Aviation and Military History
The name Fritz-X was one of several applied to the German guided anti-ship bomb which was the world’s first precision-guided weapon, and the first to sink a ship in combat. Other names for this important weapon were Ruhrstahl SD-1400 X, Kramer X-1, PC-1400X and FX-1400. Together with the similar Azon weapon developed for the US …
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Succeeding the turbojet-powered Raduga KS-1 Komet and K-10S (AS-1 ‘Kennel’ and AS-2 ‘Kipper’) subsonic and supersonic missiles in the stand-off role against major surface forces, especially those centred on an aircraft carrier, the Raduga Kh-22 is known to NATO as the AS-4 ‘Kitchen’. This substantial long-range missile is still in service, and in an air-launched …
Where the first US stand-off nuclear missile to reach operational status, the Bell GAM-63 Rascal, was a rocket-powered weapon of typical ‘missile’ configuration, an early Soviet counterpart was of turbojet-powered aeroplane layout. This was the Raduga Kh-20 which, in the absence of firm intelligence data about its real designation, received the NATO reporting designation/name AS-3 …
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The North American AGM-28 Hound Dog was an air-launched stand-off missile developed from the late 1950s, and was created primarily to attack Soviet ground-based air defence installations and thereby open the way for Boeing B-52 Stratofortress manned bombers to attack the USSR. The missile was allocated the initial designation B-77, then GAM-77 and finally AGM-28. …
The Ordnance QF 17-pdr was a British anti-tank gun developed during World War II to succeed the Ordnance QF 6-pdr in the same role. Though the weapon was used primarily as an anti-tank gun on its own carriage, it was also used as the main gun of several British tanks and was also used to …
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The Ordnance QF 6-pdr was a British 57-mm (2.24-in) gun which was the British army’s mainstay in the anti-tank role during the middle of World War II, and was also used as the main armament in several armoured fighting vehicles. It was first employed operationally in the North African campaign during April/May 1942, and quickly …
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In the final stages of World War I, the ‘French 75’ or, as it was more formally designated, the Canon de 75 modèle 1897, became legendary in France as the piece of artillery which made it possible for the French army to win the war. Its real fame, in historical terms, rests in the fact …
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By its very nature, amphibious warfare presents the men and equipment involved not just with the hazards of any military undertaking, but also with the possibility of destruction or damage as a result of the particular nature of the operation milieu. The most obvious problem faced by landing craft is that of becoming stranded as …
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Widely known as the amphtrack and amtrak (or amtrac), the LVT (Landing Vehicle Tracked) was a type of vehicle optimised for the amphibious warfare role, and was a small amphibious landing craft used initially by the US Navy, US Marine Corps and US Army during World War II. The vehicle was initially intended to carry …
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World War II revealed, to an extent hitherto unconsidered and in any event unobtainable by the technology of the period, the very clear advantage of being able to carry men, light weapons and many types of equipment and supplies straight from the landing craft, either beached or lying just offshore, across the assault beach to …
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