Combat experience with the bazooka rocket launcher in World War Two and its larger versions in the Korean War convinced the US military that a better weapon was needed to give front-line troops a direct-fire way to attach enemy strong points. The bazooka was bulky, not particularly accurate, and created a lot of backlist signature… M79:…
Category: Military Weapons History
Ordnance P-38 Lightning
I remember reading Fork Tailed Devil as a kid and after that building every P-38 model I could find and reading every book.
Home Made Arsenal – Nine Ingenious Weapons of the Polish Underground
“Many of the underground’s own submachine guns, grenades and pistols had been secretly mass-produced for years.” IN AUGUST 1944, nearly 20,000 fighters from Poland’s underground Armia Krajowa (AK) or “Home Army,” launched a series of coordinated assaults on Nazi forces…Read more → Home Made Arsenal – Nine Ingenious Weapons of the Polish Underground — MilitaryHistoryNow.com
Armor: Chinese Stryker Brigade
Critical information on the development, task, purpose and implementation of the Chinese ZBL-09. Read the original at Strategy Page. -NCS China has begun organizing its first combined arms brigade based on the American experience with brigades equipped largely with the Stryker wheeled armored vehicle. This comes 17 years after the Americans introduced the Stryker but… Armor:…
Know Your WW2 History: The Iron Fist – 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division Götz von Berlichingen
Marder I, 17 SS Panzergrenadier Division Gotz von Berlichingen 17. SS commander Werner von Ostendorf (left) plans the attack on Carentan with Fallschirmjager commander Friedrich August Freiherr von der Heydte (centre). Thrown into combat on 10 June 1944 near Carentan, the reconnaissance battalion of the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division fought the American paratroops of the […]…
Know Your WW2 History: The Blitzkrieg – Word and Concept
I never used the word Blitzkrieg because it is a very stupid word. Adolf Hitler, 8 November 1941 The Word “Blitzkrieg” In sober military language, there is hardly any other word that is so strikingly full of significance and at the same time so misleading and subject to misinterpretation as the term blitzkrieg. Its early […]…
We Accept Death, We Hand Out Death I
Hitler envisaged the star turn of his Ardennes offensive to be the Sixth Panzer Army, an entirely new creation. That it was to be led by the Waffen-SS’s senior field commander, and contain four SS panzer divisions, was no accident. This was another of the Führer’s responses to 20 July: thereafter the only organisation with […]…
Transition to Third-Generation Warfare
For further reading on this subject. I highly recommend The Breaking Point, Sedan and the Fall of France 1940. At 4:45 a.m. on September 1, 1939, the German army invaded Poland. By September 19, they forced the surrender of the last Polish army in the field. Eight days later, they completed mopping up the…
Why the Average Civilian Should Study Asymmetrical Warfare
From the Archives, 2015. I got asked this question the other day by a close friend and it occurred to me that I had never really plainly answered that question on this blog, even though I talk about the subject frequently. I think the best way to approach this subject is through historical precedent. It…
Know Your Weapons: Hungarian 44M “Mace Thrower”
Hungarian Army: 44M “Mace Thrower” I am always interested in Partisan warfare and weaponry and this one is amazing. Stay Alert, Armed and Dangerous!