896 carriage. The mortar and its carriage weighed a total of 78.5 tons, the carriage was geared to enable it to be turned by means of a traversing crank with two handles, located on the right side of the piece. The tube was raised or lowered by twin geared wheels with spokes that were located on either side of the carriage. The breech could be depressed to an almost level position for loading. Other carriages included the M1891 and M1908, in addition to the elevation of its tube, the factor that determined the mortars range was the size of the powder charge that was loaded into its breech, following the shell. The desired range for the mortar was specified in terms of zones, the smallest zone was Zone 1, and the largest was Zone 9. With the so-called aliquot charge, up to 9 equal-sized, disk-shaped bags of powder could be attached to a 10th bag, by means of cloth binding straps that were sewn to the base bag. Often the base bag was painted red, indicating that the assembly was to be loaded into the breech red end last. The red base bag also contained a charge of black powder as an igniter. When the breech was closed, a detonator was inserted through the block and contacted the igniter
20.
American entry into World War I
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The American entry into World War I came in April 1917, after two and a half years of efforts by President Woodrow Wilson to keep the United States neutral. Apart from an Anglophile element supporting the British, American public opinion went along with neutrality at first, the sentiment for neutrality was strong among Irish Americans, German Americans and Scandinavian Americans, as well as among church leaders and women. On the other hand, even before World War I broke out, the citizenry increasingly came to see the German Empire as the villain after news of atrocities in Belgium in 1914, and the sinking of the passenger liner RMS Lusitania in May 1915. Wilson made all the key decisions and kept the economy on a basis, while allowing banks to make large-scale loans to Britain. However, he did enlarge the United States Navy, in early 1917, Germany decided to resume all-out submarine warfare on every commercial ship headed toward Britain, realizing that this decision would almost certainly mean war with the U. S. Germany also offered to help Mexico regain territories lost in the Mexican–American War in the Zimmermann Telegram, publication of that offer outraged Americans just as German U-boats started sinking American ships in the North Atlantic. Wilson asked Congress for a war to end all wars that would make the safe for democracy. On December 7,1917, the U. S. declared war on Austria-Hungary, United States insisted on maintaining the traditional rights of neutrals, protested strongly against violations by Britain and especially by Germany. The British seized American ships for supposed violations, the Germans sank them without warning, in violation of international law that said sailors must be allowed an opportunity to reach their lifeboats. A critical indirect strategy used by both sides was the blockade, the British Royal Navy successfully stopped the shipment of most war supplies and food to Germany. Neutral American ships that tried to trade with Germany were seized or turned back by the Royal Navy who viewed such trade as in conflict with the Allies war efforts. The strangulation came about slowly, because Germany and the Central Powers controlled extensive farmlands. It was eventually successful because Germany and Austria-Hungary had decimated their agricultural production by taking so many farmers into their armies, by 1918, German cities were on the verge of starvation, the front-line soldiers were on short rations and were running out of essential supplies. England wants to starve us, said Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the man who built the German fleet and we can play the same game. We can bottle her up and destroy every ship that endeavors to break the blockade, unable to challenge the more powerful Royal Navy on the surface, Tirpitz wanted to scare off merchant and passenger ships en route to Britain. While Germany had only nine long-range U-boats at the start of the war, furthermore, Americans insisted that the drowning of innocent civilians was barbaric and grounds for a declaration of war. The British frequently violated Americas neutral rights by seizing ships, Wilsons top advisor, Colonel Edward M. House commented that, The British have gone as far as they possibly could in violating neutral rights, though they have done it in the most courteous way. When Wilson protested British violations of American neutrality, the British backed down, German submarines torpedoed ships without warning, causing sailors and passengers to drown
21.
Frederick Funston
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Frederick Funston also known as Fighting Fred Funston, was a general in the United States Army, best known for his role in the Spanish–American War and the Philippine–American War. He received the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Philippine–American War, Funston was born in New Carlisle, Ohio to Edward H. Funston and Anne Eliza Mitchell Funston. In 1881 his family moved to Allen County, Kansas and his father, was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1884. While there, he joined the Phi Delta Theta fraternity and became friends with future Pulitzer Prize winner William Allen White and he worked as a trainman for the Santa Fe Railroad before becoming a reporter in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1890. After one year as a journalist, Funston moved into more scientific exploration, after a bout of malaria, Funstons weight dropped to an alarming 95 pounds and he was given a leave of absence by the Cubans. When Funston returned to the United States, he was commissioned as a colonel of the 20th Kansas Infantry in the United States Army on May 13,1898, in the early days of the Spanish–American War. In the fall, he met Eda Blankart at a patriotic gathering, within two weeks of the marriage, he landed in the Philippines as part of the U. S. forces that would become engaged in the Philippine–American War. Funston was in command in various engagements with Filipino nationalists, in April 1899, he took a Filipino position at Calumpit by swimming the Bagbag River, then crossing the Pampanga River under heavy fire. For his bravery, Funston was soon promoted to the rank of general of Volunteers. Funston played the key role in planning and executing the capture of Filipino President Emilio Aguinaldo on March 23,1901, the capture of Aguinaldo made Funston a national hero, although the anti-imperialist faction attempted to tarnish when the details of the capture became known. Funstons party, escorted by a company of Macabebe scouts, had gained access to Aguinaldos camp by posing as prisoners of Macabebe scouts, in recognition of his capture of Aguinaldo, Funston was appointed a brigadier general in the Regular Army at the age of 35. Funstons dangerous mission to capture Aguinaldo brought him a Regular Army commission just as he was scheduled to be mustered out of the volunteer service. In 1902, Funston returned to the United States to increased opposition to the Philippine–American War. Mark Twain, an opponent of U. S. imperialism, published a sarcasm-filled denunciation of Funstons mission. Poet Ernest Crosby also wrote a satirical, anti-imperialist novel, Captain Jinks, Hero, on March 29,1899, Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo arrived in San Isidro, Nueva Ecija, and proclaimed the town capital of the First Philippine Republic. He stayed in the house, using it as the de facto Philippine capitol, when the Americans occupied San Isidro, the Sideco house served as the headquarters of Gen. Frederick Funston, who would later capture General Aguinaldo in Palanan, Isabela. General Aguinaldos capture is said to have planned in this house. It is now occupied by a Christian organization, in 1906, Funston was in command of the Presidio of San Francisco when the 1906 San Francisco earthquake hit
22.
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
23.
Coastal batteries
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Coastal artillery is the branch of the armed forces concerned with operating anti-ship artillery or fixed gun batteries in coastal fortifications. The advent of 20th-century technologies, especially aviation, naval aviation, jet aircraft, and guided missiles, reduced the primacy of cannon, battleships. In countries where coastal artillery has not been disbanded, these forces have acquired amphibious capabilities, in littoral warfare, mobile coastal artillery armed with surface-to-surface missiles still can be used to deny the use of sea lanes. Land-based guns also benefited in most cases from the protection of walls or earth mounds. The Martello tower is an excellent example of a widely used coastal fort which mounted defensive artillery, during the 19th century China also built hundreds of coastal fortresses in an attempt to counter Western naval threats. Coastal artillery could be part of the Navy, or part of the Army, in English-speaking countries, certain coastal artillery positions were sometimes referred to as Land Batteries, distinguishing this form of artillery battery from for example floating batteries. In the United Kingdom, in the later 19th and earlier 20th Centuries, then, following the Spanish–American War and the report of the Endicott Board, U. S. harbor defenses were greatly strengthened and provided with new, rifled artillery and minefield defenses. Shortly thereafter, in 1907, Congress split the field artillery, the first decade of the 20th Century, the United States Marine Corps established the Advanced Base Force. The force was used for setting up and defending advanced bases, during the Siege of Port Arthur, Japanese forces had captured the vantage point on 203 Meter Hill overlooking Port Arthur harbor. The battleship Sevastopol, although hit 5 times by 11-inch shells, after 3 weeks, the Sevastopol was still afloat, having survived 124 torpedoes fired at her while sinking two Japanese destroyers and damaging six other vessels. The Japanese had meanwhile lost the cruiser Takasago to a mine outside the harbor, the Blücher had entered the narrow waters of the Oslofjord, carrying 1,000 soldiers and leading a German invasion fleet. The first salvo from the Norwegian defenders, fired from Oscarsborg Fortress about 1 mile distant, disabled Blüchers main battery, fire from the smaller guns swept her decks and disabled her steering, and she received several torpedo hits before the fires reached her magazines and doomed her. Singapore was defended by its famous large-caliber coastal guns, which included one battery of three 15-inch guns and one with two 15-inch guns, AP shells were designed to penetrate the hulls of heavily armoured warships and were ineffective against personnel. The Japanese defended the island of Betio in the Tarawa atoll with numerous 203 mm coastal guns, in 1943, these were knocked out early in the battle with a combined USN naval and aerial bombardment. Nazi Germany fortified its conquered territories with the Atlantic Wall, the intent was to destroy the Allied landing craft before they could unload. During the Normandy Landings in 1944, shore bombardment was given a high importance, using ships from battleships to destroyers, for example, the Canadians at Juno beach had fire support many times greater than they had had for the Dieppe Raid in 1942. In addition, there were modified landing-craft, eight Landing Craft Gun, twenty-four Landing Craft Tank carried Priest self-propelled howitzers which also fired while they were on the run-in to the beach. Similar arrangements existed at other beaches, on June 25,1944 the American battleship Texas engaged German shore batteries on the Cotentin Peninsula
24.
Fort Winfield Scott
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Fort Point is a masonry seacoast fortification located at the southern side of the Golden Gate at the entrance to San Francisco Bay. This fort was completed just before the American Civil War by the United States Army, the fort is now protected as Fort Point National Historic Site, a United States National Historic Site administered by the National Park Service as a unit of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. In 1769 Spain occupied the San Francisco area and by 1776 had established the areas first European settlement, with a mission and a presidio. To protect against encroachment by the British and Russians, Spain fortified the high white cliff at the narrowest part of the bays entrance, the Castillo de San Joaquin, built in 1794, was an adobe structure housing nine to thirteen cannons. Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821, gaining control of the region and the fort, following the United States victory in 1848, California was annexed by the U. S. and became a state in 1850. The gold rush of 1849 had caused rapid settlement of the area, military officials soon recommended a series of fortifications to secure San Francisco Bay. Coastal defenses were built at Alcatraz Island, Fort Mason, the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers began work on Fort Point in 1853. Plans specified that the lowest tier of artillery be as close as possible to water level so cannonballs could ricochet across the surface to hit enemy ships at the water-line. Workers blasted the 90-foot cliff down to 15 feet above sea level, the structure featured seven-foot-thick walls and multi-tiered casemated construction typical of Third System forts. It was sited to defend the maximum amount of harbor area, while there were more than 30 such forts on the East Coast, Fort Point was the only one on the West Coast. In 1854 Inspector General Joseph K. Mansfield declared this point as the key to the whole Pacific Coast. a crew of 200, many unemployed miners, labored for eight years on the fort. In 1861, with war looming, the army mounted the forts first cannon, colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, commander of the Department of the Pacific, prepared Bay Area defenses and ordered in the first troops to the fort. Kentucky-born Johnston then resigned his commission to join the Confederate Army, throughout the Civil War, artillerymen at Fort Point stood guard for an enemy that never came. Troops soon moved out of Fort Point, and it was never again occupied by the army. The fort was important enough to receive protection from the elements. In 1869 a granite seawall was completed, the following year, some of the forts cannon were moved to Battery East on the bluffs nearby, where they were more protected. In 1882 Fort Point was officially named Fort Winfield Scott after the hero from the war against Mexico. The name never caught on and was applied to an artillery post at the Presidio
25.
United States Army Ordnance Corps
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The United States Army Ordnance Corps is a Sustainment branch of the United States Army, headquartered at Fort Lee, Virginia. The broad mission of the Ordnance Corps is to supply Army combat units with weapons and ammunition, including at times their procurement, along with the Quartermaster Corps and Transportation Corps, it forms a critical component of the U. S. Army logistics system. The officer in charge of the branch for doctrine, training, the current Chief of Ordnance is Brigadier General Kurt J. Ryan. In the British colonies in America, each colony was responsible for its own supply of ordnance materiel, the first written record of an ordnance officer in British colonial America was Samuel Sharpe in the Massachusetts Bay Colony appointed in 1629 as Master Gunner of Ordnance. By 1645, the Massachusetts Colony had a permanent Surveyor of Ordnance and he was responsible for the supply and maintenance of weapons and munitions. During the course of the American Revolution, each group of American forces in the field had a Commissary of Military Stores to support the soldiers. In January 1777, General George Washington appointed Benjamin Flower as the head of the Commissary General of Military Stores, Benjamin Flower was given the rank of Colonel and served in that capacity throughout the American Revolution. The Commissary General of Military Stores was an echelon above the Commissary of Military Stores in the field, in 1794, the Springfield Armory would become the first national armory, producing arms and ammunition until its closing in 1968. Harpers Ferry armory began production in 1798, the act also created a new position, the Commissary General of Ordnance. On 5 February 1815 Colonel Decius Wadsworth, the former Commissary General of Purchases was chosen as the Commissary General of Ordnance, in 1821, all officers assigned to the Ordnance Department were re-commissioned into the artillery branch. The Ordnance Department would continue to function with officers from artillery, in 1832 an act of Congress would re-establish the Ordnance Department. On 3 August 1861, an Act of Congress added to the Ordnance Department the actual title of Chief of Ordnance with the rank pay and emoluments of the Quartermaster General. On 1 January 1861, Brigadier General James Wolfe Ripley was promoted over the current Commissary General of Ordnance Colonel Henry K. Craig to become the first formally recognized Chief of Ordnance. The Spanish–American War was the first conflict in which the department deployed materiel overseas, in 1919, testing was moved from Sandy Hook Proving Ground to the Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. By 1940 all Ordnance training, officer and enlisted was moved from Raritan Arsenal, New Jersey to the Aberdeen Proving Ground, in August 1942, the Ordnance Department assumed responsibility for procurement and maintenance of all wheeled and motored vehicles. Typically, the Ordnance Department was responsible for getting weapons and ammunition to the troops at the divisional level. Materiel was delivered in theater to depots, which mainly supplied other supply installations, and Ammunition Supply Points, although the precise organization structure was always adjusted to field conditions, there were usually two ASPs per division. World War II Army divisions usually had one Ordnance Company, as the ammunition supplies were distributed down the organizational hierarchy, their transportation and allocation increasingly became the responsibility of the combat units themselves
26.
West Point
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It sits on scenic high ground overlooking the Hudson River,50 miles north of New York City. It is one of the four U. S. military service academies, the entire central campus is a national landmark and home to scores of historic sites, buildings, and monuments. The majority of the campuss Norman-style buildings are constructed from gray, the campus is a popular tourist destination complete with a large visitor center and the oldest museum in the United States Army. Candidates for admission must both apply directly to the academy and receive a nomination, usually from a member of Congress or Delegate/Resident Commissioner in the case of Washington, puerto Rico, Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Virgin Islands. Other nomination sources include the President and Vice President of the United States, students are officers-in-training and are referred to as cadets or collectively as the United States Corps of Cadets. Tuition for cadets is fully funded by the Army in exchange for an active duty service obligation upon graduation, approximately 1,300 cadets enter the Academy each July, with about 1,000 cadets graduating. Cadets are required to adhere to the Cadet Honor Code, which states that a cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, the academy bases a cadets leadership experience as a development of all three pillars of performance, academics, physical, and military. Most graduates are commissioned as lieutenants in the Army. Foreign cadets are commissioned into the armies of their home countries, since 1959, cadets have also been eligible to cross-commission, or request a commission in one of the other armed services, provided that they meet that services eligibility standards. Every year, a small number of cadets do this. The academys traditions have influenced other institutions because of its age and it was the first American college to have an accredited civil-engineering program and the first to have class rings, and its technical curriculum was a model for later engineering schools. West Points student body has a rank structure and lexicon. All cadets reside on campus and dine together en masse on weekdays for breakfast, the academy fields fifteen mens and nine womens National Collegiate Athletic Association sports teams. Cadets compete in one sport every fall, winter, and spring season at the intramural, club and its football team was a national power in the early and mid-20th century, winning three national championships. The Continental Army first occupied West Point, New York, on 27 January 1778, between 1778 and 1780, the Polish engineer and military hero Tadeusz Kościuszko oversaw the construction of the garrison defenses. While the fortifications at West Point were known as Fort Arnold during the war, as commander, Benedict Arnold committed his act of treason, after Arnold betrayed the patriot cause, the Army changed the name of the fortifications at West Point, New York, to Fort Clinton. With the peace after the American Revolutionary War, various ordnance, Cadets underwent training in artillery and engineering studies at the garrison since 1794. In 1801, shortly after his inauguration as president, Thomas Jefferson directed that plans be set in motion to establish at West Point the United States Military Academy and he selected Jonathan Williams to serve as its first superintendent
27.
Anti-aircraft
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Anti-aircraft warfare or counter-air defence is defined by NATO as all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action. They include ground-and air-based weapon systems, associated sensor systems, command and control arrangements and it may be used to protect naval, ground, and air forces in any location. However, for most countries the main effort has tended to be homeland defence, NATO refers to airborne air defence as counter-air and naval air defence as anti-aircraft warfare. Missile defence is an extension of air defence as are initiatives to adapt air defence to the task of intercepting any projectile in flight, a surface-based air defence capability can also be deployed offensively to deny the use of airspace to an opponent. Until the 1950s, guns firing ballistic munitions ranging from 20 mm to 150 mm were the weapons, guided missiles then became dominant. The term air defence was probably first used by Britain when Air Defence of Great Britain was created as a Royal Air Force command in 1925. However, arrangements in the UK were also called anti-aircraft, abbreviated as AA, after the First World War it was sometimes prefixed by Light or Heavy to classify a type of gun or unit. Nicknames for anti-aircraft guns include AA, AAA or triple-A, an abbreviation of anti-aircraft artillery, ack-ack, NATO defines anti-aircraft warfare as measures taken to defend a maritime force against attacks by airborne weapons launched from aircraft, ships, submarines and land-based sites. In some armies the term All-Arms Air Defence is used for air defence by nonspecialist troops, other terms from the late 20th century include GBAD with related terms SHORAD and MANPADS. Anti-aircraft missiles are variously called surface-to-air missile, abbreviated and pronounced SAM, non-English terms for air defence include the German FlaK, whence English flak, and the Russian term Protivovozdushnaya oborona, a literal translation of anti-air defence, abbreviated as PVO. In Russian the AA systems are called zenitnye systems, in French, air defence is called DCA. The maximum distance at which a gun or missile can engage an aircraft is an important figure, however, many different definitions are used but unless the same definition is used, performance of different guns or missiles cannot be compared. For AA guns only the part of the trajectory can be usefully used. By the late 1930s the British definition was that height at which an approaching target at 400 mph can be engaged for 20 seconds before the gun reaches 70 degrees elevation. However, effective ceiling for heavy AA guns was affected by nonballistic factors, The maximum running time of the fuse, the capability of fire control instruments to determine target height at long range. The essence of air defence is to detect aircraft and destroy them. The critical issue is to hit a target moving in three-dimensional space, Air defence evolution covered the areas of sensors and technical fire control, weapons, and command and control. At the start of the 20th century these were very primitive or non-existent
28.
Washington Naval Treaty
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It limited the construction of battleships, battlecruisers and aircraft carriers by the signatories. The numbers of categories of warships, including cruisers, destroyers and submarines, were not limited by the treaty. The naval treaty was concluded on February 6,1922, ratifications of that treaty were exchanged in Washington on August 17,1923, and it was registered in League of Nations Treaty Series on April 16,1924. Subsequent to the treaty, other arms limitation conferences sought to increase limitations of warship building. The terms of the Washington treaty were modified by the London Naval Treaty of 1930, by the mid-1930s, Japan and Italy renounced the treaties, making naval arms limitation an increasingly untenable position for the other signatories. Immediately after World War I, the United Kingdom had the worlds largest and most powerful navy, followed by the United States, the three nations had been allied for World War I, but a naval arms race seemed likely for the next few years. The arms race began in the United States, president Woodrow Wilsons administration announced successive plans for the expansion of the US Navy from 1916 to 1919 that would have resulted in a massive fleet of 50 modern battleships. At the time, it was engaged in building six battleships, the Japanese started work on four battleships and four battlecruisers, all much larger and more powerful than those of the classes preceding. The 1921 British Naval Estimates planned four battleships and four battlecruisers, the U. S. public was largely unwelcoming of the new arms race. Britain could also ill afford any resumption of construction, given the exorbitant price of naval construction. In late 1921, the US government became aware that Britain was planning a conference to discuss the situation in the Pacific. To forestall the conference and satisfy domestic pressure for a disarmament conference. At the first plenary session held November 21,1921, US Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes presented his countrys proposals, Hughes provided a dramatic beginning for the conference by stating with resolve, The way to disarm is to disarm. The ambitious slogan received enthusiastic public endorsement and likely shortened the conference while helping ensure his proposals were largely adopted and he subsequently proposed the following, A ten-year pause or holiday in the construction of capital ships, including the immediate suspension of all capital ship building. The scrapping of existing or planned capital ships to give a 5,5,3,1.75,1.75 ratio of tonnage with Britain, ongoing limits of both capital ship tonnage and the tonnage of secondary vessels with the 5,5,3 ratio. The proposals regarding capital ships were largely accepted by the British delegation and it would no longer be possible for Britain to have adequate fleets in the North Sea, the Mediterranean, and the Far East simultaneously. The facts provoked outrage from parts of the Royal Navy, nevertheless, there was huge pressure on Britain to agree. The risk of war with the United States was increasingly regarded as merely theoretical, Naval spending was unpopular in both Britain and its dominions
29.
Battleship
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A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries the battleship was the most powerful type of warship, the word battleship was coined around 1794 and is a contraction of the phrase line-of-battle ship, the dominant wooden warship during the Age of Sail. The term came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ironclad warship. In 1906, the commissioning of HMS Dreadnought heralded a revolution in battleship design, subsequent battleship designs, influenced by HMS Dreadnought, were referred to as dreadnoughts. Battleships were a symbol of naval dominance and national might, the launch of Dreadnought in 1906 commenced a new naval arms race. Jutland was the largest naval battle and the only full-scale clash of battleships in the war, the Naval Treaties of the 1920s and 1930s limited the number of battleships, though technical innovation in battleship design continued. The value of the battleship has been questioned, even during their heyday, there were few of the decisive fleet battles that battleship proponents expected, and used to justify the vast resources spent on building battlefleets. Battleships were retained by the United States Navy into the Cold War for fire support purposes before being stricken from the U. S. Naval Vessel Register in the 2000s. A ship of the line was a large, unarmored wooden sailing ship which mounted a battery of up to 120 smoothbore guns, from 1794, the alternative term line of battle ship was contracted to battle ship or battleship. The sheer number of guns fired broadside meant a sail battleship could wreck any wooden enemy, holing her hull, knocking down masts, wrecking her rigging, and killing her crew. However, the range of the guns was as little as a few hundred yards. The first major change to the ship of the concept was the introduction of steam power as an auxiliary propulsion system. Steam power was introduced to the navy in the first half of the 19th century, initially for small craft. The French Navy introduced steam to the line of battle with the 90-gun Napoléon in 1850—the first true steam battleship, Napoléon was armed as a conventional ship-of-the-line, but her steam engines could give her a speed of 12 knots, regardless of the wind condition. This was a decisive advantage in a naval engagement. The introduction of steam accelerated the growth in size of battleships, the adoption of steam power was only one of a number of technological advances which revolutionized warship design in the 19th century. The ship of the line was overtaken by the ironclad, powered by steam, protected by metal armor, and armed with guns firing high-explosive shells. In the Crimean War, six ships and two frigates of the Russian Black Sea Fleet destroyed seven Turkish frigates and three corvettes with explosive shells at the Battle of Sinop in 1853
30.
Battlecruiser
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The battlecruiser, or battle cruiser, was a type of capital ship of the first half of the 20th century. They were similar in size, cost, and armament to battleships, however, as more and more battlecruisers were built, they were increasingly used alongside the better-protected battleships. British battlecruisers in particular suffered heavy losses at Jutland, where their armour made them very vulnerable to large-caliber shells. Battlecruisers were put into action again during World War II, in the post–Cold War era, the Soviet Kirov class of large guided missile cruisers have also been termed battlecruisers. The battlecruiser was developed by the Royal Navy in the first years of the 20th century as an evolution of the armoured cruiser. The first armoured cruisers had been built in the 1870s, as an attempt to give protection to ships fulfilling the typical cruiser roles of patrol, trade protection. However, the results were satisfactory, as the weight of armour required for any meaningful protection usually meant that the ship became almost as slow as a battleship. As a result, navies preferred to build protected cruisers with an armoured deck protecting their engines, in the 1890s, technology began to change this balance. New Krupp steel armour meant that it was now possible to give a side armour which would protect it against the quick-firing guns of enemy battleships. In 1896–97 France and Russia, who were regarded as allies in the event of war, started to build large. In the event of a war between Britain and France or Russia, or both, these cruisers threatened to cause difficulties for the British Empires worldwide trade. Between 1899 and 1905, it completed or laid down seven classes of this type and this building program, in turn, prompted the French and Russians to increase their own construction. The Imperial German Navy began to build large armoured cruisers for use on their overseas stations, the cost of this cruiser arms race was significant. In the period 1889–96, the Royal Navy spent £7.3 million on new large cruisers, from 1897–1904, it spent £26.9 million. Many armoured cruisers of the new kind were just as large, the increasing size and power of the armoured cruiser led to suggestions in British naval circles that cruisers should displace battleships entirely. The battleships main advantage was its 12-inch heavy guns, and heavier armour designed to protect from shells of similar size, however, for a few years after 1900 it seemed that those advantages were of little practical value. The torpedo now had a range of 2,000 yards, however, at ranges of more than 2,000 yards it became increasingly unlikely that the heavy guns of a battleship would score any hits, as the heavy guns relied on primitive aiming techniques. The secondary batteries of 6-inch quick-firing guns, firing more plentiful shells, were likely to hit the enemy
31.
US Navy
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The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U. S. Navy is the largest, most capable navy in the world, the U. S. Navy has the worlds largest aircraft carrier fleet, with ten in service, two in the reserve fleet, and three new carriers under construction. The service has 323,792 personnel on duty and 108,515 in the Navy Reserve. It has 274 deployable combat vessels and more than 3,700 operational aircraft as of October 2016, the U. S. Navy traces its origins to the Continental Navy, which was established during the American Revolutionary War and was effectively disbanded as a separate entity shortly thereafter. It played a role in the American Civil War by blockading the Confederacy. It played the role in the World War II defeat of Imperial Japan. The 21st century U. S. Navy maintains a global presence, deploying in strength in such areas as the Western Pacific, the Mediterranean. The Navy is administratively managed by the Department of the Navy, the Department of the Navy is itself a division of the Department of Defense, which is headed by the Secretary of Defense. The Chief of Naval Operations is an admiral and the senior naval officer of the Department of the Navy. The CNO may not be the highest ranking officer in the armed forces if the Chairman or the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The mission of the Navy is to maintain, train and equip combat-ready Naval forces capable of winning wars, deterring aggression, the United States Navy is a seaborne branch of the military of the United States. The Navys three primary areas of responsibility, The preparation of naval forces necessary for the prosecution of war. The development of aircraft, weapons, tactics, technique, organization, U. S. Navy training manuals state that the mission of the U. S. Armed Forces is to prepare and conduct prompt and sustained combat operations in support of the national interest, as part of that establishment, the U. S. Navys functions comprise sea control, power projection and nuclear deterrence, in addition to sealift duties. It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, the Navy was rooted in the colonial seafaring tradition, which produced a large community of sailors, captains, and shipbuilders. In the early stages of the American Revolutionary War, Massachusetts had its own Massachusetts Naval Militia, the establishment of a national navy was an issue of debate among the members of the Second Continental Congress. Supporters argued that a navy would protect shipping, defend the coast, detractors countered that challenging the British Royal Navy, then the worlds preeminent naval power, was a foolish undertaking. Commander in Chief George Washington resolved the debate when he commissioned the ocean-going schooner USS Hannah to interdict British merchant ships, and reported the captures to the Congress
32.
16"/50 caliber Mark 2 gun
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At the time, they were among the heaviest guns built for use as naval artillery. As part of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, both of these classes were cancelled part way through construction, surplussing about 70 examples of the 16-inch/50 which had already been built. Twenty were released to the US Army, between 1922–1924, for use by the Coast Artillery Corps, the rest were kept in storage for naval use. Only ten of the twenty available guns were deployed prior to 1940, when the design of the Iowa-class battleship began in 1938, it was initially assumed these ships would use the surplus guns. However, due to a miscommunication between the two Navy departments involved in the design, the ships required a lighter gun than the Mark 2/Mark 3, in January 1941 all but three of the remaining fifty Mark 2 and Mark 3 guns were released to the Army. They were the primary armament of 21 two-gun batteries built in the United States, however, none of these were fired in anger. The first example of a US 16-inch gun was an Army weapon, the first US Navy 16-inch gun was the 16-inch/45 caliber Mark 1 gun, which armed the Colorado-class battleships launched 1920–21. The Mark 3 was a modified version of the Mark 2. With the United States entering into the Washington Naval Treaty, the terms limited the United States to a displacement of 35,000 long tons. As both the South Dakota-class battleships and Lexington-class battlecruisers exceeded this limit, the Navy was required to cancel their construction, while two of the Lexington class were re-ordered as Lexington-class aircraft carriers, none of them were completed with the barbettes necessary to mount these guns. Construction of the 16-inch Mark 2 and Mark 3 guns was also cancelled with 70 completed, plus the prototype, Gun No.42. Twenty of the guns were transferred to the Army in 1922 to supplement the Armys more massive and much more expensive 16-inch gun M1919. The remaining Mk2/Mk3 guns were retained for use on future warships, with funding lacking until 1940, five batteries of two Mk2/Mk3 guns each were built 1924–40 in the harbor defenses of Pearl Harbor, the Panama Canal Zone, and San Francisco. They were designated 16-inch Navy guns MkIIMI and MkIIIMI in Army service, in 1938, with the signing of the Second London Naval Treaty, the tonnage limit for battleships was relaxed to 45,000 tons. After this, the U. S. Navy began design of a ship that would fit this higher tonnage limit, eventually resulting in the Iowa-class battleship. The larger size would allow for guns with a 16-inch caliber, as a result, the Mark 2 and 3 guns were not used for these, and the 16-inch/50 caliber Mark 7 gun was designed instead. The Mark 2 and 3 guns were never placed on any ship, the 16-inch Mark 2 was 50 calibers long, with a liner, an A tube, jacket and seven hoops with four hoop locking rings and a screw box liner. The Mod 0 used an increasing twist in the rifling while the Mod 1 used a uniform twist, the Mark 3 was the same as the Mark 2 but used a one-step conical liner
33.
Mare Island Naval Shipyard
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The Mare Island Naval Shipyard was the first United States Navy base established on the Pacific Ocean. It is located 25 miles northeast of San Francisco in Vallejo, the Napa River goes through the Mare Island Strait and separates the peninsula shipyard from the main portion of the city of Vallejo. MINSY made a name for itself as the premier US West Coast submarine port as well as serving as the force in San Francisco Bay Area shipbuilding efforts during World War II. The base closed in 1996 and has gone through several redevelopment phases and it was registered as a California Historical Landmark in 1960, and parts of it were declared a National Historic Landmark District in 1975. They managed to survey the Mare Island Strait before steaming to Hawaii to obtain crewmen from Hawaiian monarch King Kamehameha III. They returned to San Francisco in the spring of 1850 with the survey of northern California beginning on April 4,1850. On August 1,1850, while still in Oregon, McArthur purchased a 1⁄16 interest in Mare Island for $468.50 then returned to San Francisco later that month to prepare charts, on January 15,1852, Secretary of the Navy Will A. Graham ordered a Naval Commission to select a site for a yard on the Pacific Coast. Commodore D. Sloat along with Commodore C, sanger were appointed to the commission. On July 13,1852, Sloat recommended the island across the Napa River from the settlement of Vallejo, the Navy purchased the original 956 acres of MINSY on January 4,1853. MINSY served as a major Pacific Ocean repair station during the late 19th century, handling American as well as Japanese, in 1861, the longest lived of the clipper ships, Syren, was brought to Mare Island Navy Yard for $15,000 of repairs. Syren had struck Mile Rock two times while trying to out of the Golden Gate. Marines first arrived for duty in 1862 under the command of Maj. Addison Garland, Mare Island Naval Shipyard also took a commanding role in civil defense and emergency response on the West Coast, dispatching warships to the Pacific Northwest to subdue Native American violence. MINSY sent ships such as Wyoming south to Central America and the Panama Canal to protect US political and commercial interests, some of the support, logistics and munition requirements for the Spanish–American War were filled by Mare Island. MINSY sent men, materiel and ships to San Francisco in response to the following the 1906 earthquake. Arctic rescue missions were mounted as necessary, ordnance manufacturing and storage were two further key missions at MINSY for nearly all of its active service, including ordnance used prior to the American Civil War. In 1911, the Marine Corps established two West Coast recruit training depots first at Mare Island, the second at Puget Sound, Mare Island eventually became the West Coasts only recruit training facility when the Puget Sound operation consolidated to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1912. Instructors trained recruits there until August 10,1923, when they relocated to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, in March 1917 MINSY was the site of a major explosion of barges loaded with munitions
34.
Southern Pacific
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The Southern Pacific Transportation Company, earlier Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company, and usually called the Southern Pacific or Espee, was an American Class I railroad. It was absorbed in 1988 by the company controlled the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. The railroad was founded as a holding company in 1865. By 1900 the Southern Pacific Company was a railroad system incorporating many smaller companies, such as the Texas and New Orleans Railroad and Morgans Louisiana. It extended from New Orleans through Texas to El Paso, across New Mexico and through Tucson, to Los Angeles, through most of California, including San Francisco, Central Pacific lines extended east across Nevada to Ogden, Utah, and reached north through Oregon to Portland. By the 1980s route mileage had dropped to 10,423 miles, in 1988 the Southern Pacific was taken over by D&RGW parent Rio Grande Industries. The combined railroad kept the Southern Pacific name due to its recognition in the railroad industry. Along with the addition of the SPCSL Corporation route from Chicago to St. Louis, by 1996 years of financial problems had dropped SPs mileage to 13,715 miles, and it was taken over by the Union Pacific Railroad. Southern Pacific founded important hospitals in San Francisco, Tucson, in the 1970s, it also founded a telecommunications network with a state-of-the-art microwave and fiber optic backbone. This evolved into Sprint, a company name that came from the acronym for Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Networking Telephony. The original aim was to construct a railroad from Galveston Bay to a point on the Red River near a trading post known as Coffees Station, the GRR built 2 miles of track in Houston in 1855. Track laying began in earnest in 1856 and on 1 September 1856 GRR was renamed the Houston and Texas Central Railway. SP acquired H&TC in 1883 but it continued to operate as a subsidiary under its own management until 1927, when it was leased to another SP-owned railroad, the Texas and New Orleans Railroad. The Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway, was chartered in Texas on 11 February 1850 by a group that included General Sidney Sherman, bBB&C was the first railroad to commence operation in Texas and the first component of SP to commence operation. Surveying of the route alignment commenced at Harrisburg, Texas in 1851, the first 20 miles of track opened in August 1853. SP was founded in San Francisco, California in 1865 by a group of businessmen led by Timothy Phelps with the aim of building a connection between San Francisco and San Diego, California. The company was purchased in September 1868 by a group of known as the Big Four, Charles Crocker, Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins. The Big Four had, in 1861, created the Central Pacific Railroad, CPRR was merged into SP in 1870
35.
Casemate
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A casemate, sometimes erroneously rendered casement, is a fortified gun emplacement or armored structure from which guns are fired. Originally, the referred to a vaulted chamber in a fortress. In armoured fighting vehicles that do not have a turret for the main gun, the word comes from the Italian casamatta, the etymology of which is uncertain. Others think that it comes from the Arabic word kasaba, transliterated to kasbah, menagio speculated that it came from the Greek word for pit, khasma, the plural of which is khasmata. Hensleigh Wedgwood thought that it came from the Spanish casa and matar, others take matto in its archaic Italian meaning of dark, equivalent to the English matt, as in opaque, making a casamatta a dark house. Casematte were also used as prisons, making use of their lack of light to add to the punishment. This explanation seems to be the most agreed upon, a casemate was originally a vaulted chamber usually constructed underneath the rampart. It was intended to be impenetrable and could be used for sheltering troops or stores, with the addition of an embrasure through the scarp face of the rampart, it could be used as a protected gun position. In the early 19th century, French military engineer Baron Haxo designed a free-standing casemate that could be built on the top of the rampart, casemates built in concrete were used in the Second World War to protect coastal artillery from air attack. In warship design the term casemate has been used in a number of ways, the most famous naval battle of the war was the duel at Hampton Roads between the Union turretted ironclad USS Monitor and the Confederate casemate ironclad CSS Virginia. Casemate ship was a term for central battery ship or center battery ship. The casemate was a box that extended the full width of the ship protecting many guns. The armoured sides of the box were the sides of hull of the ship, there was an armoured bulkhead at the front and rear of the casemate, and a thick deck protecting the top. The lower edge of the casemate sat on top of ships belt armour, some ships, such as the Alexandra, had a two-storey casemate. A casemate was a room in the side of a warship. A typical casemate held a 6-in gun, and had a 6 front plate, with armour plates on the sides and rear, with a protected top and floor. Casemates were similar in size to turrets, ships carrying them had them in pairs, the first battleships to carry them were the British Royal Sovereign class laid down in 1889. They were adopted as a result of live-firing trials against HMS Resistance in 1888, the use of casemates enabled the 6-in guns to be dispersed, so that a single hit would not knock out all of them
36.
16-inch gun M1919
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The 16 inch Gun M1919 was a large coastal artillery piece installed to defend the United States major seaports between 1920 and 1946. It was operated by the United States Army Coast Artillery Corps, the first US 16-inch gun started construction in 1895 at Watervliet Arsenal. It was known as the M1895 and completed in 1902, only one was built and it was mounted on a disappearing carriage in Fort Grant on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal Zone in 1914, where it served until scrapped in 1943. The weapons muzzle section was displayed at the Watervliet Arsenal museum, the second 16-inch gun was the United States Army 50 caliber Model 1919. The first of these was deployed to Fort Michie, Great Gull Island, an additional six of the Army-designed M1919 guns were built and deployed by 1927 in two-gun batteries on barbette carriages in the harbor defenses of Boston, New York City, and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The 16-inch gun M1919 was built using the method, common in Europe. Initially,20 guns were transferred to the Army, which built a new version of the M1919 mount for the naval guns. With funding lacking until 1940, five batteries of two each were built 1924-40 in the harbor defenses of Pearl Harbor, Panama. A second battery of 16-inch guns at Fort Greene, Battery 109, had suspended in 1943. These batteries were placed such that not only protected Narraganset Bay, but interdicted the main channels into Buzzards Bay. By late 1943, the threat of an attack on the United States had diminished. As 16-inch guns and a companion improved 6-inch gun were emplaced, about 21 16-inch gun batteries were completed 1941-44, but not all of these were armed. With the war over in 1945, most of the remaining coast defense guns, the gun fired a 2,340 lb. projectile to a range of 26 miles. The estimated cost of the gun and barbette was $520,000 in 1938, the new M1 Gun Data Computer was used in directing these guns. 16/50 caliber Mark 2 gun, similar US Navy gun also deployed for coast defense List of the largest cannon by caliber Seacoast defense in the United States Berhow, american Seacoast Defenses, A Reference Guide, Third Edition. U. S. Battleships, An Illustrated Design History, annapolis, Maryland, United States Naval Institute. Seacoast Fortifications of the United States
37.
155 mm gun M1918
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The Canon de 155 Grande Puissance Filloux mle.1917 was a 155 mm cannon used by the French Army during the first half of the 20th century. It was also adopted by the United States as the M1917, and it was also manufactured in the USA from 1917, after the US switched to metric artillery based on French patterns. Some of the guns were emplaced in Panama mounts on Corregidor, Caballo. A number of them were removed from their emplacements and used as roving batteries, the gun was later mounted on a self-propelled mount as the M12 Gun Motor Carriage and saw action in 1944-45. This gun was designed by Colonel L. J. F. Filloux to fill a vital French Army requirement for an artillery piece. The design proved a success and became the heavy field gun of the French from 1917 to the end of World War I. The weapon was pressed into service quickly, to remedy the shortage of weapons in the French inventory. This weapon became the Canon de 155 Grande Puissance Filloux mle 1917, during World War 1, the gun was eventually taken on by the American Expeditionary Force as a standard long-range artillery piece. At the beginning of World War II the French guns were pulled out of reserve storage, the US M1918 155mm GPF was a copy of the French 1917 field gun and used by the US Army, Philippines and US Marines up to 1945. United States Army paid for, and subsequently copied, the Model 1918 gun, during World War 2 the 155mm guns were taken out of storage and utilized for coastal defense on American shores and across allied territories such as the Philippines and Australia. They were also used in Philippines, Guadalcanal and North Africa until more modern artillery was available, ultimately, both the US Army and Marine Corps phased out their M1918 guns for the 155-mm M1A1 Long Tom beginning in 1942. The M1918 was also fitted to the M12 Gun Motor Carriage as a self-propelled gun, in 1940, France fielded 450 of these guns. Many of them were captured and used by Germany for the rest of the war, in German service it was known as the 15.5 cm K418, it served with heavy artillery battalions in Afrika Korps and on coastal defense duties. On D-Day in 1944, the German Army had over 50 of the 155-mm French guns in sites on the northern French beaches, a battery of six of these guns near four empty emplacements for larger guns was the cause of the actions at Pointe du Hoc in June 1944. Many of these survive as memorials. D. D-Day, The Greatest Invasion - A Peoples History Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, ISBN 1-58234-314-4 Gander, Terry and Chamberlain, Weapons of the Third Reich, An Encyclopedic Survey of All Small Arms, Artillery and Special Weapons of the German Land Forces 1939-1945. New York, Doubleday,1979 ISBN 0-385-15090-3 Touzin, Pierre, Vauvillier, Les Matériels de lArmée Française, Les canons de la victoire, 1914-1918. 155-Millimeter Gun Materiel, Model of 1918 Handbook of artillery, including mobile, anti-aircraft and trench matériel US Army Ordnance Dept, May 1920
38.
Panama mount
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The term Panama Mount describes a gun mount developed by the U. S. Army in Panama during the 1920s for fixed coastal artillery positions. Panama mounts were used during the buildup to and during World War II by the United States military. The mounts could be constructed as either full, 3/4 or half circles of steel rail set in concrete with a diameter of approximately 36 feet, a concrete column with a diameter of ten feet was constructed in the center of the circle to support the gun and carriage. The concrete column was connected to the concrete ring by concrete beams for alignment/stability. Originally traverse was accomplished with several men and prybars to move the arms around the steel ring. Later installations included a steel ring just inside of the outer steel rail for improved traverse. In World War II, Panama mounts were used to rearm six Harbor Defense Commands that had been disarmed in the 1920s and they were used for new defenses in Alaska, Newfoundland, Puerto Rico, and Australia. The term Panama mount is often used to describe other gun mounts with similar layouts and/or purpose. Many surviving examples of these mounts can be found throughout former US coast defense sites including California, Florida, Alaska, barbette mount Disappearing carriage Seacoast defense in the United States List of U. S. Army weapons by supply catalog designation Berhow, Mark A. Ed. American Seacoast Defenses, A Reference Guide, Second Edition
39.
Fort Cronkhite
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Fort Cronkhite is one of the components of Californias Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Today part of the National Park Service, Fort Cronkhite is a former US Army post that served as part of the coastal defenses of the San Francisco Bay Area during World War II. The soldiers at Cronkhite manned gun batteries, radar sites, named for former army general Adelbert Cronkhite, Fort Cronkhite was established in the late 1930s. With the rapid buildup of the United States in the early 1940s. The armys Quartermaster Corps and the Corps of Engineers were put in charge of the projects around the country. Using standard plans, all types of buildings could be built in short time including barracks, mess halls, supply depots, chapels, many of these types of temporary wooden building can still be found at Fort Cronkhite today over 70 years later. The first unit to move into the fort was Battery E of the 6th Coast Artillery in June 1941, the soldiers stationed at the fort manned local artillery emplacements as well as the three gun,3 inch Antiaircraft Battery No.1. Named for Major General Clarence P, when it was completed in 1940 and transferred to the Coast Artillery Corps it was the second 16-inch battery on the West Coast, after Battery Davis at Fort Funston. The battery was manned at all times with the men on each shift living in the walls of the battery high on the ridge. Battery Townsley is open to the every first Sunday of the month. During the Cold War Fort Cronkhite was used to house soldiers of the nearby SF-88 Nike Missile launch site, SF-88 operated throughout the 1960s and early 1970s until it was permanently closed in 1974. Many of the wooden buildings of the fort had already started to be torn down by the army in the previous years. Fort Cronkhite was discontinued as a United States Army installation effective 10 September,1974 by General order Number 25, Fort Cronkhite is now part of the National Park Services Marin Headlands section within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Along with nearby Fort Baker and Fort Barry, Fort Cronkhite is on the National Register of Historic Places, visitors to Fort Cronkhite can take walking tours of the former army buildings and hike the many trails located in the area. Many of these buildings are occupied by private organizations and are not open to the public. Rodeo Beach, which separates Rodeo Lagoon from the Pacific Ocean is located near Fort Cronkhite and is open to the public, Rodeo Beach is a popular public surfing location that is close to San Francisco. Camping is also available at campgrounds in the Marin Headlands area, Golden Gate National Recreation Area Marin Headlands San Francisco Bay Area Seacoast defense in the United States Fort Cronkhite National Park Service website
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Fort Barry
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Fort Barry is a former United States Army installation on the West Coast of the United States, located in the Marin Headlands of Marin County, California, north of San Francisco. Opened 109 years ago in 1908, the fort was part of the Coast Artillery Corps and operated throughout the 20th century, before its closure and eventual transfer to the National Park Service. The fort was armed with 5 batteries, Battery Mendell was the first battery to be built at the fort. It had two 12-inch breech-loading rifles, Model 1895, on Buffington-Crozier disappearing carriages Model 1897 and it was named for Colonel George Mendell, the engineer officer who had supervised construction of batteries around San Francisco Bay. Battery Alexander was a battery with Model 1890 breech-loading 12-inch mortars mounted on model 1896 Mark I carriages. It was named for Colonel Barton S. Alexander, Battery Edwin Guthrie mounted four six-inch rapid-fire guns, Model 1900, mounted on barbette carriages. The battery was named for Captain Edwin Guthrie, of the 15th Infantry Regiment, Battery Samuel Rathbone also mounted four six-inch rapid-fire guns, Model 1900, mounted on barbette carriages. The battery was named for Lieutenant Samuel Rathbone, Battery Patrick ORorke mounted four 15-pounder,3 inch guns on Model 1903 pedestal mounts. The battery was named for Colonel Patrick ORorke, Battery Elmer J. Wallace, was added in 1917 with two long-range 12-inch guns each with a 360-degree field of fire. Battery Construction No.129 was built on the summit of the fort in 1943 to contain two 16-inch guns, but was never armed or named. Later, the area above Battery 129 became the radar and control area for Nike Missile Site SF-87 whose launch area was in Fort Cronkhite. The balloon hangar at Fort Barry is an element of the U. S. Army’s brief experimentations with using tethered balloons as part of the nation’s system of coastal defenses. As such, it has a level of significance for its part in the evolving stories of both coastal defense and military aviation. The balloon hangar at Fort Barry was completed on June 27,1921, the 24th Balloon Company moved its balloon into the new structure not long afterwards. A half-mile long tunnel connected Fort Barry and Fort Baker, in June 1937, the tunnels width was increased to 20 feet. Fort Barry was discontinued as a U. S. Army installation 43 years ago, last Missile Site, An Operational and Physical History of Nike Site SF-88, Fort Barry, California. Bodega Bay, California, Hole In The Head Press, National Park Service – Forts Baker, Barry, and Cronkhite
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World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
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90 mm Gun M1/M2/M3
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The 90 mm Gun M1/M2/M3 served as a primary heavy American anti-aircraft and anti-tank gun, playing a role similar to the renowned German 88 mm gun. It was 90 mm in caliber, and had a 4.60 m barrel,53 calibers in length and it was capable of firing a 90×600 mm R shell 17,823 m horizontally, or a maximum altitude of 10,380 m. The 90 mm Gun was the USs primary anti-aircraft gun from just prior to the opening of World War II into the 1950s, when most anti-aircraft artillery was replaced by guided missile systems. As a tank gun, it was the weapon of the M36 tank destroyer and M26 Pershing tank. It was briefly deployed 1943-46 as a coast defense weapon with the United States Army Coast Artillery Corps, prior to World War II, the primary US anti-aircraft gun was the 3-inch M1918 gun, a widely used caliber for this class of weapon. Similar weapons were in British, Soviet and other arsenals, there had been several upgrades to the weapon over its history, including the experimental T8 and T9 versions developed in the early 1930s that were intended to enter service later in the decade. The new design seemed so much better than developments of the older 3-inch that work on the 3-inch T9 was canceled in 1938 just as it became production-ready. By 1940 the second development of the 90 mm design, the T2, was standardized as the 90 mm M1, while its larger cousin became the 120 mm M1 gun. A few hundred M1s were completed when several improvements were added to produce the 90 mm M1A1, the M1A1 included an improved mount and spring-rammer on the breech, with the result that firing rates went up to 20 rounds per minute. Several thousand were available when the US entered the war, production rates continued to improve, topping out in the low thousands per month. Like the German 88 and the British QF3.7 inch AA gun, the M1A1 found itself facing tanks in combat and it became the standard weapon from May 13,1943. In anti-aircraft use the guns were operated in groups of four. Radar direction was common, starting with the SCR-268 in 1941, which was not accurate enough to lay the guns. In 1944 the system was upgraded with the addition of the SCR-584 microwave radar, the M3 was also adapted as the main gun for various armored vehicles, starting with the experimental T7 which was accepted as the 90 mm M3. The test firing of the M3 took place on an M10 tank destroyer in early 1943, the M3 gun was used on the M36 tank destroyer, and the T26 Pershing tank. The M3 fired a M82 APC shot with a velocity of 2,650 feet per second. The HVAP could compete with the KwK 43s penetration performance when firing std. APCBC, but tungsten ammunition was always in short supply, an unsuccessful anti-tank variant was the T8 gun on the T5 carriage
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Cold War
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The Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc and powers in the Western Bloc. Historians do not fully agree on the dates, but a common timeframe is the period between 1947, the year the Truman Doctrine was announced, and 1991, the year the Soviet Union collapsed. The term cold is used there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two sides, although there were major regional wars, known as proxy wars, supported by the two sides. The Cold War split the temporary alliance against Nazi Germany, leaving the Soviet Union. The USSR was a Marxist–Leninist state ruled by its Communist Party and secret police, the Party controlled the press, the military, the economy and all organizations. In opposition stood the West, dominantly democratic and capitalist with a free press, a small neutral bloc arose with the Non-Aligned Movement, it sought good relations with both sides. The two superpowers never engaged directly in full-scale armed combat, but they were armed in preparation for a possible all-out nuclear world war. The first phase of the Cold War began in the first two years after the end of the Second World War in 1945, the Berlin Blockade was the first major crisis of the Cold War. With the victory of the communist side in the Chinese Civil War and the outbreak of the Korean War, the USSR and USA competed for influence in Latin America, and the decolonizing states of Africa and Asia. Meanwhile, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was stopped by the Soviets, the expansion and escalation sparked more crises, such as the Suez Crisis, the Berlin Crisis of 1961, and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The USSR crushed the 1968 Prague Spring liberalization program in Czechoslovakia, détente collapsed at the end of the decade with the beginning of the Soviet–Afghan War in 1979. The early 1980s were another period of elevated tension, with the Soviet downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007, the United States increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressures on the Soviet Union, at a time when the communist state was already suffering from economic stagnation. In the mid-1980s, the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the reforms of perestroika and glasnost. Pressures for national independence grew stronger in Eastern Europe, especially Poland, Gorbachev meanwhile refused to use Soviet troops to bolster the faltering Warsaw Pact regimes as had occurred in the past. The result in 1989 was a wave of revolutions that peacefully overthrew all of the communist regimes of Central, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union itself lost control and was banned following an abortive coup attempt in August 1991. This in turn led to the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991. The United States remained as the only superpower. The Cold War and its events have left a significant legacy and it is often referred to in popular culture, especially in media featuring themes of espionage and the threat of nuclear warfare
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Nike missile
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The United States Armys Nike Ajax was the worlds first operational surface-to-air missile, entering service in 1954. Nike Ajax was designed to attack conventional bomber aircraft flying at high subsonic speeds, Nike was initially deployed in the US to provide defence against Soviet bomber attacks, and was later deployed overseas to protect US bases, as well as being sold to various allied forces. Some examples remained in use until the 1970s, technological development during the 1950s quickly rendered Nike obsolete. It was unable to defend against more capable bombers or multiple targets in formation, even while Nike was being deployed, these concerns led to the contracts for the greatly improved MIM-14 Nike Hercules, which began deployment in 1959. As Hercules developed, the threat moved from bombers to ICBMs, all of the Nike projects were led by Bell Labs, due to their early work in radar guidance systems during World War II. Originally known simply as Nike, it gained the Ajax as part of a 1956 renaming effort that resulted from the introduction of Hercules and it was initially given the identifier SAM-A-7 as part of an early tri-service identification system, but later changed to MIM-3 in 1962. Part of the Nike Ajax development program designed a new solid rocket motor used for the missiles booster. This had originally designed for the US Navys missiles, and was enlarged for the Nike efforts. The rocket was so useful that it found numerous applications outside the world as the Ajax missiles were decommissioned in the 1960s. Many sounding rockets used the booster as their first or second stage, the inherent inaccuracy of anti-aircraft artillery means that when shells reach their targets they are randomly distributed in space. This distribution is larger than the lethal radius of the shells. Successful anti-aircraft gunnery therefore requires as many rounds to be fired as possible, during The Blitz, UK gunners fired 49,044 shells in January 1941 for 12 kills, almost 4,100 shells per success. German gunners did better, as they had radar assistance and most aircraft were targeted during daylight, flying faster means that the aircraft passes through the range of a gun more rapidly, reducing the number of rounds a particular gun can fire at that aircraft. Flying at higher altitudes often has an effect, as it requires larger shells to reach those altitudes. Aircraft using jet engines roughly double the speed and altitude over piston-powered designs, as early as 1942, German flak commanders were keenly aware of the problem, and expecting to face jet bombers, they began a missile development program to supplant their guns. The western allies maintained air superiority for much of the war, nevertheless, by the mid-war period the US Army had reached the same conclusion as their German counterparts, flak was simply no longer useful. Accordingly, in February 1944 the Army Ground Forces sent the Army Service Forces a request for information on the possibility of building a major caliber anti-aircraft rocket torpedo. The ASF concluded that it was too early to tell if this was possible
