An ancient design, emerging from Central Asia in the second millennium BC, the composite bow was adopted by a staggering variety of cultures, from nomadic tribal peoples such as the Huns, Turks and Mongols, to mighty empires such as the Romans,...
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только полные версии
An iconic medieval missile weapon, the deadly longbow made possible the English victories at Crecy and Poitiers at the height of the Hundred Years' War. The longbow was the weapon at the heart of the English military ascendancy in the century after...
Военная история, Военное дело, военная техника и вооружение
Katyusha: Russian Multiple Rocket Launchers, 1941 - Present
Although military rockets have been used since the Middle Ages, it was not until the Soviet Union pioneered the concept of Multiple Rocket Launchers (MRLs) in the late 1930s that they emerged as a decisive weapon. In the modern era, these...
The Polish army during the Blitzkrieg conjures up tragic images of infantry and dashing, but ineffective and ultimately doomed cavalry charges. In actuality the Poles, in the midst of a large-scale re-armament programme, had up to 600 armoured...
Several factors delayed and greatly hampered the development of an Italian medium tank during World War II. The first was the strategic stance of the country, focussed on a war against neighbouring countries such as France and Yugoslavia, and...
The Italian army, unlike those of the British and French, did not use tanks in combat during World War I and, by November 1918, only one training unit equipped with French Schneider and Renault tanks had been formed. Consequently, during the 1920s...
With the MG 34, the German Wehrmacht introduced an entirely new concept in automatic firepower - the general-purpose machine gun (GPMG). In itself the MG 34 was an excellent weapon: an air-cooled, recoil-operated machine gun that could deliver...
The RPG-series of weapons is the most widely used family of lightweight antitank weapons in the world today. RPGs have been used not only against their intended targets, but against personnel, fortifications, buildings, soft-skin vehicles,...
Entering service in 1931, the 9x19mm Suomi KP/-31 submachine gun saw extensive combat with Finnish troops during their fight against Soviet forces in 1939-44. It was also manufactured under licence in Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden, and remained in...
Winchester lever-action repeating rifles are an integral part of the folklore of the American West. Introduced after the American Civil War, the first Winchester, the M1866, would go on to see military service as far afield as Bulgaria, but it was...