17th Century Spain and The Allure of Idealized History in Grand Strategy Many readers may be familiar with Paul Kennedy’s classic The Rise and Fall of Great Powers. It is often recommended to those who have an interest in grand strategy. However, readers might be less familiar with a collection of essays edited by Kennedy, Grand…
Tag: Military History
Military History: Meet The A-10 Warthog of WW2, The German Hs-129
Bad engines and poor management doomed the German ground-attacker At first glance, you might think the Henschel Hs 129 was the perfect ground-attack airplane. Twin engines. A heavily-armored cockpit that protected the pilot from small-arms fire. The aircraft even eventually had the heaviest and most powerful forward-firing cannon ever fitted to a production military aircraft…
Military History: The Russo-Japanese War Brought Rapid Fire Weapons to the World
The 1904 conflict foreshadowed bloodier events The Russo-Japanese War commenced 112 years ago this February, lasting 18 months before a U.S.-brokered truce mercifully put it to rest. The war killed upwards of 125,000 people, and sharply limited Russian influence in Northeast Asia. Japan gained control of Korea and a long-term foothold for influencing events in Manchuria and…
Military History: Top 5 Worst Submarine Disasters
North Korea’s apparent loss of one its submarines this week is a stark reminder that operating in the undersea domain is fraught with danger. Since the Second World War, the United States, Russia and China—and a host of other nations—have lost vessels and their crews to accidents. Operating submarines is a risky business under…
Military Weapons From the Past: The Confederate Cofer Revolver
T.W. Cofer was a Virginian gunsmith who made revolvers for the Confederate cause during the Civil War – although he never had a formal contract with the CSA. His pistols were sold privately to individual soldiers, and in at least one case bought in bulk by a unit commander. One thing that makes Cofer stand…
Military Weapons from the Past: Americas First Rolling Armored “Shotgun”
A weird little Marine Corps tank blasted North Vietnamese troops Designed and built in a farm tractor factory and armed with six 106-millimeter recoilless rifles, the M-50A1 Ontos was rejected by the Army and only purchased in small numbers by the Marine Corps. Years later in Vietnam, the USMC trained infantry riflemen to drive these…
Brush-Up on Your History: America’s Secret War Plan to Invade Canada
The end of a war only rarely settles the central questions that started the conflict. Indeed, many wars do not “end” in the traditional sense. World War II, for example, stretched on for years in parts of Eastern Europe and the Asia-Pacific. Even as the guns fell silent along the Western Front in 1918, the…
World War Two History: Remembering Stalin as well as Hitler
When I’ve finished occupying the Soviet Union,” quipped a relaxed Adolf Hitler at dinner one night in 1941, “I’ll put that man Stalin back in charge. He’s the only person who knows how to deal with Russians.” Stalin was the biggest murderer of modern history – and maybe in of all mankind’s past. His number…
Brush-Up on Your History: Unhinged! 10 of History’s “Craziest” Military Commanders
“Consider some of these ‘mad’ commanders from the pages of military history.” GENERAL GEORGE S. PATTON ONCE DESCRIBED HIMSELF AS the best “ass-kicker in the United States Army.” It’s a claim that’s not without merit. In just nine short months beginning in July of 1944, the flamboyant four-star led his Third Army half way across…
Military History: P-51 Makes Ass-Kicking Comeback in Korea
The public mostly remembers the North American P-51 Mustang as the fighter plane that protected Allied bombers over Germany and Japan during World War II. Overshadowed by newer jet fighters by the time war broke out in Korea in 1950, the re-designated F-51’s relative technological backwardness became a qualified blessing for close air support…