Questions tagged [weapons]
Questions on historical weapons, their use and significance.
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Explosive Ordinance Yield Over History
I'm writing an essay, and one of the elements of it has to do with the development of military technology throughout history. I've noticed that there is a rapidly increasing and disturbing trend in ...
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At the end of WWII, were Nazis working on any other super weapon besides V-2?
At the end of WWII, were Nazis working on anything else besides the V-2? If so, what was it, how close was it to completion, and could it have potentially turn the events around for them?
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Number of bullets used in WW2
I have wondered if there are any estimates on the number of bullets used in World War 2. I have thought about the question but cannot even get a plausible attack strategy.
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What was the general breakdown of casualties per their cause during American Civil War?
What was the general breakdown of casualties per their cause during American Civil War?
E.g. bullets vs. artillery vs. edged weapons vs. disease vs. natural death.
Did that breakdown change in ...
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Were there biological weapons used in WW1?
WW1 was, among other things, the first war where chemical weapons were used on massive scale.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_weapons_in_World_War_I
However, I never heard of any mention of ...
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What was the first successful mass tank battle of WW1?
What was the first big scale (over 50 tanks used) battle with the use of tanks in WW1?
Please note that the typical examples don't constitute good answer:
Battle of Flers-Courcelette (Somme) was ...
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What was the first battle in history fought by vast-majority-% "distance-shooting" non-mechanized force?
Historically, armies usually had a balance between warriors with projectile weapons (bows/guns) and close combat edged weapons (sword/pike/axe etc...).
This was necessary because ranged weapons of ...
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Was there any separation between hunting bow technology and weapon bows?
Was there a clear trend throughout early history (say, before 1300 for Europe) to have (or ot have) separate technologies/materials for bows and arrows for hunting purposes, and same-period same-...
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Were there bows employed by tribes living in the desert, and if so, what were they made of?
For tribes that inhabited desert areas (e.g. Arabian Peninsula, Sahara, etc...), there seems to have been a problem: a good bow would likely require materials that would be hard to come by in the ...
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What effect did tanks have on warfare strategies upon their introduction?
After the introduction of the tank in WW1, what effect did their introduction have on how battles were carried out, and strategies were formulated?
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Why did the United States not seriously develop Anti Aircraft Missiles?
During the Cold War, the United States did not seem to actively develop anti-aircraft missiles
(I know that Wikipedia is not an exhaustive source for lists, but just as a rough estimate, they list ...
user39
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Are modern handguns a major reason for democratization?
I had a history teacher who argued that a major reason for the fall of the feudal system, was that the knights lost their military superiority because of development in weapon technology (longbow, ...
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Is there any historical evidence of boiling oil being poured on attackers?
A typical modern scenario of the medieval siege was the throwing of oil on the attackers from ramparts. Oil was really expensive so why waste it on attackers? Most commonly the items thrown were ...
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What types of weapons did the British army use in the late 1890's?
I am particularly interested in the types of rifles that troops serving in Africa would use, especially during the 1890's. Did they have any kind of repeating rifles, or were they still using single ...
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How were dagger axes used in battle?
During the Chinese warring states, weapons knowns as dagger axes were used and there is a wide body of evidence that those were common at one time -- so so I believe. Is there any record of fighting ...
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What was the first recorded use of Aerial Weapons in warfare?
Fighter planes were popularised by their extensive use in WWI. What Aerial weapons were used before that period (if any)? What is earliest recorded use of Aerial Attacking and what was the technology ...
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When were swords last used in European warfare?
Specifically, I'm interested in the last documented occurrence of swords (of any sort) being used as a primary weapon by infantrymen or cavalrymen in Western warfare. That is, when did any European or ...
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When did blade fuller appear?
A fuller is the rounded or beveled groove or slot in the flat side of a blade which make the blade lighter -- not as some suggest a blood groove. When did the practice start? I suspect it was a ...
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Who started the "katana is the soul of the Samurai" meme?
Samurai used to be defined by their ability to use horses and bows in the early history of Japan. This moved to using the sword, first tachi then katana. Within the Tokugawa period, the katana ...
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Who was the first military force to use teppo (guns) in mass battles during the Sengoku-jidai?
Oda clan used guns to great efficency against the Takeda clan but which warlord (or faction) used them for the first time? I seem to recall that some of the sohei order had access to firearms and ...
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What was "Greek fire"?
What was Greek fire?
I read in my history book that it was a flamethrower. But in certain fantasy movies it's been portrayed as something similar to dynamite. What was it dynamite or what? Did it ...
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When did steel first appear? [closed]
When in history do we first have record of steel being used as a material? I am also interested in both its initial purpose and when it was first used in weapon making.
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