Cant recall ever seeing a thread on this topic so i thought it was time we had one... this thread is dedicated to military weaponry of any kind, from any era or nation.
There is a seemingly endless array of novel, fascinating, revolutionary or even ill-fated hardware out there so subject material shouldnt be a problem.
Originally Posted by GloucesterChief:
The Roman pilum, scutum, and gladius hispaniensis basically let their infantry be the best for a good 300 years.
Spears and swords in well trained hands and formations, yep, great stuff... i'm definitely saddened by the demise of Deadliest Warrior on Spike, i guess they just ran out of interesting matchups.
I forget the name of the show because it was so short lived, but Spike did a show with Richard Mackowicz (sp?) the ex-SEAL, where special-ops units from various nations would compete against each other taking down various targets, it was very cool to see the (not real units, but thrown together for tv) individuals and their varying tactics.
If i had to guess why its not still on, i wouldnt guess lack of viewers, its that the military didnt want enemies seeing strengths and weaknesses played out on live tv. [Reply]
Originally Posted by :
The earliest documented incident of the intention to use biological weapons is recorded in Hittite texts of 1500–1200 BC, in which victims of tularemia were driven into enemy lands, causing an epidemic.[1]
My favorite, though, was when they'd catapult corpses into besieged cities to spread the plague:
Originally Posted by :
During the Middle Ages, victims of the bubonic plague were used for biological attacks, often by flinging fomites such as infected corpses and excrement over castle walls using catapults. In 1346, during the siege of Kafa (now Feodossia, Ukraine) the attacking Tartar Forces which were subjugated by the Mongol empire under Genghis Khan, used the bodies of Mongol warriors of the Golden Horde who had died of plague, as weapons. An outbreak of plague followed and the defending forces retreated, followed by the conquest of the city by the Mongols. It has been speculated that this operation may have been responsible for the advent of the Black Death in Europe. At the time, the attackers thought that the stench was enough to kill them, though it was the disease that was deadly.[6][7]
At the siege of Thun-l'Évêque in 1340, during the Hundred Years' War, the attackers catapulted decomposing animals into the besieged area.[8]
In 1422, during the siege of Karlstein Castle in Bohemia, Hussite attackers used catapults to throw dead (but not plague-infected) bodies and 2000 carriage-loads of dung over the walls.[9]
The last known incident of using plague corpses for biological warfare occurred in 1710, when Russian forces attacked the Swedes by flinging plague-infected corpses over the city walls of Reval (Tallinn).[10] However, during the 1785 siege of La Calle, Tunisian forces flung diseased clothing into the city.[9]
English Longbowmen usually did not draw their arrows from a quiver, rather, they stuck their arrows into the ground in front of them. This allowed them to nock the arrows faster and the dirt and soil was likely to stick the arrowheads, thus making the wounds much more likely to become infected.
Yep, i'd completely forgotten how they used to catapult plague vicitms into besieged towns, good call guys.
How about this, invisibility cloak in action or "frame lag"?...
ed- not sure why it wont load, but it appears to show a soldier appear out of nowhere and climb onto an Abrams in the middle east during a firefight. [Reply]