1.
Mortar (weapon)
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A mortar is a device that fires projectiles at low velocities and short ranges. The mortar has traditionally used as a weapon to propel explosive mortar bombs in high-arcing ballistic trajectories. The weapon is typically muzzle-loading with a short, often smooth-bore barrel, Modern mortars are light and easily portable. They can be used for fire support with a variety of ammunition. Mortars have been used for hundreds of years, originally in siege warfare, many historians consider the first mortars to have been used at the 1453 siege of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror. A European account of the 1456 siege of Belgrade by Giovanni da Tagliacozzo said that the Ottoman Turks used seven mortars that fired stone shots one Italian mile high. The time of flight of these was long enough that casualties could be avoided by posting observers to give warning of their trajectories. However, earlier mortars were used in Korea in a 1413 naval battle when Korean gunsmiths developed the Wangu, the earliest version of the Wangu dates back to 1407. Choe Hae-san, the son of Choe Mu-seon, is credited with inventing the first Wangu. Early mortars, such as the Pumhart von Steyr, were large and heavy. Simply made, these weapons were no more than iron bowls reminiscent of the kitchen, an early transportable mortar was invented by Baron Menno van Coehoorn. This mortar fired a shell, which had a fuse lit by the hot gases when fired. This innovation was taken up, necessitating a new form of naval ship. Mortars played a significant role in the Venetian conquest of Morea, an early use of these more mobile mortars as field weapons was by British forces in the suppression of the 1719 Jacobite rising at the Battle of Glen Shiel. High angle trajectory mortars held an advantage over standard field guns in the rough terrain of the West Highlands of Scotland. Coehorn-type mortars of approximately 180 pounds weight were used by both sides during the American Civil War and these answered as coehorns, and shells were successfully thrown from them into the trenches of the enemy. The mortar had fallen out of use by the Napoleonic era. The German Army studied the Siege of Port Arthur, where heavy artillery had been unable to destroy defensive structures like barbed wire, the solution they developed was a short-barrelled rifled muzzle-loading mortar called the Minenwerfer, and was built in three sizes
2.
United States Army
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The United States Armed Forces are the federal armed forces of the United States. They consist of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, from the time of its inception, the military played a decisive role in the history of the United States. A sense of unity and identity was forged as a result of victory in the First Barbary War. Even so, the Founders were suspicious of a permanent military force and it played an important role in the American Civil War, where leading generals on both sides were picked from members of the United States military. Not until the outbreak of World War II did a standing army become officially established. The National Security Act of 1947, adopted following World War II and during the Cold Wars onset, the U. S. military is one of the largest militaries in terms of number of personnel. It draws its personnel from a pool of paid volunteers. As of 2016, the United States spends about $580.3 billion annually to fund its military forces, put together, the United States constitutes roughly 40 percent of the worlds military expenditures. For the period 2010–14, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute found that the United States was the worlds largest exporter of major arms, the United States was also the worlds eighth largest importer of major weapons for the same period. The history of the U. S. military dates to 1775 and these forces demobilized in 1784 after the Treaty of Paris ended the War for Independence. All three services trace their origins to the founding of the Continental Army, the Continental Navy, the United States President is the U. S. militarys commander-in-chief. Rising tensions at various times with Britain and France and the ensuing Quasi-War and War of 1812 quickened the development of the U. S. Navy, the reserve branches formed a military strategic reserve during the Cold War, to be called into service in case of war. Time magazines Mark Thompson has suggested that with the War on Terror, Command over the armed forces is established in the United States Constitution. The sole power of command is vested in the President by Article II as Commander-in-Chief, the Constitution also allows for the creation of executive Departments headed principal officers whose opinion the President can require. This allowance in the Constitution formed the basis for creation of the Department of Defense in 1947 by the National Security Act, the Defense Department is headed by the Secretary of Defense, who is a civilian and member of the Cabinet. The Defense Secretary is second in the chain of command, just below the President. Together, the President and the Secretary of Defense comprise the National Command Authority, to coordinate military strategy with political affairs, the President has a National Security Council headed by the National Security Advisor. The collective body has only power to the President
3.
United States Marine Corps
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The U. S. Marine Corps is one of the four armed service branches in the U. S. Department of Defense and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the military officer in the U. S. Armed Forces, is a Marine Corps general, the Marine Corps has been a component of the U. S. Department of the Navy since 30 June 1834, working closely with naval forces for training, transportation, and logistics. The USMC operates posts on land and aboard sea-going amphibious warfare ships around the world, two battalions of Continental Marines were formed on 10 November 1775 in Philadelphia as a service branch of infantry troops capable of fighting for independence both at sea and on shore. The role of the Corps has since grown and evolved, expanding to aerial warfare and earning popular titles such as, Americas third air force, and, second land army. By the mid-20th century, the U. S. Marine Corps had become a major theorist of and its ability to rapidly respond on short notice to expeditionary crises gives it a strong role in the implementation and execution of American foreign policy. As of 2016, the USMC has around 182,000 active duty members and it is the smallest of the U. S. The USMC serves as an expeditionary force-in-readiness and this last clause, while seemingly redundant given the Presidents position as Commander-in-chief, is a codification of the expeditionary responsibilities of the Marine Corps. It derives from similar language in the Congressional acts For the Better Organization of the Marine Corps of 1834, in 1951, the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee called the clause one of the most important statutory – and traditional – functions of the Marine Corps. In addition to its duties, the Marine Corps conducts Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure operations, as well as missions in direct support of the White House. The Marine Band, dubbed the Presidents Own by Thomas Jefferson, Marines from Ceremonial Companies A & B, quartered in Marine Barracks, Washington, D. C. The Executive Flight Detachment also provides transport to Cabinet members. The relationship between the Department of State and the U. S. Marine Corps is nearly as old as the corps itself, for over 200 years, Marines have served at the request of various Secretaries of State. After World War II, an alert, disciplined force was needed to protect American embassies, consulates, in 1947, a proposal was made that the Department of War furnish Marine Corps personnel for Foreign Service guard duty under the provisions of the Foreign Service Act of 1946. A formal Memorandum of Agreement was signed between the Department of State and the Secretary of the Navy on December 15,1948, during the first year of the MSG program,36 detachments were deployed worldwide. Continental Marines manned raiding parties, both at sea and ashore, the Advanced Base Doctrine of the early 20th century codified their combat duties ashore, outlining the use of Marines in the seizure of bases and other duties on land to support naval campaigns. Throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries, Marine detachments served aboard Navy cruisers, battleships, Marine detachments served in their traditional duties as a ships landing force, manning the ships weapons and providing shipboard security. Marines would develop tactics and techniques of amphibious assault on defended coastlines in time for use in World War II, during World War II, Marines continued to serve on capital ships
4.
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
5.
Korean War
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The Korean War began when North Korea invaded South Korea. The United Nations, with the United States as the principal force, China came to the aid of North Korea, and the Soviet Union gave some assistance. Korea was ruled by Japan from 1910 until the days of World War II. In August 1945, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, as a result of an agreement with the United States, U. S. forces subsequently moved into the south. By 1948, as a product of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, Korea was split into two regions, with separate governments, both governments claimed to be the legitimate government of all of Korea, and neither side accepted the border as permanent. The conflict escalated into open warfare when North Korean forces—supported by the Soviet Union, on that day, the United Nations Security Council recognized this North Korean act as invasion and called for an immediate ceasefire. On 27 June, the Security Council adopted S/RES/83, Complaint of aggression upon the Republic of Korea and decided the formation, twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force, with the United States providing 88% of the UNs military personnel. After the first two months of war, South Korean forces were on the point of defeat, forced back to the Pusan Perimeter, in September 1950, an amphibious UN counter-offensive was launched at Inchon, and cut off many North Korean troops. Those who escaped envelopment and capture were rapidly forced back north all the way to the border with China at the Yalu River, at this point, in October 1950, Chinese forces crossed the Yalu and entered the war. Chinese intervention triggered a retreat of UN forces which continued until mid-1951, after these reversals of fortune, which saw Seoul change hands four times, the last two years of fighting became a war of attrition, with the front line close to the 38th parallel. The war in the air, however, was never a stalemate, North Korea was subject to a massive bombing campaign. Jet fighters confronted each other in combat for the first time in history. The fighting ended on 27 July 1953, when an armistice was signed, the agreement created the Korean Demilitarized Zone to separate North and South Korea, and allowed the return of prisoners. However, no treaty has been signed, and the two Koreas are technically still at war. Periodic clashes, many of which are deadly, continue to the present, in the U. S. the war was initially described by President Harry S. Truman as a police action as it was an undeclared military action, conducted under the auspices of the United Nations. In South Korea, the war is referred to as 625 or the 6–2–5 Upheaval. In North Korea, the war is referred to as the Fatherland Liberation War or alternatively the Chosǒn War. In China, the war is called the War to Resist U. S
6.
Portuguese Colonial War
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The Portuguese regime was overthrown by a military coup in 1974, and the change in government brought the conflict to an end. The war was an ideological struggle in Lusophone Africa and surrounding nations. The prevalent Portuguese and international historical approach considers the Portuguese Colonial War as a conflict fought in three separate theaters of operations. However, some other approaches consider the existence of three conflicts, the Angolan War of Independence, the Guinea-Bissau War of Independence. Occasionally, the conflict that led to the 1961 Indian Annexation of Goa is also included. During the ensuing conflict, atrocities were committed by all forces involved, throughout the period Portugal faced increasing dissent, arms embargoes and other punitive sanctions imposed by the international community. The end of the war came with the Carnation Revolution military coup of April 1974 and this migration is regarded as one of the largest peaceful migrations in the worlds history. The former colonies faced severe problems after independence, devastating and violent civil wars followed in Angola and Mozambique, which lasted several decades, claimed millions of lives, and resulted in large numbers of displaced refugees. A level of order and economic development comparable to what had existed under Portuguese rule, including during the period of the Colonial War. Portugal had been the first modern European power to establish a colony in Africa when it captured Ceuta in 1415, when the Portuguese began trading on the west coast of Africa, in the 15th century, they concentrated their energies on Guinea and Angola. Hoping at first for gold, they found that slaves were the most valuable commodity available in the region for export. The Islamic Empire was already well-established in the African slave trade, but the Portuguese never established much more than a foothold in either place. In Guinea, rival Europeans grabbed much of the trade while local African rulers confined the Portuguese to the coast and these rulers then sent enslaved Africans to the Portuguese ports, or to forts in Africa from where they were exported. Thousands of kilometers down the coast, in Angola, the Portuguese found it harder to consolidate their early advantage against encroachments by Dutch, British. Nevertheless, the fortified Portuguese towns of Luanda and Benguela remained almost continuously in Portuguese hands, as in Guinea, the slave trade became the basis of the local economy in Angola. More than a million men, women and children were shipped from Angola across the Atlantic, in this region, unlike Guinea, the trade remained largely in Portuguese hands. Nearly all the slaves were destined for Brazil and these sertanejos lived alongside Swahili traders and even obtained employment among Shona kings as interpreters and political advisers. One such sertanejo managed to travel through almost all the Shona kingdoms, including the Mutapa Empires metropolitan district, the Portuguese finally entered into direct relations with the Mwenemutapa in the 1560s
7.
Chemical Corps
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The Chemical Corps is the branch of the United States Army tasked with defending against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons. The corps was founded as the U. S, Chemical Warfare Service during World War I. Its name was changed to the Chemical Corps in 1946, for most of its history, the Chemical Corps was tasked with delivering chemical weapons rather than defending against them. Discussion of the dates back to the American Civil War. A letter to the War Department dated 5 April 1862 from New York City resident John Doughty proposed the use of shells to drive the Confederate Army from its positions. Doughty included a drawing of the shell with his letter. It is unknown how the military reacted to Doughtys proposal but the letter was unnoticed in a pile of old official documents until modern times, another American, Forrest Shepherd, also proposed a chemical weapon attack against the Confederates. Shepherds proposal involved hydrogen chloride, an attack that would have likely been non-lethal, Shepherd was a well-known geologist at the time and his proposal was in the form of a letter directly to the White House. The earliest predecessors to the United States Army Chemical Corps owe their existence to changes of military technology early in World War I. Despite this early interest, troops were supplied with masks nor trained for offensive gas warfare until the U. S. became involved in World War I in 1917. By 1917, the use of weapons by both the Allied and Central Powers had become commonplace along the Western, Eastern and Italian Fronts. In 1917, Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane, directed the Bureau of Mines to assist the Army and Navy in creating a gas war program. After the Director of the Bureau of Mines formally offered the service to the Military Committee of the National Research Council. On 5 July 1917 General John J. Pershing oversaw the creation of a Gas Service Section, the predecessor to the 1st Gas Regiment was the 30th Engineer Regiment. The 30th was activated on 15 August 1917 at Camp American University, Washington, additional War Department orders established a Chemical Service Section that included 47 commissioned officers and 95 enlisted personnel. Despite the conventional training, the public perceived the 30th as dealing mainly with poisonous gas, by the time those in the 30th Engineers arrived in France most of them knew nothing of chemical warfare and had no specialized equipment. The 30th Engineer Regiment was redesignated the First Gas Regiment in 1918 and deployed to assist and support Army gas operations, the Chemical Warfare Service, the predecessor to the Chemical Corps, was officially formed on 28 June 1918 and encompassed the Gas Service and Chemical Service Sections. By 1 November 1918 the CWS included 1,654 commissioned officers and 18,027 enlisted personnel, major General William L. Sibert was appointed as the first director of the CWS on the day it was created
8.
Gun barrel
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A gun barrel is a part of firearms and artillery pieces. The hollow interior of the barrel is called the bore, a gun barrel must be able to hold in the expanding gas produced by the propellants to ensure that optimum muzzle velocity is attained by the projectile as it is being pushed out by the expanding gas. Modern small arms barrels are made of known and tested to withstand the pressures involved. Artillery pieces are made by various techniques providing reliably sufficient strength, early firearms were muzzle-loading, with powder, and then shot loaded from the muzzle, capable of only a low rate of fire. During the 19th century effective mechanical locks were invented that sealed a breech-loading weapon against the escape of propellant gases, the early Chinese, the inventors of gunpowder, used bamboo, a naturally tubular stalk, as the first barrels in gunpowder projectile weapons. Early European guns were made of iron, usually with several strengthening bands of the metal wrapped around circular wrought iron rings. The Chinese were the first to master cast-iron cannon barrels, early cannon barrels were very thick for their caliber. Bore evacuator Bore snake Cannon Muzzle Polygonal rifling Rifling Slug barrel Smoothbore
9.
Shell (projectile)
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A shell is a payload-carrying projectile that, as opposed to shot, contains an explosive or other filling, though modern usage sometimes includes large solid projectiles properly termed shot. Solid shot may contain a pyrotechnic compound if a tracer or spotting charge is used, originally, it was called a bombshell, but shell has come to be unambiguous in a military context. Words cognate with grenade are still used for an artillery or mortar projectile in some European languages, shells are usually large-calibre projectiles fired by artillery, combat vehicles, and warships. Shells usually have the shape of a cylinder topped by a nose for good aerodynamic performance, possibly with a tapering base. Solid cannonballs did not need a fuse, but hollow munitions filled with something such as gunpowder to fragment the ball, needed a fuse, percussion fuses with a spherical projectile presented a challenge because there was no way of ensuring that the impact mechanism hit the target. Therefore, shells needed a fuse that was ignited before or during firing. The earliest record of shells being used in combat was by the Republic of Venice at Jadra in 1376, shells with fuses were used at the 1421 siege of St Boniface in Corsica. These were two hollowed hemispheres of stone or bronze held together by an iron hoop, as described in their book, these hollow, gunpowder-packed shells were made of cast iron. At least since the 16th Century grenades made of ceramics or glass were in use in Central Europe, a hoard of several hundred ceramic greandes were discovered during building works in front of a bastion of the Bavarian City of Ingolstadt, Germany dated to the 17th Century. Lots of the grenades obtained their orignal blackpowder loads and igniters, most probably the grenades were intentionally dumped the moat of the bastion before the year 1723. Early powder burning fuses had to be loaded fuse down to be ignited by firing or a portfire put down the barrel to light the fuse, other shells were wrapped in bitumen cloth, which would ignite during the firing and in turn ignite a powder fuse. Nevertheless, shells came into use in the 16th Century. By the 18th Century, it was known that the fuse towards the muzzle could be lit by the flash through the windage between the shell and the barrel, the use of exploding shells from field artillery became relatively commonplace from early in the 19th century. Until the mid 19th century, shells remained as simple exploding spheres that used gunpowder and they were usually made of cast iron, but bronze, lead, brass and even glass shell casings were experimented with. The word bomb encompassed them at the time, as heard in the lyrics of The Star-Spangled Banner, typically, the thickness of the metal body was about a sixth of their diameter and they were about two thirds the weight of solid shot of the same calibre. To ensure that shells were loaded with their fuses towards the muzzle, in 1819, a committee of British artillery officers recognised that they were essential stores and in 1830 Britain standardised sabot thickness as a half inch. The sabot was also intended to reduce jamming during loading, despite the use of exploding shell, the use of smoothbore cannons, firing spherical projectiles of shot, remained the dominant artillery method until the 1850s. By the late 18th century, artillery could use canister shot to defend itself from infantry or cavalry attack and this involved loading a tin or canvas container filled with small iron or lead balls instead of the usual cannonball
10.
Caliber
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In guns, particularly firearms, caliber or calibre is the approximate internal diameter of the barrel, or the diameter of the projectile it fires, in hundredths or sometimes thousandths of an inch. For example, a 45 caliber firearm has a diameter of.45 of an inch. Barrel diameters can also be expressed using metric dimensions, as in 9mm pistol, when the barrel diameter is given in inches, the abbreviation cal can be used. Good performance requires a bullet to closely match the diameter of a barrel to ensure a good seal. While modern cartridges and cartridge firearms are referred to by the cartridge name. Firearm calibers outside the range of 17 to 50 exist, but are rarely encountered. Larger calibers, such as.577.585.600.700, the.950 JDJ is the only known cartridge beyond 79 caliber used in a rifle. Referring to artillery, caliber is used to describe the length as multiples of the bore diameter. A 5-inch 50 calibre gun has a diameter of 5 in. The main guns of the USS Missouri are 1650 caliber, makers of early cartridge arms had to invent methods of naming the cartridges, since no established convention existed then. One of the early established cartridge arms was the Spencer repeating rifle, later various derivatives were created using the same basic cartridge, but with smaller-diameter bullets, these were named by the cartridge diameter at the base and mouth. The original No.56 became the. 56-56, and the smaller versions. 56-52. 56-50, the. 56-52, the most common of the new calibers, used a 50-cal bullet. Optionally, the weight in grains was designated, e. g. 45-70-405. Variations on these methods persist today, with new cartridges such as the.204 Ruger, metric diameters for small arms refer to cartridge dimensions and are expressed with an × between the bore diameter and the length of the cartridge case, for example,7. 62×51 NATO. This indicates that the diameter is 7. 62mm, loaded in a case 51mm long. Similarly, the 6. 5×55 Swedish cartridge has a diameter of 6.5 mm. An exception to rule is the proprietary cartridge used by U. S. maker Lazzeroni. The following table lists commonly used calibers where both metric and imperial are used as equivalents
11.
Utah Beach
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Utah Beach was the code name for one of the five sectors of the Allied invasion of German-occupied France in the Normandy landings on June 6,1944, during World War II. The westernmost of the five landing beaches, Utah is on the Cotentin Peninsula, west of the mouths of the Douve, the objective at Utah was to secure a beachhead on the Cotentin Peninsula, the location of important port facilities at Cherbourg. The amphibious assault, primarily by the US 4th Infantry Division and 70th Tank Battalion, was supported by landings of the 82nd. The intention was to seal off the Cotentin Peninsula, prevent the Germans from reinforcing Cherbourg. Utah, along with Sword Beach on the flank, was added to the invasion plan in December 1943. These changes doubled the frontage of the invasion and necessitated a delay so that additional landing craft. Allied forces attacking Utah Beach faced two battalions of the 919th Grenadier Regiment, part of the 709th Static Infantry Division, while some airborne objectives were quickly met, many paratroopers landed far from their drop zones and were unable to fulfill their objectives on the first day. On the beach itself, infantry and tanks landed in four waves beginning at 06,30, meanwhile, engineers set to work clearing the area of obstacles and mines, and additional waves of reinforcements continued to arrive. At the close of D-Day, Allied forces had captured about half of the planned area and contingents of German defenders remained. The 4th Infantry Division landed 21,000 troops on Utah at the cost of only 197 casualties, Airborne troops arriving by parachute and glider numbered an additional 14,000 men, with 2,500 casualties. Around 700 men were lost in engineering units, 70th Tank Battalion, Cherbourg was captured on June 26, but by this time the Germans had destroyed the port facilities, which were not brought back into full operation until September. The decision to undertake an invasion of continental Europe within the next year was taken at the Trident Conference. The Allies initially planned to launch the invasion on May 1,1944, General Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed commander of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force. General Bernard Montgomery was named as commander of the 21st Army Group, on December 31,1943, Eisenhower and Montgomery first saw the plan, which proposed amphibious landings by three divisions and two-thirds of an airborne division. The two generals immediately insisted that the scale of the invasion be expanded to five divisions. The change doubled the frontage of the invasion from 25 miles to 50 miles and this would allow for quicker offloading of men and materiel, make it more difficult for the Germans to respond, and speed up the capture of the port at Cherbourg. Eisenhower and Lieutenant General Omar Bradley selected for Utah the VII Corps, Major General J. Lawton Collins, who had experience with amphibious operations in the Pacific Theater of Operations, replaced Major General Roscoe Woodruff as commander of VII Corps. Utah Beach, the westernmost of the five landing beaches, is on the Cotentin Peninsula, west of the mouths of the Douve and Vire rivers
12.
North Korea
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North Korea, officially the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, is a country in East Asia, constituting the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. Pyongyang is both the capital as well as its largest city. To the north and northwest the country is bordered by China and by Russia along the Amnok, the country is bordered to the south by South Korea, with the heavily fortified Korean Demilitarized Zone separating the two. Negotiations on reunification failed, and in 1948 two separate governments were formed, the communist Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea in the north, an invasion initiated by North Korea led to the Korean War. The Korean Armistice Agreement brought about a ceasefire, and no peace treaty was ever signed. North Korea officially describes itself as a self-reliant socialist state and formally holds elections, critics regard it as a totalitarian dictatorship. Various outlets have called it Stalinist, particularly noting the elaborate cult of personality around Kim Il-sung, International organizations have assessed human rights violations in North Korea as belonging to a category of their own, with no parallel in the contemporary world. Over time, North Korea has gradually distanced itself from the world communist movement, Juche, an ideology of national self-reliance, was introduced into the constitution as a creative application of Marxism–Leninism in 1972. The means of production are owned by the state through state-run enterprises, most services such as healthcare, education, housing and food production are subsidized or state-funded. From 1994 to 1998, North Korea suffered from a famine that resulted in the deaths of between 0.24 and 3.5 million people, and the continues to struggle with food production. North Korea follows Songun, or military-first policy and it is the country with the highest number of military and paramilitary personnel, with a total of 9,495,000 active, reserve, and paramilitary personnel. Its active duty army of 1.21 million is the fourth largest in the world, after China, North Korea is an atheist state with no official religion and where public religion is discouraged. The name Korea derives from the name Goryeo, the name Goryeo itself was first used by the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo in the 5th century as a shortened form of its name. The 10th-century kingdom of Goryeo succeeded Goguryeo, and thus inherited its name, the modern spelling of Korea first appeared in the late 17th century in the travel writings of the Dutch East India Companys Hendrick Hamel. After the division of the country into North and South Korea, the two sides used different terms to refer to Korea, Chosun or Joseon in North Korea, in 1948, North Korea adopted Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea as its new legal name. After the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, Korea was occupied by Japan, Japan tried to suppress Korean traditions and culture and ran the economy primarily for its own benefit. Korean resistance groups known as Dongnipgun operated along the Sino-Korean border, some of them took part in allied action in China and parts of South East Asia. One of the leaders was the communist Kim Il-sung, who later became the leader of North Korea
13.
Rifling
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In firearms, rifling consists of helical grooves in the internal surface of a guns barrel, which impart a spin to a projectile around its long axis. This spin serves to stabilize the projectile, improving its aerodynamic stability. Rifling is often described by its twist rate, which indicates the distance the rifling takes to complete one revolution, such as 1 turn in 10 inches. A shorter distance indicates a faster twist, meaning that for a given velocity the projectile will be rotating at a spin rate. Barrels intended for long, small-diameter bullets, such as the ultra-low-drag, 80-grain 0.223 inch bullets, extremely long projectiles such as flechettes may require high twist rates, these projectiles must be inherently stable, and are often fired from a smoothbore barrel. Muskets were smoothbore, large caliber weapons using ball-shaped ammunition fired at low velocity. Due to the high cost and great difficulty of manufacturing, and the need to load readily from the muzzle. Consequently, on firing the ball bounced off the sides of the barrel when fired, barrel rifling was invented in Augsburg, Germany in 1498. In 1520 August Kotter, an armourer of Nuremberg, Germany improved upon this work, though true rifling dates from the mid-16th century, it did not become commonplace until the nineteenth century. The most successful weapons using rifling with black powder were breech loaders such as the Queen Anne pistol, the grooves most commonly used in modern rifling have fairly sharp edges. More recently, polygonal rifling, a throwback to the earliest types of rifling, has become popular, polygonal barrels tend to have longer service lives because the reduction of the sharp edges of the land reduces erosion of the barrel. Supporters of polygonal rifling also claim higher velocities and greater accuracy, polygonal rifling is currently seen on pistols from CZ, Heckler & Koch, Glock, Tanfoglio, and Kahr Arms, as well as the Desert Eagle. Such guns have achieved significant increases in velocity and range. Examples include the South African G5 and the German PzH2000, gain-twist rifling begins with very little change in the projectiles angular momentum during the first few inches of bullet travel after ignition during the transition from chamber to throat. This enables the bullet to remain undisturbed and trued to the case mouth. After engaging the rifling the bullet is progressively subjected to accelerated angular momentum as burning powder propels it down the barrel. By only gradually increasing the rate, torque is spread along a much longer section of barrel. Gain-twist rifling was used as early as the American Civil War, colt Army and Navy revolvers both employed gain-twist rifling
14.
M30 mortar
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The M30106.7 mm heavy mortar is an American rifled, muzzle-loading, high-angle-of-fire weapon used for long-range indirect fire support to infantry units. The M30 system weighs 305 kg including the mortar with a welded steel rotator, M24A1 base plate. A point of interest in the design of mortar is the rifled barrel. A rifled barrel requires the round to be a tight fit to the bore in order for the rifling to engage the round. But in a mortar, the round has to be loose enough in the bore to drop in from the front. In order to have it both ways, these rounds have a ring at the base which expands into the rifling under the pressure of the explosion of the firing charge which propels the round. American rounds are designed to be drop-safe and bore-safe, HE M329A1—max range 5,650 m, weight 12. Deployment height above ground is determined by gun elevation angle and propelling charge, there was also a sub-caliber training device that utilized blank 20 gauge shotgun shells to propel an inert training round a few hundred meters. This training was for gunnery skills of laying the guns, the M30 entered service with the U. S. Army in 1951, replacing the previous M2106.7 mm mortar. It was adopted due to the range and lethality in comparison to the previous M24.2 inch mortar, although the M30. Due to this weight the mortar was most often mounted in a tracked mortar carrier of the M113 family. This vehicle mounted mortar was crewed by 5 people, the commander, gunner, assistant gunner, ammunition bearer. Also this decreased the accuracy of the weapon as the recoil from firing caused the plate to shift in the ground. Chapter 6, FM 23-90,4. 2-Inch Mortar, M30 List of artillery List of crew served weapons of the US Armed Forces Chemical mortar battalions of the United States Army
15.
Smoke shell
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A shell is a payload-carrying projectile that, as opposed to shot, contains an explosive or other filling, though modern usage sometimes includes large solid projectiles properly termed shot. Solid shot may contain a pyrotechnic compound if a tracer or spotting charge is used, originally, it was called a bombshell, but shell has come to be unambiguous in a military context. Words cognate with grenade are still used for an artillery or mortar projectile in some European languages, shells are usually large-calibre projectiles fired by artillery, combat vehicles, and warships. Shells usually have the shape of a cylinder topped by a nose for good aerodynamic performance, possibly with a tapering base. Solid cannonballs did not need a fuse, but hollow munitions filled with something such as gunpowder to fragment the ball, needed a fuse, percussion fuses with a spherical projectile presented a challenge because there was no way of ensuring that the impact mechanism hit the target. Therefore, shells needed a fuse that was ignited before or during firing. The earliest record of shells being used in combat was by the Republic of Venice at Jadra in 1376, shells with fuses were used at the 1421 siege of St Boniface in Corsica. These were two hollowed hemispheres of stone or bronze held together by an iron hoop, as described in their book, these hollow, gunpowder-packed shells were made of cast iron. At least since the 16th Century grenades made of ceramics or glass were in use in Central Europe, a hoard of several hundred ceramic greandes were discovered during building works in front of a bastion of the Bavarian City of Ingolstadt, Germany dated to the 17th Century. Lots of the grenades obtained their orignal blackpowder loads and igniters, most probably the grenades were intentionally dumped the moat of the bastion before the year 1723. Early powder burning fuses had to be loaded fuse down to be ignited by firing or a portfire put down the barrel to light the fuse, other shells were wrapped in bitumen cloth, which would ignite during the firing and in turn ignite a powder fuse. Nevertheless, shells came into use in the 16th Century. By the 18th Century, it was known that the fuse towards the muzzle could be lit by the flash through the windage between the shell and the barrel, the use of exploding shells from field artillery became relatively commonplace from early in the 19th century. Until the mid 19th century, shells remained as simple exploding spheres that used gunpowder and they were usually made of cast iron, but bronze, lead, brass and even glass shell casings were experimented with. The word bomb encompassed them at the time, as heard in the lyrics of The Star-Spangled Banner, typically, the thickness of the metal body was about a sixth of their diameter and they were about two thirds the weight of solid shot of the same calibre. To ensure that shells were loaded with their fuses towards the muzzle, in 1819, a committee of British artillery officers recognised that they were essential stores and in 1830 Britain standardised sabot thickness as a half inch. The sabot was also intended to reduce jamming during loading, despite the use of exploding shell, the use of smoothbore cannons, firing spherical projectiles of shot, remained the dominant artillery method until the 1850s. By the late 18th century, artillery could use canister shot to defend itself from infantry or cavalry attack and this involved loading a tin or canvas container filled with small iron or lead balls instead of the usual cannonball
16.
Allied invasion of Sicily
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The Allied invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Husky, was a major campaign of World War II, in which the Allies took the island of Sicily from the Axis powers. It was an amphibious and airborne operation, followed by a six-week land campaign and was the beginning of the Italian Campaign. Husky began on the night of 9/10 July 1943, and ended on 17 August, the Italian leader, Benito Mussolini, was toppled from power in Italy and the way was opened for the Allied invasion of Italy. The German leader, Adolf Hitler, canceled a major offensive at Kursk after only a week, in part to divert forces to Italy, resulting in a reduction of German strength on the Eastern Front. The plan for Operation Husky called for the assault of Sicily by two Allied armies, one landing on the south-eastern and one on the central southern coast. The amphibious assaults were to be supported by gunfire, as well as tactical bombing, interdiction. As such, the operation required a complex structure, incorporating land, naval. The overall commander was American General Dwight D. Eisenhower, as Commander-in-Chief of all the Allied forces in North Africa, British General Sir Harold Alexander acted as his second-in-command and as the 15th Army Group commander. The American Major General Walter Bedell Smith was appointed as Eisenhowers Chief of Staff, the overall Naval Force Commander was the British Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham. The Allied land forces were from the American, British and Canadian armies, the Eastern Task Force was led by General Sir Bernard Montgomery and consisted of the British Eighth Army. The Western Task Force was commanded by Lieutenant General George S. Patton, the two task force commanders reported to Alexander as commander of the 15th Army Group. Seventh Army consisted initially of three divisions, organized under II Corps, commanded by Lieutenant General Omar Bradley. Middleton, sailed from the United States via Oran in Algeria, the 2nd Armored Division, under Major General Hugh Joseph Gaffey, also sailing from Oran, was to be a floating reserve and be fed into combat as required. On 15 July, Patton reorganized his command into two corps by creating a new Provisional Corps headquarters, commanded by his deputy army commander, Major General Geoffrey Keyes. The two divisions of XIII Corps, the 5th and 50th Infantry Divisions, commanded by Major-Generals Horatio Berney-Ficklin and Sidney Kirkman and this request was granted by the British, displacing the veteran British 3rd Infantry Division. The Red Patch Division was added to Leeses XXX Corps to become part of the British Eighth Army, in addition to the amphibious landings, airborne troops were to be flown in to support both the Western and Eastern Task Forces. To the east, the British 1st Airborne Division, commanded by Major-General George F. Hopkinson, was to seize vital bridges and high ground in support of the British Eighth Army. The initial plan dictated that the U. S. 82nd Airborne Division, Allied naval forces were also grouped into two task forces to transport and support the invading armies
17.
M3 Half-track
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The M3 Half-track, known officially as the Carrier, Personnel Half-track M3, was an American armored personnel carrier half-track widely used by the Allies during World War II and in the Cold War. Derived from the M2 Half Track Car, the slightly longer M3 was extensively produced, with about 15,000 units, the design was based on the Citroen-Kégresse half-track. The developers attempted to use as many parts as possible. There were also several variants for different purposes. The M3 and its variants were supplied to the U. S. Army and Marines, as well as British Commonwealth and Soviet Red Army forces, although at first unpopular, it was used by most of the Allies at some point in the war. Racks under the seats were used for ammunition and rations, additional racks behind the seat backs held the squads rifles, a small rack for mines was added on the outside of the hull just above the tracks. In combat, most units found it necessary to stow additional food, rucksacks, luggage racks were often added in the field, and very late vehicles had rear-mounted racks for this crew stowage. Early vehicles had a mount, just behind the front seats. The later M3A1 adopted a raised, armored pulpit mount for the. 50-caliber, many M3s were later modified to the M3A1 standard. The body was armored all around, with an armored shutter for the engines radiator. Between the world wars, the U. S. Army sought to improve the mobility of its forces. With the goal of finding a high-mobility infantry vehicle, the Ordnance Department had evaluated the design by testing French Citroën-Kégresse vehicles. The White Motor Company produced a prototype using their own chassis. The front suspension was leaf spring, tracks by vertical volute spring, braking was vacuum-assisted hydraulic, steering manual, without power assist. The M3 was the larger and longer counterpart to the M2 Half Track Car, the M2 was originally intended to function as an artillery tractor. The M3 had an access door in the rear and seating for a 12-man rifle squad. Five seats were arranged on each side in the rear of the vehicle, although originally intended for armored infantry regiments, it was quickly put into action with the Provisional Tank Group when the Japanese Army began their invasion of the Philippines. Initially, there were multiple complaints due to mechanical difficulties
18.
Peleliu
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Peleliu is an island in the island nation of Palau. Peleliu forms, along two small islands to its northeast, one of the sixteen states of Palau. The island is noted as the location of the Battle of Peleliu in World War II, Peleliu is approximately 10 kilometres northeast of the island of Angaur and 40 kilometres southwest of the island of Koror. Peleliu has an area of 13 square kilometres. As of 2000, its population was about 571, making it the third most populous state of Palau, most of the islands population lives in the village of Kloulklubed which is the state capital on the northwestern coast. They were then charted as Los Arrecifes, two years later they were explored in detail by the expedition of Spanish naval officer Bernardo de Egoy. Following its defeat in the Spanish–American War, Spain sold Palau to Germany in 1899, control passed to Japan in 1914. During World War II, the Battle of Peleliu was a battle between units of the United States Marine Corps and United States Army against the Imperial Japanese Army. The ruins of many of the installations of the era, such as the airstrip, are still intact. There are war memorials on the island to both the American and the Japanese dead, Peleliu and Angaur were the only islands in the Palau archipelago to be occupied by the Americans during the war. The capital of Koror remained in Japanese hands to the end of the war, Peleliu passed formally to the United States under United Nations auspices in 1947 as part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. Palau became independent in 1978, and Peleliu was organized as a state within the new republic, in August 2014, Peleliu hosted the leaders retreat at the 45th Pacific Islands Forum, featuring representatives from the forums 15 member states. A regular boat service connects the island twice a week to Koror, travel time by boat from Koror is over an hour. The small harbor in the far north of the island is shallow, the entire island has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Peleliu Battlefield, and has been designated a U. S. National Historic Landmark. Map of Peleliu Peleliu National Historical Park Study Preliminary Draft Bloody Peleliu Photos of WW2-era relics and equipment on Peleliu Honorary Consulate of the Republic of Palau to the UK &NI
19.
United States 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
20.
Landing Craft Infantry
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The Landing Craft Infantry were several classes of seagoing amphibious assault ships of the Second World War used to land large numbers of infantry directly onto beaches. They were developed in response to a British request for a capable of carrying and landing substantially more troops than their smaller Landing Craft Assault. The result was a steel ship that could land 200 troops. Some 923 were built starting in 1943, serving in both the Pacific and European theaters, including a number that were converted into heavily armed beach assault support ships. Commonly called Elsie Items, the LCI supplemented the small LCAs/LCVPs as a way to get many troops ashore before a dock could be captured or built, as such, they were the largest dedicated beachable infantry landing craft in the allied inventory. The LCI was designed to carry 200 troops at up to 15 knots, since a steel hull would be needed and steel was already earmarked for building destroyers at home the U. S was approached. There the plans were developed into the LCI - Landing Craft Infantry, the original British design was envisioned as being a one time use vessel which would simply ferry the troops across the English Channel, and were considered an expendable vessel. As such, no sleeping accommodations were placed in the original design. The troops were provided benches upon which to sit while they were transported across the channel and this was changed shortly after initial use of these ships, when it was discovered that many missions would require overnight accommodations. The US was able to come up with an easily built and mass-produced design by using non-traditional shipbuilding facilities, the US established LCI building yards at ten different locations. There were 3 major types of LCI which differed mostly by the location of the ramps, all of these ships had similar hulls. The hull of all LCI were 158 ft long with a 23-foot beam, making them relatively long, the LCI350 class had a single enclosed bow ramp with 2 bow doors that swung open. The reason for moving the ramp to the inside was to some protection for the troops as they disembarked to the beach. Also, the low, squared-off conning tower was upgraded on later models with a taller, round conning tower which afforded slightly more visibility from the bridge. However, they were included in the first waves at numerous invasions such as Anzio, Normandy, Southern France, Elba, Saipan, the Philippines, Iwo Jima, Guam, and Okinawa. All LCI were twin shaft propelled by two banks of Detroit Diesel 6-71 Quad Diesel engines that produced a total of 1600 BHP and these engines were a wartime expedient design that utilized existing and readily available engines. Four 2-stroke Detroit Diesel 6-71 with Roots blower were coupled to create a bank for each of the two propeller shafts, the 4 engines per bank were joined together using individual drive clutches hence the name Quad Diesel. If a single engine were to fail, the engine could be disconnected from the unit via its clutch
21.
Philippines
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The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is a sovereign island country in Southeast Asia situated in the western Pacific Ocean. It consists of about 7,641 islands that are categorized broadly under three main geographical divisions from north to south, Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, the capital city of the Philippines is Manila and the most populous city is Quezon City, both part of Metro Manila. The Philippines has an area of 300,000 square kilometers, and it is the eighth-most populated country in Asia and the 12th most populated country in the world. As of 2013, approximately 10 million additional Filipinos lived overseas, multiple ethnicities and cultures are found throughout the islands. In prehistoric times, Negritos were some of the archipelagos earliest inhabitants and they were followed by successive waves of Austronesian peoples. Exchanges with Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Islamic nations occurred, then, various competing maritime states were established under the rule of Datus, Rajahs, Sultans or Lakans. The arrival of Ferdinand Magellan in Homonhon, Eastern Samar in 1521 marked the beginning of Hispanic colonization, in 1543, Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos named the archipelago Las Islas Filipinas in honor of Philip II of Spain. With the arrival of Miguel López de Legazpi from Mexico City, in 1565, the Philippines became part of the Spanish Empire for more than 300 years. This resulted in Roman Catholicism becoming the dominant religion, during this time, Manila became the western hub of the trans-Pacific trade connecting Asia with Acapulco in the Americas using Manila galleons. Aside from the period of Japanese occupation, the United States retained sovereignty over the islands until after World War II, since then, the Philippines has often had a tumultuous experience with democracy, which included the overthrow of a dictatorship by a non-violent revolution. It is a member of the United Nations, World Trade Organization, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. It also hosts the headquarters of the Asian Development Bank, the Philippines was named in honor of King Philip II of Spain. Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos, during his expedition in 1542, named the islands of Leyte, eventually the name Las Islas Filipinas would be used to cover all the islands of the archipelago. Before that became commonplace, other such as Islas del Poniente. The official name of the Philippines has changed several times in the course of its history, during the Philippine Revolution, the Malolos Congress proclaimed the establishment of the República Filipina or the Philippine Republic. From the 1898 Treaty of Paris, the name Philippines began to appear, since the end of World War II, the official name of the country has been the Republic of the Philippines. The metatarsal of the Callao Man, reliably dated by uranium-series dating to 67,000 years ago is the oldest human remnant found in the archipelago to date and this distinction previously belonged to the Tabon Man of Palawan, carbon-dated to around 26,500 years ago. Negritos were also among the archipelagos earliest inhabitants, but their first settlement in the Philippines has not been reliably dated, there are several opposing theories regarding the origins of ancient Filipinos
22.
Iwo Jima
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The U. S. occupied Iwo Jima until 1968 when it was returned to Japan. The first European to arrive at Iwo Jima was Spanish sailor Bernardo de la Torre who named it Sufre Island, at that time Iwo Jima and other islands were the limit between the Spanish and Portuguese Empires in the far East. In 1779, the island was charted as Sulphur Island, the translation of its official name. The name Sulphur Island was translated into Late Middle Japanese with the Sino-Japanese rendering iwau-tau, from Middle Chinese ljuw-huang sulfur, the historical spelling iwautau had come to be pronounced Iwō-tō by the age of Western exploration, and the 1946 orthography reform fixed the spelling and pronunciation at Iō-tō. An alternative, Iwō-jima, modern Iō-jima, also appeared in nautical atlases, tō and shima are different readings of the kanji for island, the shima being changed to jima in this case. Japanese naval officers who arrived to fortify the island before the U. S. invasion mistakenly called it Iwo Jima, in this way, the Iwo Jima reading became mainstream and was the one used by U. S. forces who arrived during World War II. Moves to revert the pronunciation were sparked by the high-profile films Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, the change does not affect how the name is written with kanji, 硫黄島, only how it is pronounced or written in hiragana, katakana and rōmaji. The island has an area of 21 km2. The most prominent feature is Mount Suribachi on the southern tip, named after a Japanese grinding bowl, the summit of Mount Suribachi is the highest point on the island. Iwo Jima is unusually flat and featureless for a volcanic island, Suribachi is the only obvious volcanic feature, as it is only the resurgent dome of a larger submerged volcanic caldera. 80 km north of the island is North Iwo Jima and 59 kilometres south is South Iwo Jima, just south of Minami-Iō-jima are the Mariana Islands. Iwo Jima has a history of volcanic activity a few times per year. Late 1779, Captain Cooks surveying crew landed on a beach which is now 40 m above sea level due to volcanic uplifting. Such uplifting occurs on the island at a rate of between 100 and 800 mm per year, with an average rate of 200 mm per year. Early 1945, USA armed forces landed on a beach which as of 2015 was 17 metres above sea level due to volcanic uplift,28 March 1957, Phreatic eruption without warning 2 km northeast of Suribachi, lasted 65 minutes and ejected material 30 m high from one crater. Another crater,30 m wide and 15 m deep, formed by collapse 50 minutes after the eruption ended,31 March 1957, Gas emissions increased. 9-10 March 1982,5 phreatic eruptions from vents on the northwest shore of Iwo-jima,21 September 2001, Submarine eruption from 3 vents southeast of Iwo-jima. It built a 10 m diameter pyroclastic cone,19 October 2001, A small phreatic eruption at Idogahama, made a crater 10 m wide and 2–3 m deep
23.
Okinawa Prefecture
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The larger are mostly high islands and the smaller ones are mostly coral islands. The largest of the islands is Okinawa, the climate of the islands ranges from humid subtropical climate in the north to tropical rainforest climate in the south. Precipitation is very high, and is affected by the rainy season, the islands beyond the Tokara Strait are characterized by their coral reefs. The Amami, Okinawa, Miyako, and Yaeyama Islands have a native population collectively called the Ryukyuan people, the varied Ryukyuan languages are traditionally spoken on these islands, and the major islands have their own distinct languages. In modern times, the Japanese language is the language of the islands. The northern islands are called the Satsunan Islands, while the southern part of the chain are called the Ryukyu Islands in Japanese. Following are the grouping and names used by the Hydrographic and Oceanographic Department of the Japan Coast Guard, the islands are listed from north to south where possible. Nansei Islands Satsunan Islands Ōsumi Islands with, Tanegashima, Yaku, Kuchinoerabu, Mageshima in the North-Eastern Group and they agreed on February 15,2010, to use Amami-guntō for the Amami Islands, prior to that, Amami-shotō had also been used. The English and Japanese uses of the term Ryukyu differ, in English, the term Ryukyu may apply to the entire chain of islands, while in Japanese Ryukyu usually refers only to the islands that were previously part of the Ryūkyū Kingdom after 1624. Nansei-shotō is the name for the whole island chain in Japanese. Japan has used the name on nautical charts since 1907, based on the Japanese charts, the international chart series uses Nansei Shoto. Nansei literally means southwest, the direction of the chain from mainland Japan. Some humanities scholars prefer the uncommon term Ryūkyū-ko for the island chain. In geology, however, the Ryukyu Arc includes subsurface structures such as the Okinawa Trough, the name of Ryūkyū is strongly associated with the Ryūkyū Kingdom, a kingdom that originated from the Okinawa Islands and subjected the Sakishima and Amami Islands. The name is considered outdated in Japanese although some entities of Okinawa still bear the name. In Japanese, the Ryukyu Islands cover only the Okinawa, Miyako, the northern half of the island chain is referred to as the Satsunan Islands in Japanese, as opposed to Northern Ryukyu Islands in English. Humanities scholars generally agree that the Amami, Okinawa, Miyako, there is, however, no good name for the group. The native population do not have their own name, since they do not recognize themselves as a group this size, Ryukyu is the principal candidate because it roughly corresponds to the maximum extent of the Ryūkyū Kingdom
