In the years following the Civil War, plans were drawn up to build a major set of fortifications along the Russian western border. Work began in 1926, leading to a front that stretched over 2,000km from the Baltic to the Black Sea. By the time of...
The M4 Sherman tank was the mainstay of the Western allies between 1942 and 1945. Fast and modern it was better than most of the tanks Britain had to offer. The American Chief of Staff claimed in November 1943 that it had been hailed widely as 'the...
The emergence of the tank in World War I led to the development of the first infantry weapons to defend against tanks. Anti-tank rifles became commonplace in the inter-war years and in the early campaigns of World War II in Poland and the Battle of...
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,...
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...
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...