Although protective equipment is so important for the safety of soldiers, advances in weapons is what wins wars. The United States military is constantly designing new weapons for soldiers because with each new threat, a new counter is needed. As for weapons used to take the enemy out, there are infinite possibilities of weapons that could be designed for that area weaponry. The Unites States military is trying to design weapons that no other country has so that the enemy won't know what hit them and would have no defense for it. Basic rifles and shotguns are the most common types of guns in the military because of how easy they are to use and can be used from just about any distance. The
M-16A2 rifle is the standard rifle used in combat and
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One of the most used used shotguns is the Beretta LTLX7000 shotgun which shoots small shells at a target and regardless the distance has the same amount of impact.
Rifles and shotguns are good against single targets and small amounts of space, but what would happen if the military needed a whole section of enemy territory gone, or if defense was needed against an enemy tank? This is where grenade launchers and explosive weapons come into the picture. Grenade launchers created by the United States military are designed for many different purposes anywhere from needing defense in a small space to sending explosives at the enemy from half a mile away. The Corner Shot Grenade Launcher is used when a soldier is being surrounded in a tight space, and the only option is to shoot through the enemy. With a regular single shot gun, this would never work, but with the the CSGL, it is. This grenade launcher is able to turn its barrel at a complete 90 degree angle around a corner while keeping the soldier out of sight. On the barrel is a live video camera which displays itself on a screen attached to the base of the weapon near the trigger. This way the soldier can see the enemy and can shoot at them, without the enemy ever seeing the
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Fiber Lasers were invented in 1963 and since the 1990's they have been advanced almost entirely by IPG Photonics Company. The fiber lasers are compact and can be rolled in coils and take in sunlight which increases its brightness and power by over 30%. This fiber laser is twice as strong as the solid state lasers (Extance). The High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator is a prototype mechanism that is placed in top of camouflaged trucks and shoots an invisible infrared laser at the enemy planes or weapons. Inside the truck an engineer sits in front of a computer and aims and shoots the invisible laser at the enemy. This laser is one of the best forms of defense because it only takes two cups of fuel and an outside energy source such as a generator, whereas a conventional inexpensive missile costs around 100,00 dollars per shot (Extance). The fiber laser only costs less than 10 dollars per shot. This makes the fiber lasers a very effective line of defense against flying targets. Other prototypes such as the LaWS laser systems have been designed to be placed on United States boats and are able to target smaller enemy boats. Direct Energy weapons use lasers and microwaves as a weapon. Although not many of these weapons
There are three types of artillery used by the Continental Army, which consisted of cannons, mortars, and howitzers. The two main types of cannons are the field gun that was lightweight and mobile, while the heavy siege gun is larger and has limited mobility. The field gun fired a variety of rounds such as solid shot, grapeshot, and canister shot that has a flat trajectory. This would tear large holes in the opposing forces ranks, destroying personnel, and equipment. Solid shot was simply a solid cast-iron cannonball that had the least effective range unless it was rolling or bouncing. Grape shot was most commonly used for long range target with a kill zone of 600 yards. Grape shot was generally constructed out of a canvas bag, with lead or iron balls half the size of musket balls that has a wooden base, and center rod to help the artillery men handle the rounds. Canister shot is a thin metal cylinder filled with a massive amount
The ammunitions are there for the dangerous war and defending our nation, but the most important one is the bullets and cannon balls, their hand crafted by men and women package the bullets, and then shipped the bullets and cannon balls to Union and Confederate troops because without them, the war will never end and chaos will be all over the united states. The bullet has a cone shape so it won’t bounce around in the gun’s barrel. (www.History.com/reaserch/civilwartechnology
The Civil War is a harsh part of American history but the life of the soldiers was a real struggle. Most people know that the soldiers had a miserable life but it was far worse than people assume. Weapons weren’t easy to use, training was like starting from scratch and the camp life was miserable. Whether is was the North or the South, life wasn’t easy. Therefore, during the Civil War, the soldiers continued the courageous and daring fight in spite of poorly constructed weapons, labored training, and dreadful living conditions.
In the early phases of ww1 (1914) the flamethrower brought extreme terror to the British and French troops. However other nations quickly caught onto it. The weapon wasn’t at all hard to make, but was very effective. The idea of a flamethrower was to throw burning fuel at the enemy. The Germans created two types of flamethrowers or models of flamethrowers. One large and one small, both developed by Richard Fiedler. The lighter and smaller flamethrower was designed for one man to be able to carry it. This flamethrower used pressurised air and nitrogen/carbon dioxide. A stream of burning gas and oil would be thrown up to 18 meters to hit. the enemy. The second and larger model was not appropriate for a single soldier. Its range could double the small flamethrower. This particular model could withstand flames for up to 40 seconds. However the only down side to this model is that it used a lot of fuel which was highly costly. These weapons were very effective in world war one when used at close range but there were disadvantages of them. Flamethrowers didn’t have the range of a rifle. If you operated a flamethrower you were in target of
With a lemon-shaped piece of iron and a tail made of paper or cardboard, the handheld explosive greatly resembled a dart. On the front of the grenade’s body was a plunger, which held a percussion cap filled with explosive material.When the the grenade fell onto its nose and applied pressure to the plunger, an explosion was triggered, only to be met by more gunpowder inside. Although the resulting explosion caused a great deal of mayhem and shrapnel, it was not very reliable because its detonation depended on the grenade falling directly onto its nose. Because of its temperamental behavior, the grenade got a reputation for not being very accurate.
The development of the rifle (a firearm with grooves along the inner barrel) meant a soldier could easily hit an enemy from hundreds of meters away, rendering
Did you know that the original Gatling gun was first used by soldiers in the Civil War, but is still in use today? Although many of the weapons from the Civil War are now considered irrelevant, back then, they were a lifesaver. The Spencer repeating rifle shaved seconds off a soldier's time to fire. The repeating rifle brought the firing rate from 1:20 to 1:4.5 (Bryant.edu). This was revolutionary for the war. Also, the rifled musket increased the accuracy of the musket by 16%. Reconnaissance was also revolutionized by the inventions of the hot air balloon, the submarine, and the ironclad ship. Sea and air travel became much easier. These weapons contributed to the war in many ways. People die every day, but the death toll of this war is staggering,
The most common rifle that was used in the revolutionary war is the smoothbore flintlock musket with a attached bayonet. The rifle was a huge part in the American Revolution because it could hit someone from a long range unlike your fist.The armies used something called a paper cartridge to speed the reloading process and it lower the chance of losing gunpowder. In order to reload the weapon you must use black gunpowder.Most rifle can shoot up to or higher than 75 miles per hour (mph).
The American Civil War was a war over the secession of the Confederacy. The Confederate States of America were formed after 11 slave states declared their secession due to the election of an Anti-Slavery republican as president. The remaining 25 states formed the Union. Weapons such as the Gatling Gun, repeating rifle, which gave soldier the ability to fire multiple rounds without reloading, railroads and telegraphs, which played large factors in means of transportation of information as well as supplies, and the “minie ball”, a new type of ammunition, which caused immense and mortal wounds on the battlefield, were being developed, all aided the Union in
Minié bullet’s were what they had used for there snipers back then and for some of the pistols as well. These bullets were made of metal which couldn't do much to some things but could kill people from mass distances. Most of the casualties that had occured where because of a shot from the minié bullet. These bullets were a round ammo not a oval with a tip therefor making the minié bullet bad when they could have tips at the end. The Minié bullet´s were used on both sides and is sometimes still being used
The most widely used personal firearm of the American Civil War were rifled muskets. However many Revolutionary period muskets were still in use, these muskets were very inaccurate and had an effective range of about 80 yards. Most soldiers carried muzzleloading rifles, rifles while slower to reload were much more accurate than the musket. The rifling in the barrels, increased the accuracy of these weapons to nearly 400 yards. The most widely used rifle of the Union
In combat a highly effective weapon for suppression and maneuver is a well placed M67 Frag Grenade. The frag grenade has a kill radius of 5 meters and a casualty radius of 15 meters. A frag grenade is useful to kill, wound, shock and distort the line of sight of the enemy. When used properly in combat the frag grenade can be the turning factor in the battle and assist in establishing a forward or perpendicular base of fire to further eliminate the
The Gulf War was much more than a fight to liberate Kuwait. It was the first non-conventional war; in which new, fairly new, or even experimental weapons were used. The Gulf War displayed much new technology that you will learn lots about in this paper. This paper may sound very technical, but that is what it is about, the new weapon technology vs. the conventional types of weapons used in previous wars. This paper is about the advancement of weapon technology, and how the military changed the tactics used before.
Before the M-203, infantry used a weapon called the M-79 grenade launcher. Which largely resembled a sawn off shotgun. The M-79 was designed to take up the gap between maximum hand grenade distance, and minimum mortar fire distance. It could fire an array of projectiles which included darts, buck shots, smoke, gas and flares. The M-79 was ideal in Vietnam terrain.
The Department of Defense invested over two billion dollars in laser weaponry in the early 1980s. Their reasoning behind the investment was laser weaponry is a high speed destructive beam that is less vulnerable to electric countermeasures and, in theory, is cheaper than firing tactical missiles. Depending on the type of laser, the types of missions will vary, such as, antipersonal lasers should theoretically “cook” soldiers with a microwave beam and cause flash blindness. Laser weaponry will attack electro-optical sensors by overloading its associated electronics to damage components successfully. Beam weapons will be built into ships, fighter planes or cargo planes if proven successful in laboratory testings. Hecht concludes discussion of