Weapons

[Tombstone]

"Nothing is so exhilarating as to be shot at without results."

- Sir Winston Churchill



Iron-working was first used in the Near and Middle East around the end of the second millennium B.C. It allowed for several enhancements in weaponry and equipment. For example, the introduction of iron swords made it possible for a more skilful infantry army to reach a decision without the pushing and shoving match that usually occurred in previous battles.



An authentic "lost weapon" is Greek fire, which the Byzantine Empire used on several occasions between the seventh and ninth centuries to defend Constantinople against attacking Muslims. Constantinople might have fallen but for Greek fire, and conceivably the Muslims might have taken over a weak and divided Europe.

To this day, we don't know exactly what the "recipe" for Greek fire was. All we know is that it burned all the more fiercely when wet (hence it likely contained some sort of petrol compound), and that it could be floated toward the enemy's wooden ships.



The main innovation in terms of military technology in the early Middle Ages was the stirrup. From 100 to 500, there was a seemingly never-ending wave of nomad horsemen armed with swords, spears, and bows coming out of the central Asian steppe. The archers would fire volley after volley into the foot troops. Then, when the defenders seemed suitably weakened, mounted lancers would charge in. With the aid of the stirrup, the shock effect of these horse lancers was nearly irresistable.

Germanic and other European tribes adopted these Oriental techniques, and out of this came not only the destruction of the western Roman Empire, but also the development of a mounted, armoured "man-at-arms." This included the legendary "knight in shining armour," but most of these men were simply well-trained and experienced swords for hire.



A method of hardening steel swords in the Middle Ages was the damascene process of thrusting a superheated blade in the body of a slave and then into cold water. Crusaders discovered, to their dismay, that swords made of Damascus steel were more resilient and harder than those of European manufacture.

Europeans did not discover the secret until 500 years after the Crusades, however, when it was discovered that thrusting a red-hot sword into a mass of animal skins soaking in water had a similar effect to the Damascus method. The nitrogen given off by the skins in the water produces a chemical reaction in the steel.

Tintoretto's famous oil painting Israelites Gathering Manna in the Wilderness showed the ancient Israelites with shotguns. Unfortunately, the first recorded use of guns was in 1326, several thousand years after the ancient Israelites.

It is not true that the early Chinese used gunpowder only for fireworks. They had forms of guns (invented in 1288), bombs, grenades, rockets, land mines, and other arms.

One of the most unusual military maneuvers ever was performed in 1191, during the third Crusade, when Richard the Lion-Hearted captured the city of Acre. The inhabitants were barricaded inside, so King Richard had his soldiers throw 100 beehives over the walls. The people in the fortress surrendered immediately.

Early guns took so long to load and fire that bows and arrows - in trained hands - were twelve times more efficient.

Baber, the first Mogul emperor of India, marched through the Khyber Pass onto the North Indian plain in 1526. The then North Indian ruler, an Afghan king, Sultan Ibrahim, leading an army of 100,000 men, attacked the invaders and lost, despite the nearly ten-to-one odds in manpower in his favour. The reason for Baber's triumph was an ancient Chinese invention that the Sultan had never heard of - gunpowder.

Francisco Pizarro, the nearly illiterate Spanish adventurer, conquered the grand empire of the Incas with a force of no more than 106 foot soldiers and sixty-two downtrodden horses - and gunpowder!

The Puckle Gun is a weapon with two distinctions. It was not only the first machine gun (1722) but also the weirdest. It could fire two types of bullets. When semi-enemies (such as Christians) were to be shot, round bullets were used, but if the enemy was truly hated (such as Muslims), the more destructive square bullets were used.

The German chemist Christian F. Schönbein was experimenting with a mixture of nitric acid and sulphuric acid in the kitchen of his house in 1845. While his wife strictly forbade such experiments in the home, she was out at the time. Schönbein accidentally spilled some of his acid and, in a panic, he seized the first thing at hand, his wife's cotton apron, sopped up the mixture, then hung it over the stove to dry before his wife came home. When the apron dried, it suddenly burned, and so rapidly that it seemed simply to disappear. The astonished Schönbein investigated and found he had formed what is now called "nitrocellulose" or "guncotton". This was the beginning of the replacement of gunpowder on the battlefield, where it reigned supreme for 500 years.

After the U.S. civil war's Battle of Gettysburg on July 3, 1863, nearby trees began dying from lead poisoning due to the large number of bullets embedded in the wood.



St. Adrian Nicomedia is the patron saint of arms dealers.

During World War I, a gun that could shoot around corners was invented by Jones Wister. Although it was never used, a similar invention was used by Germans in World War II.

Half of those who are killed by bombs are the people who were trying to make or set the bombs.

Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.

Henry Ziegland of Honey Grove, Texas, walked out on his girlfriend one day in 1893. In response, her brother shot Ziegland. The bullet, however, left only a small scar on his face before embedding itself in the trunk of the tree in front of which Ziegland was standing. In 1913, Ziegland decided to remove the tree from his property by using dynamite. In the explosion, the bullet became dislodged and was shot violently in Ziegland's head, finally killing him.

Thanks to: http://www.sentex.net/~ajy/facts/gunpowder.html#f707

Website has footnotes and links to relevant facts.