1.
M1 Abrams
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The M1 Abrams is an American third-generation main battle tank. It is named after General Creighton Abrams, former Army chief of staff, highly mobile, designed for modern armored ground warfare, the M1 is well armed and heavily armored. Notable features include the use of a powerful multifuel turbine engine, the adoption of sophisticated composite armor, weighing nearly 68 short tons, it is one of the heaviest main battle tanks in service. The M1 Abrams entered U. S. service in 1980, the M1 remains the principal main battle tank of the United States Army and Marine Corps, and the armies of Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Australia and Iraq. Three main versions of the M1 Abrams have been deployed, the M1, M1A1, and M1A2, incorporating improved armament, protection and these improvements and other upgrades to in-service tanks have allowed this long-serving vehicle to remain in front-line service. In addition, development for the improved M1A3 version was reported in 2009, the M1 Abrams was developed during the Cold War as a successor to the canceled MBT-70. The M1 Abrams contract went to Chrysler Defense and was the first vehicle to adopt Chobham armor, adaptations before the Persian Gulf War gave the vehicle better firepower and NBC protection. Being vastly superior to Iraqi tanks, very few M1 tanks were hit by enemy fire, Upgrades after the war improved the tanks weapons sights and fire control unit. The Abrams participated in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, exposing vulnerabilities in urban combat that were addressed with the TUSK modification, the Marine Corps sent a company of M1A1 Abrams tanks to Afghanistan in 2010. The first attempt to replace the aging M60 tank was the MBT-70, the MBT-70 had advanced features such as a height-adjustable air suspension and a very low-profile chassis with the driver located in the turret. The MBT-70 ultimately proved to be too heavy, complex, as a result of the imminent failure of this project, the U. S. Army introduced the XM803, using some technologies from the MBT-70 but removing some of the more troublesome features. This succeeded only in producing a system with capabilities similar to the M60. Congress canceled the MBT-70 in November and XM803 December 1971, and redistributed the funds to the new XM815, prototypes were delivered in 1976 by Chrysler Defense and General Motors armed with the license-built version of the 105 mm Royal Ordnance L7 gun along with a Leopard 2 for comparison. The turbine-powered Chrysler Defense design was selected for development as the M1, in February 1982, General Dynamics Land Systems Division purchased Chrysler Defense, after Chrysler built over 1,000 M1s. A total of 3,273 M1 Abrams tanks were produced 1979–85, Production at the government-owned, GDLS-operated Lima Army Tank Plant in Lima, Ohio, was joined by vehicles built at the Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant in Warren, Michigan from 1982 to 1996. The M1 was armed with the version of the 105 mm Royal Ordnance L7 gun. An improved model called the M1IP was produced briefly in 1984, the M1IP models were used in the Canadian Army Trophy NATO tank gunnery competition in 1985 and 1987. Production of M1 and M1A1 tanks totaled some 9,000 tanks at a cost of approximately $4.3 million per unit, by 1999, costs for the tank were upwards of US$5 million a vehicle
2.
Rifled
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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
3.
Tank gun
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A tank gun is the main armament of a tank. Modern tank guns are large-caliber high-velocity guns, capable of firing kinetic energy penetrators, high explosive anti-tank rounds, anti-aircraft guns can also be mounted to tanks. They must provide accuracy, range, penetration, and rapid fire in a package that is as compact and lightweight as possible, Tank guns generally use self-contained ammunition, allowing rapid loading. They often display a bulge in the barrel, which is a bore evacuator, or a device on the muzzle and these were naval or field artillery pieces stripped from their carriages and mounted in sponsons or casemates on armored vehicles. The early British Mark I tanks of 1916 used naval 57 mm QF6 pounder Hotchkiss mounted at the sides in sponsons, the first German tank, the A7V, utilized 57 mm Maxim-Nordenfelt fortification guns captured from Belgium and Russia, but mounted at the front. The early French Schneider CA1 mounted a short 75 mm mortar on one side, the larger caliber, shorter range artillery mounting didnt go away however. In some designs - for example, M3 Lee, Churchill, however, other strategists saw new roles for tanks in war, and wanted more specifically developed guns tailored to these missions. The ability to destroy tanks was foremost on their minds. To this end, the emerging anti-tank gun designs were modified to fit tanks and these weapons fired smaller shells, but at higher velocities with higher accuracy, improving their performance against armor. Such light guns as the QF 2-pounder and 37 mm equipped British cruiser tanks and these weapons lacked a good high-explosive shell for attacking infantry and fortifications, but were effective against the light armor of the time. World War II saw a growth in all areas of military technology. Battlefield experience led to powerful weapons being adopted. Guns with calibres from 20 mm to 40 mm soon gave way to 50 mm,75 mm,85 mm,88 mm,90 mm and even 122 mm calibre. In 1939, the standard German panzer had either a 20 mm or 37 mm medium-velocity weapon, the Soviets introduced their 122 mm in a turreted heavy tank series, the Iosef Stalin tanks. Shells were improved to better penetration with harder materials and scientific shaping. All of these meant improvements in accuracy and range, although the tank had to grow as well to carry the ammunition, mounting. Many nations devised tank destroyers during the war - a vehicle designed for anti-tank work. By the end of the war the variety in tank designs was narrowed, after World War II, the race to increase caliber slowed
4.
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
5.
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
6.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
7.
Armoured fighting vehicle
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An armoured fighting vehicle is a combat vehicle, protected by strong armour and generally armed with weapons, which combines operational mobility, tactical offensive, and defensive capabilities. AFVs can be wheeled or tracked and it is not uncommon for AFVs to be simply referred to as armour. Armoured fighting vehicles are classified according to their role on the battlefield. This classification is not absolute, at different times different countries will classify the vehicle in different roles. For example, armoured carriers were generally replaced by infantry fighting vehicles in a similar role. Modern armoured fighting vehicles are the realization of an ancient concept, War machines with rudimentary armour have been used in battle for millennia. These designs historically struggled between the paradox of exposed-mobility, effective-firepower and cumbersome-protection, Siege engines, such as battering rams and trebuchets, would often be armoured in order to protect the crews from the defenders. Very large movable siege towers, helepolis were developed by Polyidus of Thessaly, the idea of a vehicle with a tortoise like cover has been known since antiquity. Frequently cited is Leonardo da Vincis 15th century sketch of a mobile, protected gun platform, the machine was to be mounted on four wheels which would be turned by the crew through a system of hand cranks and cage gears. Leonardo quoted I will build armored wagons which will be safe, there will be no obstacle which it cannot overcome. Modern replicas have demonstrated that the crew would have been able to move it over only short distances. The war wagon were medieval weapon-platforms developmed during the Hussite Wars around 1420 by Hussite forces rebelling in Bohemia. These heavy wagon were given protective sides with firing slits and heavy firepower from either a cannon or a force of hand-gunners and crossbowmen, supported by infantry using pikes, heavy arquebuses mounted on wagons were called arquebus à croc. These carried a ball of about 3.5 ounces, the first modern AFVs were armed cars, dating back virtually to the invention of the motor car. The Motor Scout was designed and built by British inventor F. R. Simms in 1898 and it was the first armed petrol engine powered vehicle ever built. The vehicle was a De Dion-Bouton quadricycle with a mounted Maxim machine gun on the front bar, an iron shield offered some protection for the driver from the front, but it lacked all-around protective armour. The armoured car was the first modern fully armoured fighting vehicle, the first of these was the Simms Motor War Car, designed by Simms and built by Vickers, Sons & Maxim in 1899. The vehicle had Vickers armour 6 mm thick and was powered by a four-cylinder 3. 3-litre 16 hp Cannstatt Daimler engine giving it a speed of around 9 miles per hour
8.
Ordnance QF 20 pounder
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The Ordnance QF20 pounder was a British 84 mm tank gun It was introduced in 1948 and used in the Centurion main battle tank, Charioteer medium tank, and Caernarvon Mark II heavy tank. It was the successor to the effective Ordnance QF17 pounder. The gun was developed by the Royal Ordnance Factories, as fitted to the Charioteer, it ran through two models, Model A without a fume extractor. Model B with a fume extractor, the L7105 mm tank gun was developed from the 20 pounder. In 1954, the version of the 105 mm was made by re-boring the tube of a 20 pounder barrel. The gun was fitted predominantly to the Centurion tank, seeing action with British, one gun was fitted to a Swiss pre-production Panzer 58. The 20 pounders APCBC projectile had a muzzle velocity of 1,020 metres per second. However, these rounds were rarely used. The APDS projectile had a velocity of 1,465 m/s. The 20-pounder could also fire high-explosive and canister shot shells, Centurion Universal Tank 1943-2003, Oxford, Osprey Publishing,2003. Technology of Tanks, London, Janes Information Group, Ltd.1991, fighting Vehicles and Weapons of the Modern British Army. Armour in Profile No.23 Centurion 5, pounds as a measure of cannon bore British standard ordnance weights and measurements Ordnance QF 32-pounder
9.
Centurion tank
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The Centurion, introduced in 1945, was the primary British main battle tank of the post-Second World War period. It is widely considered to be one of the most successful tank designs, remaining in production into the 1960s. The chassis was adapted for several other roles, and these have remained in service to this day. Development of the began in 1943 and manufacture of the Centurion began in January 1945. It first entered combat with the British Army in the Korean War in 1950, the Centurion later served in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, where it fought against US-supplied M47 and M48 Patton tanks and it served with the Royal Australian Armoured Corps in Vietnam. Israel used Centurions in the 1967 Six Day War,1973 Yom Kippur War, Centurions modified as armoured personnel carriers were used in Gaza, the West Bank and on the Lebanese border. The Royal Jordanian Land Force used Centurions, first in 1970 to fend off a Syrian incursion within its borders during the Black September events, South Africa deployed its Centurions in Angola during the South African Border War. It became one of the most widely used designs, equipping armies around the world. As recently as the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict the Israel Defense Forces employed heavily modified Centurions as armoured personnel carriers, the South African National Defence Force still employs over 200 Centurions, which were modernised in the 1980s and 2000s as the Olifant. Between 1946 and 1962,4,423 Centurions were produced, consisting of 13 basic marks, in British Army use it was replaced by the Chieftain. In 1943, the Directorate of Tank Design, under Sir Claude Gibb, F. R. S. was asked to produce a new design for a heavy cruiser tank under the General Staff designation A41. Initially in September 1943 the A41 tank was to no more than 40 tons, the limit for existing Mark I and Mark II transport trailers. The British railway loading gauge required that the width should not exceed 10 ft 8 in, a high top speed was not important, while agility was to be equal to that of the Comet. A high reverse speed was specified, as during the fighting in southern Italy, the modified production gearbox had a two-speed reverse, with the higher reverse speed similar to second gear. The Horstmann design did not offer the same quality as the Christie system. In case of damage by mines, individual suspension and wheel units could be replaced relatively easily, with a Rover-built Rolls-Royce Meteor engine, as used on the Comet and Cromwell, the new design would have excellent performance. The new version carried armour equal to the heaviest infantry tanks, while improved suspension, the War Office decided it would be wiser to build new trailers, rather than hamper what appeared to be a superb design. Historian David Fletcher states, But was Centurion, after all, the answer has to be a qualified negative
10.
Leopard 1
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The Leopard is a main battle tank designed and produced in West Germany that first entered service in 1965. In total,6,485 Leopard tanks have been built, of which 4,744 were battle tanks and 1,741 were utility and anti-aircraft variants, not including 80 prototypes and pre-series vehicles. The Leopard quickly became a standard of European forces, and eventually served as the battle tank in over a dozen countries worldwide. Since 1990, the Leopard 1 has gradually been relegated to roles in most armies. In the German Army, the Leopard 1 MBTs were phased out in 2003, the Leopard 2 MBTs have taken over the MBT role. Leopard hulls have been re-used in a variety of roles. In addition, the armament had to consist of a 105 mm caliber weapon. Mobility had priority, while firepower came second, armour was seen as less essential, France was very interested in the design as its own AMX50 project had just failed. In June 1957, West Germany and the French Fourth Republic signed an agreement to develop a common tank, three German and one French design team would be included in a competition, with each team producing two prototypes. In September 1958, Italy joined the development program, several prototypes were entered for testing in 1960. Among the prototypes were Porsches Model 734 from team A, sporting a cast turret, Team C from Borgward, designing a very futuristic tank, failed to have a prototype ready in time. Even before these first prototypes were finished, it had decided that a second phase with improved designs would be started, Team A had to build 26 phase II Prototypes for testing. Only two tanks of the six would actually be constructed by team B. In 1963, France and Germany had both decided to build their own tanks, with Germany continuing to work on the Leopard while France designed and built the similar AMX-30. Production was set up at Krauss-Maffei of Munich from early 1964 onward, the Leopard was soon being purchased from Germany by a number of NATO members and other allies, including Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Italy, Denmark, Australia, Canada, Turkey and Greece. It is also key to note that Germany has a strict export-policy for their military equipment, Greece, Spain and Chile, while still under dictatorships, purchased the French AMX-30 instead. The 1A1 also added the now-famous skirts along the sides to protect the tracks. A less important change was to use rectangular rubber blocks fastened to the treads with a single pin instead of the earlier two-pin shaped versions, the rubber blocks could be easily replaced with metal X-shaped crampons for movement on ice and snow in the winter
11.
Royal Ordnance L11A5
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The Royal Ordnance L11A5 is a 120 mm L/55 rifled tank gun design. It was the first of NATOs 120mm tank guns which became the standard calibre for Western tanks in the period of the Cold War. By 2005, total of 3,012 L11 guns were produced, the L11 was developed by Britains Royal Ordnance Factories to equip the Chieftain tank as the successor to the 105 mm L7 gun used in the Centurion tank. It was also used on the Challenger 1, which replaced the Chieftain in British, the weapon has been superseded by the L30 series 120 mm rifled tank gun. The Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment at Fort Halstead designed a new 120 mm rifled tank gun in 1957, the L11 was specifically designed to fit into the turret mountings of the Chieftain tank. After firing trials in 1961, the L11 was accepted for service on the Chieftain in 1965, and entered service with the British Army in 1966. During Operation Granby a L11 on a British Army Challenger 1 scored the longest tank-to-tank kill in military history, since its introduction, the L11 has evolved into eight production versions. In June 1976, development of new ammunition for the L11A5 was begun, the Royal Ordnance basic L11 design was developed into a series of improved production models, the L11A5 was the major production version. L11A1 – The initial production variant,130 were produced, l11A2 – RO Defence incorporated numerous minor changes, including a modified vent tube, an obturator sleeve protector, and a 15-hole vent tube magazine. Stronger material was used in fabricating the breech ring, l11A3 – This incorporated minor changes to the breech ring. L11A4 – Evaluation test prototype for a loading system. L11A5 – This was the production model. It introduced the integral muzzle reference system and a smaller and lighter fume extractor which required the addition of 7.7 kilograms of weight at the breech for balance. L11A6 – This was a conversion of the A3 to accommodate the muzzle reference system, l11A7 – A semi-automatic plunger was proposed for the vent tube loader, but did not enter production. L30 – The latest variant of the L11 design, developed under the Challenger Armament program, the breech mechanism is a downward sliding semi-automatic breechblock. The gun was equipped with a recoil system using two buffers. Unlike most tank weapons which fire a fixed round, the projectile. The propellant is in the form of a combustible bag charge and this required the obturation to be provided by the breech rather than the cartridge case, as is the case in fixed rounds
12.
Royal Engineers
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The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers, and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army. It is highly regarded throughout the military, and especially the Army and it provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is headed by the Chief Royal Engineer. The Regimental Headquarters and the Royal School of Military Engineering are in Chatham in Kent, the corps is divided into several regiments, barracked at various places in the United Kingdom and around the world. In Woolwich in 1716, the Board formed the Royal Regiment of Artillery and established a Corps of Engineers, the manual work was done by the Artificer Companies, made up of contracted civilian artisans and labourers. In 1782, a Soldier Artificer Company was established for service in Gibraltar, ten years later the Gibraltar company, which had remained separate, was absorbed and in 1812 the name was changed to the Corps of Royal Sappers and Miners. The Corps has no battle honours, in 1832, the regimental motto, Ubique Quo Fas Et Gloria Ducunt, was granted. The motto signified that the Corps had seen action in all the conflicts of the British Army. In 1911 the Corps formed its Air Battalion, the first flying unit of the British Armed Forces, the Air Battalion was the forerunner of the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force. In 1915, in response to German mining of British trenches under the then static siege conditions of the First World War, before the Second World War, Royal Engineers recruits were required to be at least 5 feet 4 inches tall. They initially enlisted for six years with the colours and a six years with the reserve or four years. Unlike most corps and regiments, in which the age limit was 25. They trained at the Royal Engineers Depot in Chatham or the RE Mounted Depot at Aldershot, the Royal Engineers Museum is in Gillingham in Kent. Britain having acquired an Empire, it fell to the Royal Engineers to conduct some of the most significant civil engineering schemes around the world, some examples of great works of the era of empire can be found in A. J. Smitherss book Honourable Conquests. The Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment, commanded by Richard Clement Moody, was responsible for the foundation, the Royal Albert Hall is one of the UKs most treasured and distinctive buildings, recognisable the world over. Since its opening by Queen Victoria in 1871, the leading artists from every kind of performance genre have appeared on its stage. The Hall was designed by Captain Francis Fowke and Major-General Henry Y. D. Scott of the Royal Engineers, the designers were heavily influenced by ancient amphitheatres, but had also been exposed to the ideas of Gottfried Semper while he was working at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Much of the British colonial era infrastructure of India, of which survive today, was created by engineers of the three presidencies armies and the Royal Engineers. In 1838 he designed and built sea defences for Vizagapatam and he masterminded the Godavery Delta project where 720,000 acres of land were irrigated and 500 miles of land to the port of Cocanada was made navigable in the 1840s
13.
Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers
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Extremely high casualty rates among engineers was one of the primary reasons for the failure of the Dieppe raid of August 1942. Engineers were tasked with getting the tanks off the beach, destroying obstacles, in the assault, the engineers were prone to gunfire while setting charges, and became a priority target for the defending forces. Those that did make it to the point where ramps could be built had lost much of their supplies on sunken landing craft, with tanks unable to leave the beaches, the raid stalled and failed. Following failure of the raid, a Canadian engineer attached to the Department of Tank Design proposed a vehicle to protect engineers during assault operations, development commenced based on the experiences at Dieppe. Experiments used Churchill, Sherman and Ram tanks, the side door became a critical component for the new vehicle, allowing engineers to exit the vehicle under protection, and retreat back inside while blasting. In October 1942 a prototype based on the Churchill tank was ordered, the Churchill proved ideal, having a large amount of space inside for demolition stores, and side exit doors. The interior munition storage was removed, as was the basket and co-drivers seat. This provided space for 36 cu. ft. of demolition supplies, the turret, initially not required, was retained allowing a Petard mortar to be added. The Petard mortar was a development, firing a large demolition charge that became known as the flying dustbin. Development on this began in September 1942 and was united with the Churchill turret following experimental use on a Covenanter tank, with plenty of space inside the Churchill, a number of flying dustbins could be carried in addition to the demolitions stores. The Petard was reloaded through a cover that replaced one of the forward drivers hatches in the top of the hull. Together the vehicle was named Assault Vehicle Royal Engineers, trials of the new vehicle were undertaken throughout 1943. Note that the vehicle was not known as Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers at this time, production commenced in 1944 based on a mixed fleet of Churchill III and IV vehicles. These were assigned to three regiments of the Royal Engineers forming the new 1st Assault Brigade Royal Engineers, part of the 79th Armoured Division, the vehicles became the basis for a range of modifications and additions as part of Hobarts Funnies. AVRE vehicles have been known by different names through their lifespan. This led to confusion with other types of tank, such as recovery vehicles. In October 1943 an Army Training Memorandum was issued removing the ambiguity in naming and defining the Assault Vehicle Royal Engineers name for all military users. The majority of documentation continued to refer to the abbreviated AVRE as though it were a vehicle name however, even the Churchill AVREs own instruction book did not explain what A. V. R. E
14.
Deutsches Panzermuseum
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The German Tank Museum is an armoured fighting vehicle museum in Munster, Germany, the location of the Munster Training Area camp. Its main aim is the documentation of the history of German armoured troops since 1917 and it originated in 1983 from the instructional collection of the Panzertruppenschule, the Bundeswehr school for training officers and NCOs of German armoured units. It is now a open to the public, jointly run by the municipality of Munster. The museum site covers an area of over 9,000 square metres, including 7,500 square metres of exhibition halls. In 2003 the museum opened a new building for special displays, a museum shop, the museum displays tanks, military vehicles, weapons, small arms, uniforms, medals, decorations and military equipment from the World War I to the present. The heart of the exhibition is a collection of about 40 Bundeswehr and former East German tanks as well as 40 German tanks and other Wehrmacht vehicles from the Second World War. In addition there are tanks from the Soviet Red Army, the British Army, most of the vehicles are in working order, with restoration work ongoing to render all examples functional. The restoration staff of the museum do extensive research on every vehicle in order to return it to its original configuration, the large collection of armoured vehicles includes some rare or unique types. For example, the museum has a replica of an A7V German First World War tank, the example of its type in Europe. In addition it has one of two existing Sturmpanzer VI as well as a prototype version of the Jagdpanzer IV. From the post-war era there is a range of Bundeswehr prototypes, including a Leopard 1, Kanonenjagdpanzer tank destroyer and MBT-70, the interior of a Leopard 1 tank, situated outside, can be entered via a flight of steps and a ladder in the turret. By its own account the museum not just want to show tanks as an exhibit of history of technology. With the ongoing reforms it wants to put them in a scientific-historical context, as an actor in modern military history the museum still includes the old perspectives of the museum, operational history and political history still have their place in the Tank Museum. The Textile path displays uniforms from late 19th century to the present, the Gold path presents medals and decorations from late 19th century to the present, these exhibits focus on cultural history. The Wood path displays war toys from 20th and 21st century, further special exhibits are the death mask of Erwin Rommel and his tunic, which was thought to be an original for a long time. The fake uniform is now exhibited with an explanation of how the forgery was discovered and why a museum has to examine its exhibits time and again
15.
Armament Research and Development Establishment
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Armament Research & Development Establishment is a laboratory of the Defence Research and Development Organisation. Located in Pune, it is the main DRDO lab involved in the development of Conventional Armaments, ARDE was established in 1958, with the goal of achieving self-sufficiency in the field of Armaments. ARDE started working from a facility within the campus of Ammunition Factory. Personnel were drawn from the erstwhile Technical Development Establishment located in Jabalpur, in 1966, ARDE moved to its present location at Pashan, on the outskirts of Pune, next to the National Chemical Laboratory, a major CSIR Laboratory. ARDEs main area of research is in the design and development of Conventional Armaments for the Indian Armed Forces and this stretches over the whole gamut of research, development, prototyping, test and evaluation, and transfer of technology activities. This includes basic and applied research, modeling, simulation and software development of armaments, additionally, life extension and upgradation of in-Service equipment is also carried out. Being a research laboratory, ARDE does not carry out production activities. After an initial production, the technologies developed by it are transferred to manufacturing agencies like BEL, OFB, in this capacity, ARDE supervises the Transfer of Technology to these plants, and aids in initial productionization and Quality Assurance of these products. With the Indian Armed Forces using many weapons from foreign vendors, it is necessary to integrate them, ARDE is involved in advising the Services regarding induction and indigenisation of Weapon Systems of Foreign Origin. One of the earlier ARDE developments was the 7.62 mm 1A1 self-loading rifle, over a million rifles have been produced by the Ishapore Rifle Factory, and were used in the 1965 and 1971 Indo-Pakistan Wars. Drawing heavily from its past experience with the 7. 62mm SLR and this helped standardize ammunition for infantry, reducing logistical problems. The infantry was equipped with three types of small arms firing two types of ammunition, viz.7.62 mm Ishapore SLR, LMG and 9 mm carbine. The INSAS family replaces all the three weapons, and consists of an Assault Rifle, a Light Machine Gun, and a Carbine Variant, the INSAS was introduced in 1998, and has since supplanted the SLR as the service rifle of the Indian Army. The single shot ARDE40 mm under barrel grenade launcher was developed in collaboration with Ordnance Factory Tiruchirappalli for use with the INSAS, stand alone versions of the grenade launcher also exist. The UBGL has a safety to prevent accidental firing and a 3-point attachment for rigidity. The trigger system is, located on the side of the barrel, the weapon uses a simple ladder sight mechanism and has tritium illuminated sights for night firing. The ammunition fired by the UBGL, is similar to the Milkor MGL used by the Indian Army, designed by ARDE in 1972, the 105 mm Indian Field Gun was Indias first indigenously designed artillery piece and became the mainstay of the armys field artillery after being introduced. The Pinaka multi barrel rocket launcher was developed by the DRDO for the Indian Army, the Army had felt the need for a weapon system which could neutralize targets at ranges exceeding 30 km
16.
Hungarian Revolution of 1956
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Though leaderless when it first began, it was the first major threat to Soviet control since the USSRs forces drove out Nazi Germany from its territory at the end of World War II. The revolt began as a student demonstration, which attracted thousands as they marched through central Budapest to the Parliament building, calling out on the using a van with loudspeakers. A student delegation, entering the building to try to broadcast the students demands, was detained. When the delegations release was demanded by the demonstrators outside, they were fired upon by the State Security Police from within the building, one student died and was wrapped in a flag and held above the crowd. This was the start of the revolution, as the news spread, disorder and violence erupted throughout the capital. The revolt spread quickly across Hungary and the government collapsed, thousands organised into militias, battling the ÁVH and Soviet troops. Pro-Soviet communists and ÁVH members were executed or imprisoned and former political prisoners were released and armed. Radical impromptu workers councils wrested municipal control from the ruling Hungarian Working Peoples Party, a new government formally disbanded the ÁVH, declared its intention to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact, and pledged to re-establish free elections. By the end of October, fighting had almost stopped and a sense of normality began to return, after announcing a willingness to negotiate a withdrawal of Soviet forces, the Politburo changed its mind and moved to crush the revolution. On 4 November, a large Soviet force invaded Budapest and other regions of the country, the Hungarian resistance continued until 10 November. Over 2,500 Hungarians and 700 Soviet troops were killed in the conflict, mass arrests and denunciations continued for months thereafter. By January 1957, the new Soviet-installed government had suppressed all public opposition, public discussion about this revolution was suppressed in Hungary for more than 30 years. Since the thaw of the 1980s, it has been a subject of intense study, at the inauguration of the Third Hungarian Republic in 1989,23 October was declared a national holiday. During World War II Hungary was a member of the Axis powers, allied with the forces of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Romania, in 1941, the Hungarian military participated in the occupation of Yugoslavia and the invasion of the Soviet Union. The Red Army was able to back the Hungarian and other Axis invaders. Fearing invasion, the Hungarian government began negotiations with the Allies. These ended when Nazi Germany invaded and occupied the country and set up its own pro-Axis regime, both Hungarian and German forces stationed in Hungary were subsequently defeated when the Soviet Union invaded the country in 1945. Towards the end of World War II, the Soviet Army occupied Hungary, immediately after World War II, Hungary was a multiparty democracy, and elections in 1945 produced a coalition government under Prime Minister Zoltán Tildy
17.
T-54A
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The T-54 and T-55 tanks are a series of Soviet main battle tanks introduced just as the Second World War ended. The first T-54 prototype was completed at Nizhni Tagli by the end of 1945, the T-54 eventually became the main tank for armoured units of the Soviet Army, armies of the Warsaw Pact countries, and many others. T-54s and T-55s have been involved in many of the armed conflicts since the later part of the 20th century. The T-54/55 series eventually became the tank in military history. Estimated production numbers for the range from 86,000 to 100,000. During the Cold War, Soviet tanks never directly faced their NATO adversaries in combat in Europe, the Soviet T-34 medium tank of the 1940s is considered to have the best balance of firepower, protection and mobility for its cost of any tank of its time in the world. In 1943, the Morozov Design Bureau resurrected the pre-war T-34M development project, by the time the T-44 was ready for production, the T-34 had also been modified to fit the same gun. The T-44 was produced in small numbers, around 2,000 being completed during the war. Instead, the continued to use the design as the basis for further improved guns, experimenting with a 122 mm design. Efforts to fit the 100 mm gun to the T-44 demonstrated that changes to the design would greatly improve the combination. The main issue was a turret ring, which suggested slightly enlarging the hull. A prototype of the new design, about 40 centimetres longer and this model looked almost identical to the original T-44, albeit with a much larger gun. In testing, there were drawbacks that required correction and many alterations that had to be made to the vehicles design. It was decided to begin production of the new vehicle. It would go into production in Nizhni Tagil in 1947 and Kharkov in 1948, production of the initial series of T-54s began slowly as 1,490 modifications were made. The Red Army received a tank that was superior to World War II designs, the 100 mm gun fired BR-412 series full-calibre APHE ammunition, which had superior penetration capability when compared to the T-34 that it replaced. The serial production version, designated T-54-1, differed from the second T-54 prototype, as production ramped up, quality problems emerged. Production was stopped and an improved T-54-2 version was designed, several changes were made and a new turret was fitted
18.
D-10 tank gun
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The D-10 is a Soviet 100 mm tank gun developed in late World War II. It originally equipped the SU-100 tank destroyers and was selected for the T-55 tank. On the T-55 the D-10 continues to be in service in many countries. At the beginning of 1944, the T-34 tanks F-3476.2 mm tank gun was replaced by a more powerful 85 mm gun. This rendered the year-old SU-85 tank destroyer effectively obsolescent, since its D-5T85 mm gun was now also fielded by a flexible medium tank. F. F. Petrovs Design Bureau at Artillery Factory No.9 was assigned the task of producing a 100 mm anti-tank gun that could be used on the SU-85 chassis, Petrovs team modified the S-34 naval gun for use in an armoured fighting vehicle. The D-10 is a high-velocity gun of 100 mm bore diameter, muzzle velocity of 895 m/s gave it good anti-tank performance by late-war standards. Initially it could penetrate about 164 mm of armor plate at 1,000 m range, superior to the German 75 mm KwK42 mounted on the Panther tank. Testing against Panther tanks at Kubinka showed the D-10T could penetrate the Panthers glacis up to 1500 m and this performance grew when APDS and more modern ammunition types were developed after the war. After the war a more effective high-explosive shell was also developed and it was originally designed to equip the SU-100 tank destroyer as the D-10S, and was later mounted on the post-war T-54 main battle tank as the D-10T. There was no significant difference in functionality or performance and it was also tested on the T-34-100, T-44-100, KV-100, and IS-2. In 1955 a stabilizer and bore evacuator were added to the new D-10TG version of the gun, in 1956, the subsequent D-10T2S version of the gun began production for T-54B and T-55 tanks, equipped with two-plane Tsyklon gun stabilization. Versions of the D-10 were installed on new tanks as late as 1979, returning to its naval roots, a version of the D-10 was installed as a coastal artillery piece in Finland in the 1960s. There was also a D-412 smoke shell, in 1964, the NII-24 research bureau started design work on an improved 3UBM6 anti-tank round. It was later replaced by the 3BM8 HVAPDS projectile, with a tungsten carbide penetrator, high-explosive anti-tank rounds, which penetrate armour with the focused explosion of a shaped charge, included the 3UBK4 with 3BK5M warhead, later replaced by the 3UBK9 with 3BK17M warhead. In the 1980s, 3UBM11 antitank rounds were introduced, with 3BM25 armour-piercing fin-stabilized discarding-sabot tungsten carbide penetrator, the anti-tank missile is encased in the 3UBK10-1 shell, which is handled, loaded, and fired exactly like a conventional tank gun round. The missile is very expensive, about half the price of a T-55M tank, itsenäisen Suomen rannikkotykit 1918-1998/Coastal guns in Finland 1918-1998. Janes Armour and Artillery 2005–2006, 26th edition, p 110, zaloga, Steven J. and James Grandsen
19.
M60 Patton
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The M60 Patton is a main battle tank introduced in December 1960. With the United States Armys deactivation of their last heavy tank battalion in 1963, although developed from the M48 Patton, the M60 series was never officially classified as a Patton tank, but as a product-improved descendant of the Patton series. In March 1959, the tank was officially standardized as the 105 mm Gun Full Tracked Combat Tank M60, the M60 underwent many updates over its service life. The interior layout, based on the design of the M48, provided room for updates and improvements. Egypt is currently the largest operator with 1,716 upgraded M60A3s, Turkey is second with 866 upgraded units in service, during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, a Soviet T-54A medium tank was driven onto the grounds of the British embassy in Budapest by the Hungarians. After a brief examination of this armor and 100 mm gun. There were also rumors of an even larger 115 mm gun in the works, hence there was a need to adopt a 105 mm gun, which emerged as the famed Royal Ordnance L7. This information made its way to the United States, where the Army had been experimenting with a series of upgrades to their M48 Patton tanks. These experiments were concerned with improving the armor and the introduction of a variety of systems, such as that used in the 105 mm gun tank T54. The T95 program, launched after the Questionmark III conference in June 1954, was the replacement to the M48. It featured a host of innovative and experimental components such as its 90 mm smoothbore T208 cannon rigidly affixed to its turret, the burden of developing them however slowed the overall program to a crawl. General Taylor approved of a new development program in August 1957. The MBT was to combine the firepower and protection sufficient for the role with the mobility to perform as a medium tank. A tank of the T95 series, armed with a smoothbore cannon, the course of this tank program was the source of widespread debate. The Bureau of Budget believed that the Army was not progressing with sufficient speed in its modernization program. The alternative was to introduce a tank from the T95 series, an influential group of senior officers, by May 1958, concluded that the T95 had only marginal advantages over the M48A2. They proposed that the most important improvements, better firepower and fuel economy, could be achieved by mounting a compression ignition engine, the main gun was chosen after a comparative firing test on the Aberdeen Proving Grounds. Participating in the test were six guns, the 90 mm M41, the 90 mm T208E9, the 105 mm X15E8, the 105 mm T254, the 120 mm T123E6, and the 120 mm M58
20.
Merkava
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The Merkava is a main battle tank used by the Israel Defense Forces. The tank began development in 1973 and entered service in 1978. Four main variants of the tank have been deployed and it was first used extensively in the 1982 Lebanon War. The name Merkava was derived from the IDFs initial development program name, design criteria include rapid repair of battle damage, survivability, cost-effectiveness and off-road performance. Following the model of contemporary self-propelled howitzers, the assembly is located closer to the rear than in most main battle tanks. With the engine in front, this layout is intended to grant additional protection against an attack, especially for the personnel in the main hull. It also creates more space in the rear of the tank that increased storage capacity. This allows the tank to be used as a platform for medical disembarkation, a command and control station. The rear entrances clamshell-style doors provide overhead protection when off- and on-loading cargo and it was reportedly decided shortly before the beginning of the 2006 Lebanon War that the Merkava line would be discontinued within four years. On August 16,2013, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon announced the decision to resume production of the Merkava main battle tank for the IDF Armored Corps, in 1965, Israels military establishment began research and development on a domestically produced tank, the Sabra. Initially, Britain and Israel collaborated to adapt the United Kingdoms Chieftain tank that had entered British Army service in 1966, however, in 1969, Britain decided not to sell the tank to Israel for political reasons. By 1974, initial designs were completed and prototypes were built, after a brief set of trials, work began to retool the Tel HaShomer ordnance depot for full-time development and construction. After the new facilities were completed, the Merkava was announced to the public in the International Defense Review periodical, the first official images of the tank were then released to the American periodical Armed Forces Journal on May 4,1977. The IDF officially adopted the tank in December 1978, the first Merkava Mk.1 tanks were supplied to the IDF in April 1979, nearly nine years after the decision to produce the Merkava Mk.1 tank was taken. The lead organization for system integration of the Merkavas main components is Israel Military Industries, the Israeli Ordnance Corps are responsible for final Merkava assembly. More than 90% of the Merkava 4 tanks components are produced locally in Israel by Israeli defense industries, bental Industries, a TAT Technologies subsidiary, produced the brushless motors used in the Mark IVs turret and gun control system. The Merkava Mark I and II were armed with a 105 mm M68 gun. The Mark III, Mark III Dor Dalet BAZ kassag, each model of the Merkava has two roof mounted 7.62 mm machine guns for use by the commander and loader and another mounted co-axially with the main gun
21.
Stridsvagn 103
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The Stridsvagn 103, also known as the S-Tank, was a Swedish post-war main battle tank. It was known for its design, it was turretless with a fixed gun traversed by engaging the tracks. It is the tank of any kind since World War II to dispense with a turret. The Strv 103 was designed and manufactured in Sweden and it was developed in the 1950s and was the first main battle tank to use a turbine engine. The result was a very low-profile design with an emphasis on survivability, Strv 103s formed a major portion of the Swedish armoured forces from the 1960s to part of the 1990s, when, along with the Centurions, it was replaced with the Stridsvagn 121 and the Stridsvagn 122. In the mid-1950s, the Kungliga Arméförvaltningens Tygavdelning put out a tender for next generation tank design to replace their Centurions. However, this was deemed too expensive in comparison to the alternatives, A, alternative T was a 30-ton tank with low protection and good mobility. Then, in 1956, Sven Berge of the Swedish Arms Administration proposed Alternativ S, Berge therefore concluded that any new design should be as low as possible. The radical solution was to eliminate the turret, which would also dispose of a target area. In terms of height, the final design did not give the Strv 103 any significant advantage. Its most likely opponent, the T-64, was only 2.20 m in height with its turret versus the 2.14 m of the Strv 103, however, the T-64 paid for its low profile with an extremely cramped interior and lack of gun depression. Tanks often deploy themselves into hull-down firing positions, either behind dug entrenchments or using the crest of a hill, in order to reduce the exposure of the vehicle to enemy fire. Since the Strv 103 orients the entire tank to depress and elevate the barrel, in a hull down position it has little apparent height. It could also lower the hull a further 13 cm by adjusting the suspension, berges design solved the aiming problem through the use of a fully automated transmission and suspension system, which precisely turned and tilted the tank under the gunners control. The gun itself would be fixed to the hull and this made it impossible to use a stabilized gun. Other features of the tank were also quite radical, while the last issue could have been solved by adding staff to the ammunition crews, it was decided that a third crew-member was needed. To enhance combat effectiveness, the man was to be assigned as rear driver/radio operator, facing the rear of the tank. This allowed the tank to be driven backwards at the speed as forwards, keeping its frontal armour pointed at the enemy
22.
Autoloader
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In armored warfare, an autoloader or auto-loader is a mechanical aid or replacement for the personnel that load ordnance into crew-served weapons, such as tanks and artillery. The term is only applied to larger weapons that would otherwise have a dedicated person or persons loading them. It can and often replace a human loader. By automating the process, it can streamline and speed up the loading process. Also, since an autoloader can take up less volume inside a tank than a human, it allows for a lower profile. Autoloaders are mechanical devices, and therefore their reliability depends on how well they are designed, manufactured, autoloaders were developed at the beginning of World War II. Their first combat use was in aircraft such as the 75 mm caliber Bordkanone BK7,5 cannon-equipped Henschel Hs 129 B-3. Every Soviet- and Russian-derived tank since the T-64 main battle tank has used an autoloader and their use has been mostly shunned by American and British tanks, although the American T22 medium tank was one of the first to use an autoloader. In the modern era, autoloading is common on any large naval gun, the size of the shells, when combined with the more elaborate autoloading facilities available in the wider spaces of a ship, makes an autoloader much faster than human loaders. For example, the US 5/38 Mark 12 can load about 20 rounds per minute, the Soviet/Russian AK-130, using autoloading, can achieve up to 40 rounds per barrel per minute. The Italian 127 mm/5 Compact has similar performance, both weapons achieved a rate of fire of 12 rounds per barrel per minute, compared to 3-4 rounds per minute for the preceding hand-loaded weapons. The advent of jet aircraft, and the rate of required to engage them. Development of the systems was often problematic, and reliability was seriously compromised in many cases. The US 5/54 Mark 42 was derated from 40 rounds per minute to 34 to improve reliability, the Soviet/Russian AK-130 was so badly delayed that the missile cruiser Kirov was forced to use two older weapons in its place. The US 3/70 Mark 37 actually spent more time in design than in service due to severe unreliability and these problems are largely of the past and the field has advanced a great deal. A modern autoloader for a 120–125 mm caliber weapon in good condition can achieve about 10–12 rounds per minute and this rating may or may not include the time required to bring the gun to the appropriate loading angle and then bringing it back up to firing angle after loading. This is fast, but not quite as fast as a human loader, on the other hand, the very newest autoloaders claim to match this rate of fire. Furthermore, it is considered atypical to engage more than a few targets per minute in a tank, the autoloader may also have an advantage while travelling over rough terrain that may jar a human loader enough to disrupt his loading cycle
23.
Firepower
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Firepower is the military capability to direct force at an enemy. Firepower involves the whole range of potential weapons, through the ages firepower has come to mean offensive power applied from a distance, thus involving ranged weapons as opposed to one-on-one close-quarters combat. Firepower is thus something employed to keep enemy forces at a range where they can be defeated in detail or sapped of the will to continue, in the field of naval artillery, the weight of a broadside was long used as a figure of merit of a warships firepower. The earliest forms of warfare that might be called firepower were the slingers of ancient armies, firepower was later used to dramatic effect in a similar fashion during the Battle of Agincourt. Such improvements made close order formation useless for middle to late 19th century infantry, military uniforms changed from gaudy to drab, making soldiers less visible to the increasing firepower. At sea, improved naval artillery ended the use of prize crews, the use of firepower in achieving military objectives became one of several conflicting schools of military thought, or doctrines. The Battle of Vimy Ridge used massed artillery to help win an Allied victory, operation Desert Storm also relied on massed firepower as did the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, but firepower was integrated with advances in small-unit training. Small arms, such as the M249 SAW, have been employed on a level to provide an overwhelming volume of fire in relatively close quarters situations. The idea is that a volume of accurate suppressive fire will immobilize the enemy. These weapons are useful in situations where a unit is outnumbered and needs to respond immediately with fire superiority, fire-Power, The British Army Weapons and Theories of War, 1904-1945
24.
T-54 and T-55
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The T-54 and T-55 tanks are a series of Soviet main battle tanks introduced just as the Second World War ended. The first T-54 prototype was completed at Nizhni Tagli by the end of 1945, the T-54 eventually became the main tank for armoured units of the Soviet Army, armies of the Warsaw Pact countries, and many others. T-54s and T-55s have been involved in many of the armed conflicts since the later part of the 20th century. The T-54/55 series eventually became the tank in military history. Estimated production numbers for the range from 86,000 to 100,000. During the Cold War, Soviet tanks never directly faced their NATO adversaries in combat in Europe, the Soviet T-34 medium tank of the 1940s is considered to have the best balance of firepower, protection and mobility for its cost of any tank of its time in the world. In 1943, the Morozov Design Bureau resurrected the pre-war T-34M development project, by the time the T-44 was ready for production, the T-34 had also been modified to fit the same gun. The T-44 was produced in small numbers, around 2,000 being completed during the war. Instead, the continued to use the design as the basis for further improved guns, experimenting with a 122 mm design. Efforts to fit the 100 mm gun to the T-44 demonstrated that changes to the design would greatly improve the combination. The main issue was a turret ring, which suggested slightly enlarging the hull. A prototype of the new design, about 40 centimetres longer and this model looked almost identical to the original T-44, albeit with a much larger gun. In testing, there were drawbacks that required correction and many alterations that had to be made to the vehicles design. It was decided to begin production of the new vehicle. It would go into production in Nizhni Tagil in 1947 and Kharkov in 1948, production of the initial series of T-54s began slowly as 1,490 modifications were made. The Red Army received a tank that was superior to World War II designs, the 100 mm gun fired BR-412 series full-calibre APHE ammunition, which had superior penetration capability when compared to the T-34 that it replaced. The serial production version, designated T-54-1, differed from the second T-54 prototype, as production ramped up, quality problems emerged. Production was stopped and an improved T-54-2 version was designed, several changes were made and a new turret was fitted
25.
Type 69/79
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The Type 69 and Type 79 are Chinese medium tanks. Both were developments of the Type 59 and they were the first main battle tanks developed independently by China. Their lineage can be seen through the gap between the first and second road wheels. Other improvements included a new engine, ballistic computers, and laser rangefinders, the more advanced Type 79 variant was equipped with a 105 mm rifled gun which was also found on the Type 80 tank. After the Sino-Soviet split, the Soviet Union withdrew its technical staff and this caused Chinas domestic tank development to stagnate significantly. In 1963, the PLA ordered the development of a new tank based on the Type 59, in 1965, development objectives were finalized and the product was named WZ121 internally. In 1966, the first prototype rolled off the factory, however, the Cultural Revolution and its resulting chaos further curtailed tank development. During the 1969 Sino-Soviet border conflict, the PLA was able to capture a Soviet T-62 MBT, the captured tank was examined, and some of its components, such as the Soviet Luna IR searchlight system, were copied and integrated into the Type 69 design. After around a decade of development, the first domestically developed and produced Chinese tank was inducted into the PLA ground forces as the Type 1969 Medium Tank or Type 69 Tank for short, however, the early version of the Type 69 were only used in limited quantities. Relations between China and the West warmed in the 1980s, and China was able to import some Western technologies to improve its weapon systems, the Type 69 was upgraded with Western systems such as the British Marconi FCS, and the L7105 mm gun. The new version received the designation Type 79, which represented the conclusion of Chinas first-generation tank development, the PLA was unsatisfied with the Type 69s performance, but ironically it became one of Chinas most successful armored vehicle exports. Over 2,000 were sold worldwide in the 1980s, the simplicity, robustness and low cost of the tanks made them attractive on the export market, and China sold hundreds to both sides during the Iran–Iraq War. Many of the vehicles were used by Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War. Myanmar Army Type 69 tanks also reportedly engaged Royal Thai Army M60A3 tanks in 2001 during the battle for Border Post 9631, both the Type 69 and Type 79 tanks share almost identical hulls and turrets with the older Type 59. The only difference is that the two more recent tank models have been upgraded with better technologies that were captured or bought from more advanced countries. The Chinese Type 59,69 and 79 tanks can therefore be viewed as part of the same, evolutionary tank family in the way that the Soviet T-54, -55. Today only a couple hundred Type 69/Type 79s remain in PLA inventory, the Type 69/Type 79 are being replaced by the newer Type 96 and Type 99 MBTs. During the 1980s, China was reported to have hundreds of Type 59
26.
Breechblock
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A breechblock is the part of the firearm action that closes the breech of a weapon at the moment of firing. A way of closing the breech or chamber is an part of any breech-loading weapon or firearm. A breechblock is a component and is not a feature of the break-action. A breechblock must close against the breech for firing but be able to be retracted for loading or unloading or to remove a spent cartridge. This article primarily addresses the matter of design, as opposed to the action. Usually referred to as a rather than a breechblock, a rotating bolt is perhaps the most common variant. It is so called, because its operation is similar to a pad bolt or barrel bolt, the bolt slides in the receiver along the axis of the barrel and is rotated in the same axis to lock or unlock it against a closed breech. It is the basis for the action, in which the bolt is rotated and retracted by an handle attached to the bolt. In some designs, handle rotates to lock against a shoulder in the receiver or body of the firearm and this type of locking is usually reserved for low-pressure applications such as the.22 cal rimfire series. More often, the bolt locks closed with two or more lugs that operate like a bayonet mount, multiple lugs permit a smaller degree of rotation to lock and unlock the breech. Most types are front-locking and have the lugs mounted near the breech face, a notable exception is the rear-locking system used in the Lee–Enfield. Rotating bolts can be adapted to automatic or semi-automatic designs and lever or pump actions, in these cases, the bolt is held by a bolt carrier. With the breech locked, an initial movement of the bolt carrier causes the bolt to rotate. Similarly, when closing the breech, the forward movement of the carrier causes the bolt to rotate. This action is achieved by a slot cut in the carrier that engages a pin through the bolt perpendicular to the axis of the barrel. It is a type of linear cam, straight-pull bolt-action firearms do not require the operator to rotate the cocking handle to cycle the action. Some may use a bolt but other locking mechanisms can be employed. The breechblock in a sliding block slides across the face if the breech to close it, the sliding action is perpendicular to the axis of the barrel
27.
Cartridge (firearms)
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Military and commercial producers continue to pursue the goal of caseless ammunition. A cartridge without a bullet is called a blank, One that is completely inert is called a dummy. Some artillery ammunition uses the same concept as found in small arms. In other cases, the shell is separate from the propellant charge. In popular use, the bullet is often misused to refer to a complete cartridge. The cartridge case seals a firing chamber in all directions excepting the bore, a firing pin strikes the primer and ignites it. The primer compound deflagrates, it does not detonate, a jet of burning gas from the primer ignites the propellant. Gases from the burning powder pressurize and expand the case to seal it against the chamber wall and these propellant gases push on the bullet base. In response to pressure, the bullet will move in the path of least resistance which is down the bore of the barrel. After the bullet leaves the barrel, the pressure drops to atmospheric pressure. The case, which had been expanded by chamber pressure. This eases removal of the case from the chamber, brass is a commonly used case material because it is resistant to corrosion. A brass case head can be work-hardened to withstand the pressures of cartridges. The neck and body portion of a case is easily annealed to make the case ductile enough to allow reforming so that it can be reloaded many times. Steel is used in some plinking ammunition, as well as in military ammunition. Steel is less expensive than brass, but it is not feasible to reload, Military forces typically consider small arms cartridge cases to be disposable, one-time-use devices. However, case weight affects how much ammunition a soldier can carry, conversely, steel is more susceptible to contamination and damage so all such cases are varnished or otherwise sealed against the elements. One downside caused by the strength of steel in the neck of these cases is that propellant gas can blow back past the neck
28.
Recoil
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Recoil is the backward movement of a gun when it is discharged. To apply this counter-recoiling force, modern mounted guns may employ recoil buffering comprising springs and hydraulic recoil mechanisms, early cannons used systems of ropes along with rolling or sliding friction to provide forces to slow the recoiling cannon to a stop. Recoil buffering allows the maximum counter-recoil force to be lowered so that strength limitations of the gun mount are not exceeded, however, the same pressures acting on the base of the projectile are acting on the rear face of the gun chamber, accelerating the gun rearward during firing. This results in the required counter-recoiling force being proportionally lower, modern cannons also employ muzzle brakes very effectively to redirect some of the propellant gasses rearward after projectile exit. This provides a force to the barrel, allowing the buffering system. The same physics affecting recoil in mounted guns and cannons applies to hand-held guns, hands, arms and shoulders have considerable strength and elasticity for this purpose, up to certain practical limits. For this reason, establishing recoil safety standards for small arms remains challenging, a change in momentum of a mass requires a force, according to Newtons first law, known as the law of inertia, inertia simply being another term for mass. That force, applied to a mass, creates an acceleration, according to Newtons second law, the law of momentum -- changing the velocity of the mass changes its momentum. It is important to understand at this point that velocity is not simply speed, velocity is the speed of a mass in a particular direction. In a very technical sense, speed is a scalar, a magnitude, in summation, the total momentum of the system equals zero, surprisingly just as it did before the trigger was pulled. There are two conservation laws at work when a gun is fired, conservation of momentum and conservation of energy, recoil is explained by the law of conservation of momentum, and so it is easier to discuss it separately from energy. The nature of the process is determined by the force of the expanding gases in the barrel upon the gun. It is also determined by the force applied to the gun. The recoil force only acts during the time that the ejecta are still in the barrel of the gun, except for the case of zero-recoil, the counter-recoil force is smaller than the recoil force but lasts for a longer time. Since the recoil force and the force are not matched. In the zero-recoil case, the two forces are matched and the gun will not move when fired. In most cases, a gun is very close to a free-recoil condition, an example of near zero-recoil would be a gun securely clamped to a massive or well-anchored table, or supported from behind by a massive wall. For example, placing the butt of a large caliber gun directly against a wall, the recoil of a firearm, whether large or small, is a result of the law of conservation of momentum
29.
Bore evacuator
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Bore evacuators are most often used on large-calibre tank guns and self-propelled guns. The evacuator is a passive device. It consists of a ring of holes drilled into the barrel, the high-pressure is then released through these holes. As the shell continues down the barrel the pressure begins to drop, during this process the high-pressure air in the reservoir begins to blow back into the barrel towards the front of the gun tube. By aiming these holes forward, their exhaust causes the air to be blown forward. Various designs attempt to improve on the concept in any number of ways. One common change is to use two sets of holes, each designed specifically to be efficient at capturing or releasing the gas. In this case the set of holes is similar to the single-hole example, but a second rearward set of holes is added, using check valves to allow the high-pressure gases in. The system may be arranged to allow the gases to escape through the set of holes before the shell reaches it, causing a partial vacuum to develop directly behind the shell. For best results, the breech must be opened at the time, just as the forward momentum of the gases reaches its maximum. This means that bore extractors are normally used only on guns with semi-automatic or fully automatic actions, where the breech is opened, unprotected bore evacuators damaged by bullets have caused considerable problems in past conflicts, but up-armouring solved this problem. Bore evacuators are a feature of most modern tanks. The Russian T-14 Armata tank does not have a fume extractor as it has an unmanned turret, woodley, C. R. Modelling of Fume Extractors, 19th International Symposium of Ballistics, Interlaken, pp. 281–288, retrieved 2014-01-07
30.
Rheinmetall 120 mm gun
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The American version, the M256, uses a coil spring recoil system instead of a hydraulic system. The 120-millimeter gun has a length of 5.28 meters, by 1990, the L/44 was not considered powerful enough to deal with future Soviet armour, which stimulated an effort by Rheinmetall to develop a better main armament. The L/55 is 1.3 meters longer, giving increased muzzle velocity to ammunition fired through it, as the L/55 retains the same barrel geometry, it can fire the same ammunition as the L/44. This gun was retrofitted into German and Dutch Leopard 2s, and chosen as the gun of the Spanish Leopard 2E. It was tested on the British Challenger 2 as a replacement for its current weapon. A variety of ammunition has been developed for use by tanks with guns based on Rheinmetalls original L/44 design and this includes a series of kinetic energy penetrators, such as the American M829 series, and high explosive anti-tank warheads. Recent ammunition includes a range of anti-personnel rounds and demolition munitions, the LAHAT, developed in Israel, is a gun-launched missile which has received interest from Germany and other Leopard 2 users, and is designed to defeat both land armour and combat helicopters. The Israelis also introduced a new anti-personnel munition which limits collateral damage by controlling the fragmentation of the projectile, the first instance of a larger Soviet tank gun was witnessed on the chassis of a modified T-55 in 1961. In 1965, the Soviet Unions T-62 made its first public appearance, in response, the Soviets developed the T-72M1. This led Israel to opt for a 120 mm tank gun during the development process of the Merkava III main battle tank, in 1963, Germany and the United States had already embarked on a joint tank program, known as the MBT-70. The new tank also had improved armament, a 152-millimeter missile-launching main gun. However, the German Army was interested in a gun which could fire conventional ammunition. Although there were attempts to modify the 152-millimeter tank gun to do so, the process proved difficult. In 1967, the German Ministry of Defense decided to re-open a Leopard 1 improvement program, known as the Vergoldeter Leopard, krauss-Maffei was chosen as the contractor, and two prototypes were developed in 1969 and 1970. This program grew into the Leopard 2, the first prototype of the new tank was delivered in 1972, between 1972 and 1975, a total of 17 prototypes were developed. The new 120 mm guns ten-year development effort, which had begun in 1964, ten of the 17 turrets built were equipped with the 105 mm smoothbore gun, and the other seven were equipped with the larger 120 mm gun. Another program aimed to mount the 152-millimeter missile-gun was also developed in an attempt to save components from the MBT-70, instead, the Germans opted for Rheinmetalls 120 mm L/44 smoothbore tank gun. Rheinmetalls L/44 tank gun has a caliber of 120 mm, the guns barrel weighs 1,190 kilograms, and on the M1 Abrams the gun mount weighs 3,317 kilograms, while the new barrel is 55 calibers long,1.30 meters longer
31.
Smoothbore
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A smoothbore weapon is one that has a barrel without rifling. Smoothbores range from handheld firearms to powerful tank guns and large artillery mortars, the majority of shotguns are smoothbores and the term can be synonymous. Early firearms had smooth barrels that fired projectiles without significant spin, to minimize inaccuracy-inducing tumbling during flight their projectiles required stable shape, such as a sphere. However, the Magnus effect causes even spheres rotating randomly during flight to curve when spinning on any axis not parallel to the direction of travel, rifling a barrel with spiral grooves or polygonal rifling imparts a stabilizing gyroscopic spin to a projectile that prevents tumbling in flight. Not only does this more than counter Magnus-induced drift, but it allows a longer, heavier round to be fired from the same caliber barrel, artillery weapons were smoothbore until the middle 19th century, and smoothbores continued in limited use until the 1890s. Early rifled artillery pieces were patented by Joseph Whitworth and William Armstrong in the United Kingdom in 1855, in the United States, rifled small arms and artillery were gradually adopted during the American Civil War. However, heavy coast defense Rodman smoothbores persisted in the US until circa 1900 due to the tendency of the Civil Wars heavy Parrott rifles to burst, some smoothbore firearms are still used. A shotgun fires multiple, round shot, firing out of a barrel would impart centrifugal forces that result a doughnut-shaped pattern of shot. While this may be acceptable at close ranges this is not desirable at longer ranges, the cannon made the transition from smoothbore firing cannonballs to rifled firing shells in the 19th century. However, to penetrate the thick armor of modern armored vehicles many modern tank guns have moved back to smoothbore. These fire a long, thin kinetic-energy projectile, too long in relation to its diameter to develop the necessary spin rate through rifling. Instead, kinetic energy rounds are produced as fin-stabililzed darts, not only does this reduce the time and expense of rifling barrels it also reduces the need for replacement due to barrel wear. The first tank with a gun was the Soviet T-62. Today all main battle tanks field them except the British Challenger 2, while the 73 mm gun of the early Soviet infantry fighting vehicles BMP-1 and BMD-1 was a smoothbore, their more recent successors BMP-3 and BMD-4 use a rifled 100 mm gun. The Russian navy conducted experiments with large-caliber smoothbore naval guns, which were halted by budget cuts, the armour-piercing gun evolution has also shown up in small arms, particularly the now abandoned U. S. The ACR rifles used smoothbore barrels to fire single or multiple flechettes, rather than bullets, per pull of the trigger, to long range, flat trajectory. Just like kinetic-energy tank rounds, flechettes are too long and thin to be stabilized by rifling, the ACR program was abandoned due to reliability problems and poor terminal ballistics. Mortar barrels are typically muzzle-loading smoothbores, since mortars fire bombs that are dropped down the barrel and must not be a tight fit, a smooth barrel is essential
32.
Kilogram
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The kilogram or kilogramme is the base unit of mass in the International System of Units and is defined as being equal to the mass of the International Prototype of the Kilogram. The avoirdupois pound, used in both the imperial and US customary systems, is defined as exactly 0.45359237 kg, making one kilogram approximately equal to 2.2046 avoirdupois pounds. Other traditional units of weight and mass around the world are also defined in terms of the kilogram, the gram, 1/1000 of a kilogram, was provisionally defined in 1795 as the mass of one cubic centimeter of water at the melting point of ice. The final kilogram, manufactured as a prototype in 1799 and from which the IPK was derived in 1875, had an equal to the mass of 1 dm3 of water at its maximum density. The kilogram is the only SI base unit with an SI prefix as part of its name and it is also the only SI unit that is still directly defined by an artifact rather than a fundamental physical property that can be reproduced in different laboratories. Three other base units and 17 derived units in the SI system are defined relative to the kilogram, only 8 other units do not require the kilogram in their definition, temperature, time and frequency, length, and angle. At its 2011 meeting, the CGPM agreed in principle that the kilogram should be redefined in terms of the Planck constant, the decision was originally deferred until 2014, in 2014 it was deferred again until the next meeting. There are currently several different proposals for the redefinition, these are described in the Proposed Future Definitions section below, the International Prototype Kilogram is rarely used or handled. In the decree of 1795, the term gramme thus replaced gravet, the French spelling was adopted in the United Kingdom when the word was used for the first time in English in 1797, with the spelling kilogram being adopted in the United States. In the United Kingdom both spellings are used, with kilogram having become by far the more common, UK law regulating the units to be used when trading by weight or measure does not prevent the use of either spelling. In the 19th century the French word kilo, a shortening of kilogramme, was imported into the English language where it has used to mean both kilogram and kilometer. In 1935 this was adopted by the IEC as the Giorgi system, now known as MKS system. In 1948 the CGPM commissioned the CIPM to make recommendations for a practical system of units of measurement. This led to the launch of SI in 1960 and the subsequent publication of the SI Brochure, the kilogram is a unit of mass, a property which corresponds to the common perception of how heavy an object is. Mass is a property, that is, it is related to the tendency of an object at rest to remain at rest, or if in motion to remain in motion at a constant velocity. Accordingly, for astronauts in microgravity, no effort is required to hold objects off the cabin floor, they are weightless. However, since objects in microgravity still retain their mass and inertia, the ratio of the force of gravity on the two objects, measured by the scale, is equal to the ratio of their masses. On April 7,1795, the gram was decreed in France to be the weight of a volume of pure water equal to the cube of the hundredth part of the metre
33.
Minute
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The minute is a unit of time or of angle. As a unit of time, the minute is equal to 1⁄60 of an hour, in the UTC time standard, a minute on rare occasions has 61 seconds, a consequence of leap seconds. As a unit of angle, the minute of arc is equal to 1⁄60 of a degree, although not an SI unit for either time or angle, the minute is accepted for use with SI units for both. The SI symbols for minute or minutes are min for time measurement, the prime is also sometimes used informally to denote minutes of time. In contrast to the hour, the minute does not have a historical background. What is traceable only is that it started being recorded in the Middle Ages due to the ability of construction of precision timepieces, however, no consistent records of the origin for the division as 1⁄60 part of the hour have ever been found, despite many speculations. Historically, the word comes from the Latin pars minuta prima. This division of the hour can be refined with a second small part. For even further refinement, the third remains in some languages, for example Polish and Turkish. The symbol notation of the prime for minutes and double prime for seconds can be seen as indicating the first, international System of Units Latitude and longitude Orders of magnitude Henry Campbell Black, Blacks Law Dictionary, 6th Edition, entry on Minute. West Publishing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota,1991
34.
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
35.
Kinetic energy penetrator
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A kinetic energy penetrator is a type of ammunition designed to penetrate vehicle armour. Like a bullet, this ammunition does not contain explosives and uses energy to penetrate the target. Modern KEP munitions are typically of the armour-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot type, early cannons fired kinetic energy ammunition, initially consisting of round balls of worked stone and later of round balls of metal. From the beginning, combining high energy with projectile density. Similarly, the foremost purpose of weapons has generally been to defeat armour or other defensive structures, whether stone castle walls, ship timbers. Kinetic energy ammunition, in its various forms, has consistently been the choice for those weapons due to the need for high muzzle energy, the development of the modern KE penetrator combines two aspects of artillery design, high muzzle velocity and concentrated force. High muzzle velocity is achieved by using a projectile with a low mass, firing a small size projectile wrapped in a lightweight outer shell, called a sabot, raises the muzzle velocity. Once the shell clears the barrel, the sabot is no longer needed and this leaves the projectile traveling at high velocity with a smaller cross-sectional area and reduced aerodynamic drag during the flight to the target. Germany developed modern sabots under the name treibspiegel to give extra altitude to its anti-aircraft guns during the Second World War, the name sabot is the French word for clog. Concentration of force into an area was initially attained by replacing the single metal shot with a composite shot using two metals, a heavy core inside a lighter metal outer shell. These designs were either as armour-piercing composite rigid, high-velocity armor-piercing. On impact, the core had a more concentrated effect than plain metal shot of the same weight. However, the air resistance and other effects were the same as for the shell of identical size, between 1941 and 1943, the British combined the two techniques in the armour-piercing discarding sabot round. The sabot replaced the metal shell of the APCR. While in the gun the shot had a base area to get maximum acceleration from the propelling charge but once outside. High-velocity armor-piercing rounds were introduced by the United States Army. The principle of the kinetic energy penetrator is that it uses its kinetic energy, if the armor is defeated, the heat and spalling generated by the penetrator going through the armor, and the pressure wave that would develop, ideally destroys the target. The opposite technique to KE-penetrators uses chemical energy penetrators, there are two types of these shells in use, high-explosive anti-tank and high-explosive squash head
36.
Canister shot
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Canister shot is a kind of anti-personnel ammunition used in cannons. It was similar to case and the grapeshot, but fired smaller and more numerous balls. The canister round is similar to a case and is used today in modern artillery. At times when the supply of balls was limited, nails, scrap iron or lead, wire, the canister itself was usually made of tin, often dipped in a lacquer of beeswax diluted with turpentine to prevent corrosion of the metal. Iron was substituted for tin for larger-calibre guns, the ends of the canister were closed with wooden or metal disks. Attached to the back of the canister was a cloth cartridge bag. A sabot of wood, metal, or similar material was used to guide the round during firing from the cannon. Case shot is a type of ammunition, but instead of a tin can filled with metal balls. This powder was to open the case and disperse the shrapnel. The projectile had been known since at least the 16th century and was known by various nicknames in the 17th century such as hailshot or partridge shot, rounds recovered from Henry VIIIs warship Mary Rose were wooden cylinders filled with broken flint flakes. When filled with rubbish or scrap the round could be known as scrapshot or langrage, in 1718 Blackbeard aka Edward Teach armed his guns with a range of makeshift weaponry including langrage. Several of his cannon, still loaded with spikes and shot, have recovered from the wreck site of his flagship. Archaeologists have also retrieved conglomerations of lead shot, nails, spikes, langrage was also found among the artifact assemblage of the Mardi Gras shipwreck,4000 ft deep in the Gulf of Mexico. The defenders of The Alamo used old horseshoe nails and chopped up iron horseshoes to make their scrapshot, various types of canister were devised for specific models of artillery field pieces. In 1753, the howitzer, a special gun with an oval bore—intended to spread shot even wider—was briefly introduced into Russian service. When fired, the canister disintegrates and its shards and projectiles spread out in a conical formation and it was particularly effective during the Napoleonic Wars and the American Civil War, where massed troops at close range could be broken up by artillery batteries firing canister. At times, particularly at very close range, artillery crews would fire extremely lethal double canister, at the Battle of Waterloo, in 1815, Mercers Troop, Royal Horse Artillery, fired a roundshot and a canister from each gun as a double-shot. The roundshot was loaded first with the canister on top, canister played a key role for Union forces during their defeat of Confederate troops assigned to support Picketts Charge during the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863
37.
High-explosive anti-tank warhead
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High-explosive anti-tank warhead is a type of shaped charge explosive that uses the Munroe effect to penetrate armor. The warhead functions by having the explosive charge melt a metal liner to form a high-velocity superplastic jet and this concentrated metal jet is capable of penetrating armor steel to a depth of seven or more times the diameter of the charge. Contrary to a misconception, the jet does not melt its way through armor. The HEAT warhead has become less effective against tanks and other armored vehicles due to the use of composite armour, HEAT warheads were developed during World War II, from extensive research and development into shaped charge warheads. Shaped charge warheads were promoted internationally by the Swiss inventor Henry Mohaupt, before 1939, Mohaupt demonstrated his invention to British and French ordnance authorities. Claims for priority of invention are difficult to due to subsequent historic interpretations, secrecy, espionage. This has some claim to have been the first HEAT warhead, the design of the warhead was simple and was capable of penetrating 52 millimetres of armour. The fuze of the grenade was armed by removing a pin in the tail which prevented the firing pin from flying forward. Simple fins gave it stability in the air and, provided the hit the target at the proper angle of 90 degrees. Detonation occurred on impact, when a striker in the tail of the grenade overcame the resistance of a spring and was thrown forward into a stab detonator. By mid-1940, Germany introduced the first HEAT round to be fired by a gun, the 7.5 centimetres fired by the Kw. K.37 L/24 of the Panzer IV tank and the Stug III self-propelled gun. The Panzerfaust and Panzerschreck gave the German infantryman the ability to any tank on the battlefield from 50–150 metres with relative ease of use. The Germans made use of quantities of HEAT ammunition in converted 7.5 cm Pak 97/38 guns from 1942. These so-called Schwere Hohlladung warheads were intended for use against heavily armoured battleships, operational versions weighed nearly two tons and were perhaps the largest HEAT warheads ever deployed. A five-ton version code-named Beethoven was also developed, meanwhile, the British No.68 AT rifle grenade was proving to be too light to deal significant damage, resulting in it rarely being used in action. Due to these limits, a new infantry weapon was needed. By 1942, the PIAT had been developed by Major Millis Jefferis and it was a combination of a HEAT warhead with a spigot mortar delivery system. While cumbersome, the weapon allowed British infantry to armour at range for the first time
38.
High-explosive squash head
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High-explosive squash head is a type of explosive ammunition that is effective against tank armour and is also useful against buildings. It was fielded chiefly by the British Army as the explosive round of its main battle tanks during the Cold War. It was also used by military forces, particularly those that acquired the early post-World War 2 British 105 mm Royal Ordnance L7A1, including Germany, India, Israel. In the United States, it is known as HEP, for high explosive, HESH rounds are thin metal shells filled with plastic explosive and a delayed-action base fuze. The plastic explosive is squashed against the surface of the target on impact, the base fuze detonates the explosive milliseconds later, creating a shock wave that, owing to its large surface area and direct contact with the target, is transmitted through the material. At the point where the compression and tension waves intersect, a zone is created in the metal. This fragmentation by blast wave is known as spalling, with the fragments themselves known as spall, the spall travels through the interior of the vehicle at high velocity, killing or injuring the crew, damaging equipment, and/or igniting ammunition and fuel. Unlike high-explosive anti-tank rounds, which are shaped charge ammunition, HESH shells are not specifically designed to perforate the armour of main battle tanks, HESH shells rely instead on the transmission of the shock wave through the solid steel armour. While only effective against tanks without spaced armour or spall liners, HESH was developed by Charles Dennistoun Burney in the 1940s for the British war effort, originally as an anti-fortification wallbuster munition for use against concrete. He also led British developments in recoilless rifles as a means to deliver the shell, an early application of the HESH principle was the Royal Engineers AVREs 165mm demolition gun. HESH was found to be effective against metallic armour as well, although the British already had effective weapons using HEAT. In the 1960s, Britain also devised anti-tank guided missiles with HESH warheads, such as the Malkara, since the 1970s, HESH ammunition has increasingly fallen out of favour as armour designs have trended towards layered composites of hard metal and heat-resistant materials. This type of armour is a conductor of shock waves. Anti-spalling devices, made of such as Kevlar, are commonly fitted to the interior surface of modern armoured vehicles to mitigate spalling effects. Another reason for the use of HESH rounds is the preference of most armies for smoothbore cannons. The British Army has persisted with a cannon on their Challenger 1. Nevertheless, the British Army had planned for a conversion to the more versatile smoothbore cannons and this would have allowed them to take advantage of commonality with NATO partners and the greater availability of smoothbore ammunition types, such as high-explosive, time-fuzed and canister shot. British rifled tanks have been limited to two offensive ammunition types, CHARM, a kinetic energy penetrator, and HESH, but not HEAT, HESH rounds are currently still carried by armoured engineer vehicles, they are typically intended for use against fortifications rather than armoured fighting vehicles
39.
White phosphorus incendiary
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White phosphorus is a material made from a common allotrope of the chemical element phosphorus that is used in smoke, tracer, illumination, and incendiary munitions. As an incendiary weapon, white phosphorus is pyrophoric, burns fiercely and can ignite cloth, fuel, ammunition, in addition to its offensive capabilities, white phosphorus is a highly efficient smoke-producing agent, which burns quickly and produces an immediate blanket of smoke. These create smoke screens to mask from the movement, position, infrared signatures. White phosphorus is believed to have been first used by Fenian arsonists in the 19th century, when the carbon disulfide evaporated, the phosphorus would burst into flames. This mixture was known as Fenian fire and allegedly was used by disgruntled itinerant workers in Australia to cause delayed destruction of shabby sleeping quarters and it is believed that eight or nine men in this group, known as the Sydney Twelve, had been framed by the police. Most were released in 1920 after an inquiry, the British Army introduced the first factory-built WP grenades in late 1916. The British military also used white phosphorus bombs against Kurdish villagers, in the interwar years, the U. S. Army trained using white phosphorus, by artillery shell and air bombardment. The only one fielded was the Grenade, No.76 or Special Incendiary Phosphorus grenade, which consisted of a glass bottle filled with a mixture similar to Fenian fire, plus some latex. It came in two versions, one with a red cap intended to be thrown by hand, and a slightly stronger bottle with a green cap, intended to be launched from the Northover projector. These were improvised anti-tank weapons, hastily fielded in 1940 when the British were awaiting a German invasion after losing the bulk of their modern armaments in the Dunkirk evacuation. Instructions on each crate of SIP grenades included the observations, among other things, Store bombs in cool places, stringent precautions must be taken to avoid cracking bombs during handling. At the start of the Normandy campaign, 20% of American 81 mm mortar rounds were white phosphorus, the U. S. Army and Marines used white phosphorus shells in 107-mm mortars. White phosphorus was widely credited by Allied soldiers for breaking up German infantry attacks, US Sherman tanks carried a white phosphorus round intended for artillery spotting, but tank crews found it useful against German tanks. When American bombers raided Negros Island in the Philippines in 1945, late in the war, some of these bombs used white phosphorus in place of magnesium as the igniter for their flammable mixtures. The use of weapons against civilians was banned by signatory countries in the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons Protocol III. The United States signed Protocols I and II on 24 March 1995 under the Clinton Administration and later Protocols III, IV, White phosphorus munitions were used extensively in Korea, Vietnam and later by Russian forces in Chechnya. White phosphorus was used by Saddam Hussein during the Halabja poison gas attack, White phosphorus had not been previously mentioned in other reports on Halabja, but the use of napalm was commonly reported. In April 2004, during the First Battle of Fallujah, Darrin Mortenson of Californias North County Times reported that white phosphorus was used as an incendiary weapon, insurgents reported being attacked with a substance that melted their skin, a reaction consistent with white phosphorus burns
40.
Sabot
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Driving bands and obturator rings are made from material that will deform and seal the barrel as the projectile is forced from the chamber into the barrel. More detailed cutaways of the structural complexity of advanced APFSDS saboted long rod penetrator projectiles can be found at reference 2. Efficient aerodynamic design of a flight projectile does not always accommodate efficient interior ballistic design to high muzzle velocity. This is especially true for arrow-type projectiles, which are long and thin for low drag efficiency, the physics of interior ballistics demonstrates why the use of a sabot is advantageous to achieve higher muzzle velocity with an arrow-type projectile. Propellant gasses generate high pressure, and the larger the area that pressure acts upon the greater the net force on that surface. Force, pressure times area, provides an acceleration to the mass of the projectile, therefore, for a given pressure and barrel diameter, a lighter projectile can be driven from a barrel to a higher muzzle velocity than a heavier projectile. However, a projectile may not fit in the barrel. Upon muzzle exit, the sabot is discarded, and the flight projectile flies to the target with less drag resistance than a full-bore projectile. In this manner, very high velocity and slender, low drag projectiles can be fired more efficiently, nevertheless, the weight of the sabot represents parasitic mass that must also be accelerated to muzzle velocity, but does not contribute to the terminal ballistics of the flight projectile. The purpose of the sabot is to allow a smaller flight projectile to be launched at greater muzzle velocity than if the flight projectile alone were fired from a gun of equal caliber. Firing a smaller-sized projectile wrapped in a sabot raises the velocity of the projectile. The sabot usually consists of several longitudinal pieces held in place by the cartridge case, when the projectile is fired, the sabot blocks the gas, provides significant structural support against launch acceleration, and carries the projectile down the barrel. When the sabot reaches the end of the barrel, the shock of hitting still air pulls the parts of the sabot away from the projectile, sabot-type shotgun slugs were marketed in the United States starting in about 1985. When used with a rifled barrel, they offer vastly improved accuracy compared to traditional shotgun slugs. They are now legal for hunting in most U. S. states, a cup sabot supports the base and rear end of a projectile, and the cup material alone can provide both structural support and barrel obturation. When the sabot and projectile exit the muzzle of the gun, cup sabots are found typically in small arms ammunition, smooth-bore shotgun and smooth-bore muzzleloader projectiles. Used typically in rifled small arms, an expanding cup sabot has a one piece sabot surrounding the base and sides of a projectile, to achieve gyroscopic stability of longer bullets in smaller diameter requires faster rifling. Therefore, if a bullet requires at least 1 turn in 7 inch twist, in 5. 56mm, however, larger caliber commercial rifles generally dont need such fast twist rates,1,10 being a readily available standard in 7. 62mm
41.
M1128 Mobile Gun System
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It is in service with the United States and was also being considered for adoption by several other countries. The MGS remote weapon station has a silhouette, is stabilized. The RWS mounts a 105 mm M68A2 rifled cannon, the vehicle is primarily outfitted to support infantry combat operations. While it could take on some of the roles of tanks, the MGS can store 18 rounds of main gun ammunition in the autoloader cassette located in the rear compartment of the vehicle. It has a rate of fire of six rounds per minute, because the vehicle was designed without air conditioning, crews are given individual cooling vests that circulate cooled water from outside the vehicle to the garment. All MGS Stryker platforms have recently upgraded with AC units. The large remote weapon station and relatively smaller hatch can make emergency exits difficult, the U. S. Army allocated nine Mobile Gun Systems to a battalion. There were 27 Mobile Gun Systems per Stryker Brigade in 2013, the Army bought 142 Mobile Gun Systems in total, three were lost in combat. A three-vehicle MGS platoon operates organic to a Stryker infantry company, in course of the Armored Combat Vehicle Technology Program, both the U. S. Army and the Marine Corps have let separate fixed price vehicle design study contracts to nine contractors. The nine contractors were, Alvis Ltd, Cadillac Gage, General Motors of Canada, Pacific Car and Foundry, Bell Aerospace, FMC Corporation, Chrysler, Teledyne, the gun, officially designated as the Medium Caliber Anti-Armor Automatic Cannon, has been already developed by Ares Inc. This led to the development of a new armored fighting vehicle designed for lower-intensity combat, Canada had liquidated about half of its fleet of Leopard 1s in the early 2000s, with the intention of replacing them with the airmobile Mobile Gun System, but the decision was reversed. In fall of 2006 a squadron of Leopards were sent to Afghanistan, and in 2007, full-rate production has been indefinitely deferred as of 2012. In late 2013, the U. S. Stryker AMX10 RC AMOS B1 Centauro LAV600 Maneuver Combat Vehicle List of U. S. military vehicles by model number
42.
Stryker
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The IAV Stryker is a family of eight-wheeled, armored fighting vehicles derived from the Canadian LAV III and based on the Swiss Piranha III 8×8. Stryker vehicles are produced by General Dynamics Land Systems Canada for the United States Army and it has 4-wheel drive and can be switched to all-wheel drive. In October 1999, General Eric Shinseki, then U. S. Army Chief of Staff, the plan, named Objective Force, would have the army adopt a flexible doctrine that would allow it to deploy quickly, and equipped for a variety of operations. On 27 February 2002, the Army formally renamed the Interim Armored Vehicle as the Stryker, the Stryker 105mm M1128 Mobile Gun System moved into low-rate initial production in 2005 for evaluation, and entered full production in 2007. General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada assembles the Stryker for the U. S. Army in a plant in London, the vehicle is employed in Stryker Brigade Combat Teams, light and mobile units based on the Brigade Combat Team Doctrine that relies on vehicles connected by military C4I networks. The Stryker has come under scrutiny from military experts since its introduction in the US Army. General Dynamicss Robotic Systems division was developing autonomous navigation for the Stryker, more than 1,000 Stryker vehicles have been rebuilt by Anniston Army Depot and returned to operations. The upgraded V-hull will be part of the new StrykShield situational awareness kit, allegheny Technologies ATI 500-MIL armor steel was designated the primary armored plating for the StrykShield package in 2008. In March 2010, it was reported that General Dynamics and Army were working to incorporate a double V-hull into the Stryker design, in July 2010 the Army awarded a $30 million contract to GDLS to start production of the new hull. On 9 March 2011, the Department of Defenses director of operational test, the issues are due to the tight drivers compartment and difficulty releasing the seat to extract an incapacitated driver. General Dynamics stated these issues would be corrected before the new Stryker version deploys, the upgrade also adds significant weight to the vehicle, which can cause it to sink into soft ground. In July 2011,450 Double V-Hull variants of the Stryker vehicle were ordered, DVH Strykers include a new hull configuration, increased armor, upgraded suspension and braking systems, wider tires, blast-attenuating seats, and a height management system. By August 2012, the Armys Stryker fleet included over 4,187 vehicles, in Afghanistan, it retained a 96 percent readiness rate. In mid-October 2014, the Army approved the procurement of DVH Strykers for a fourth Stryker brigade, with conversions to 360 vehicles to begin in FY2017. ECP enhancements include a more robust 450 HP engine, a more powerful 910 amp power generator, an upgrade to handle the new engine. Upgrading the fourth brigade also kept the line active through 2018, whereas deciding to upgrade after the line had closed would be more difficult. The Army plans to increase the lethality of Stryker ICVs by having half equipped with a 30 mm cannon, the Stryker is based on the LAV III light-armored vehicle, which in turn was based on the Swiss MOWAG Piranha III 8x8. The vehicle comes in variants with a common engine, transmission, hydraulics, wheels, tires, differentials
43.
Republic of Korea Army
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The Republic of Korea Army, also known as the ROK Army, is the army of South Korea, responsible for ground-based warfare. It is the largest of the branches of the South Korean armed forces with 495,000 members as of 2014. This size is maintained through conscription, South Korean men must complete 21 months of service between the age of 18 and 35. The army will take the brunt of the personnel reduction planned as part of the Defense Reform 307, the modern South Korean army traces its lineage back to the Gwangmu Reform, when the Beolgyegoon was established by Emperor Gojong in 1881. The 1st of every October is celebrated in South Korea as Armed Forces Day and it commemorates the day during the Korean War when units of the ROK Army first crossed the 38th Parallel, thus leading the UN Coalition north into North Korean territory for the first time. The ROK Army was formerly organized into 3 armies, the First Army, Third Army, each with its own headquarters, corps, and divisions. The Third Army was responsible for the defense of the capital as well as the section of the DMZ. The First Army was responsible for the defense of the section of the DMZ whereas the 2nd OC formed the rearguard. The army consists of 495,000 troops, approximately 2, 400-2,500 tanks,2,700 armored fighting vehicles,5,800 artillery pieces,60 guided missile systems, and 600 helicopters as of 2014. The future replacement for the K1 and K1A1 MBTs has been named the K2 Black Panther, the ROK Army is planning to field approximately 390 Black Panthers. A variation of the K200, the KAFVs can be retrofitted to bear a 90 mm cannon,40 mm grenade turret, M230-1 Chain gun Turret, or MK-30 Chaingun Turret. A replacement for K200 series IFVs are currently being tested, designated as K21 KNIFV, the initial production is set for 2008, with the ROKA planning to field approximately 1,000 units until 2015. The K21 KNIFVs chassis will be constructed out of fiberglass, reducing the vehicles load and enabling it to travel at higher speeds without bulky. When constructed, the NIFV will be lighter than other IFVs, including the American Bradley series and Russian BMP series, other notable foreign equipment in service with the ROK Army includes the Mistral MANPADS. A new infantry rifle, the Daewoo K11 entered service in 2010, the overall concept of this weapon is similar to the American OICW. So equals small, Jung equals medium, Dae equals large, jun equals equivalent, used for Warrant Officer and 1 star general to ensure that they are regarded as officer/general, although these ranks are lower than the same grade with So rank. Won equals principal, only used for Won-Su, General of the Army, each of these is coupled with wi equals company grade, ryung equals field grade, and jang equals general. NCO rank is same as officer, ha equals lower, Jung equals medium, Sang equals high, Won equals principal, because this title is named after Won-Su, to ensure that this rank is higher than Sang-sa
44.
M48 Patton
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The M48 Patton is a main battle tank that was designed in the United States. It was the tank to be officially named after General George S. Patton. Third Army during World War II and one of the earliest American advocates for the use of tanks in battle and it was a further development of the M47 Patton tank. The M48 Patton was in U. S. service until replaced by the M60 and served as the U. S. Army and it was widely used by U. S. Cold War allies, especially other NATO countries, the M48 Patton tank was designed to replace the previous M47 Pattons and M4 Shermans. Although largely resembling the M47, the M48 was a new design. It was the last U. S. tank to mount the 90 mm tank gun, with the last model, the M48A5, being upgraded to carry the new weapon of the M60. Some M48A5 models served well into the 1980s with American forces, the Turkish Army has the largest number of modernized M48 MBTs, with more than 1,400 in its inventory. Of these, around 1,000 have been phased out, placed in storage, on 27 February 1951, OTCM #33791 initiated the design of the new tank, designated the 90mm Gun Tank T-48. A deeper modernization than the M46 and the M47, the M48 featured a new turret, a redesigned hull. The hull machine gunner position was removed, reducing the crew to four, on 2 April 1953, OTCM order #34765 standardized the last of the Patton series tanks as the 90mm Gun Tank M48 Patton. Nearly 12,000 M48s were built from 1952 to 1959, the early designs, up to the M48A2Cs, were powered by a gasoline 12-cylinder engine and a 1-cylinder auxiliary generator. The gasoline engine gave the tank a shorter operating range and were more prone to catching fire when hit. Although considered less reliable than diesel-powered versions, numerous examples saw combat use in various Arab-Israeli conflicts, mIL-PRF-6083 fluid was not peculiar to the M-48 and is no longer used in combat armored vehicles, having been replaced by fire resistant hydraulic fluid. Beginning in 1959, most American M48s were upgraded to the M48A3 model, M48s with gasoline engines, however, were still in use in the US Army through 1968, and through 1975 by many West German Army units, including the 124th Panzer Battalion. In February 1963, the US Army accepted the first of 600 M48 Patton tanks that had converted to M48A3s. The A3 model introduced the engine, countering the earlier versions characteristic of catching fire. These Pattons were to be deployed to battle in Vietnam, because all M48A3 tanks were conversions from earlier models, many characteristics varied among individual examples of this type
