Military Technology

Steven Dutch, Professor Emeritus, Natural and Applied Sciences, University of Wisconsin - Green Bay

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Medieval Weapons

	Medieval Turkish battle axes.
	Medieval Turkish bows. Unlike Western bows, which were gently curved, Oriental bows were recurved. To string them, they had to be bent in the direction opposite the curve. This design allowed for a small but powerful bow. The bows were laminates of wood, horn and ivory, with the glue made by boiling animal hooves.
	Near Eastern helmets, like these, tended to be pointed on the top. Note the chain mail neck protection on some of them.
	This shield was designed on the premise that the best defense is a good offense.
	Crossbows had draw weights of hundreds of pounds and had to be cocked with the aid of the rack-and pinion device shown here.
	This elaborately inlaid crossbow was obviously owned by a member of the nobility. It may have been intended for hunting more than battle. The long stock was probably placed under the armpit rather than against the shoulder.
	Medieval crossbows with rack-and-pinion cocking devices. Note also the quivers with crossbow bolts (short arrows).
	Turkish scimitars from the 1600's. Ancient warfare was anything but clean. It was grisly beyond belief.

Fortifications Before and After Gunpowder

	Yedikule (Turkish, "seven towers") was built by the Crusaders in the 1200's after they conquered Constantinople. It's a classic pre-gunpowder fort, with high thin curtain walls to prevent scaling, crenellations (the protrusions on the top of the wall) to protect archers, and round towers.
	This photo captures the history of southeastern Europe for the last 300 years. It shows a Russian (Soviet) ship sailing up the Bosporus past a Turkish fort, also built by the Crusaders. The conflict between Russia and Turkey over control of the only access to the Black Sea has been a central element of European history. The fort is not only a classic pre-gunpowder fort, but it would be a death trap today, because it is completely exposed to fire from across the strait. That was not an issue when the only weapons were bows and arrows. This photo was taken in 1971. There is now a suspension bridge crossing the Bosporus just beyond the fort.
	A classic star fort. The round towers have been replaced with pointed projections that leave no blind spots. The walls are lower, extremely thick, and sloping to allow shots to glance off.
	This Dutch town has an elaborate system of fortifications and water obstacles. The islands are interesting. They shelter defenders but are completely exposed from behind, so that if they are overrun, they provide attackers no shelter.
	The old city of Nicosia, Cyprus has a superb star fort built around it. Travelling architects often went from town to town designing fortifications, then sometimes hired themselves out to attacking armies as consultants on how to overcome their own defenses.
	Wurzburg Castle, Germany shows the evolution of castles from ancient to modern times. The most ancient part (the round tower) was begun in the 1200's. Most of the castle is Renaissance and Baroque in appearance and the ramparts are classic post-gunpowder star fort design. After the Protestant Reformation, a ferocious peasant revolt swept Germany, and Wurzburg Castle was one of the few in this region to withstand assault.
	As this old woodcut shows, Wurzburg Castle (right of the river on the hilltop) was only part of an extensive fortification system enclosing the city of Wurzburg.
	A firing port. The conical opening gave musketeers inside a wide field of view, while bullets fired at the port were likely to ricochet around and fly out.
	A dry moat at the entrance to Wurzburg Castle. Note the firing ports on both sides and the total lack of cover. Obviously there are passages behind the walls and under the moat.
	The interior of Wurzburg Castle. The twin round towers are the most ancient part, completely surrounded by later additions. The original gate featured a right-hand curving passage, designed to hinder attackers from using their swords effectively, and a trap door overhead so defenders could attack from above.

Early Firearms Technology

	A model of a military camp from the 1600's. Note the musket racks and the mobile obstacles to deter surprise cavalry raids.
	Contrary to popular mythology, medieval armor was chain mail for the wealthy, a leather vest for the average common soldier. Full metal armor appeared only after gunpowder rendered mail ineffective. However, it was so heavy that knights soon began discarding nonessential pieces. Note how the backs of the legs, which are comparatively unlikely to be injured, are unprotected.
	A variety of armor pieces for men and horses. Mounted cavalry was deadly; one way to neutralize a cavalryman was to turn him into an infantryman by attacking his horse. The long narrow piece was designed to guard the neck of a horse, a vulnerable target.
	Modern surveying began with techniques for aiming artillery. A modern draftsman would recognize just about every article in this artillery officer's kit from the 1700's.
	This knight had very clear priorities about what parts of his anatomy hewanted to protect!
	A small mortar from the 1600's. The base is about a meter long.
	Old bronze ships' cannons on display in Istanbul. The oldest is dated 1498.
	A number of TV shows and films have made use of a plot device in which a besieged town could be saved if it only had a cannon. Finally someone comes up with the idea of building one of wood, and finally convinces the doubters. The cannon is made, gets off one shot, but that's enough to save the day. There really is at least one wooden cannon in the world and here it is (in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nurnberg). The barrel is lined with a metal tube only about 5 centimeters in diameter. I doubt it was ever fired.
	This knight clearly understood the use of psychological warfare!
	A variety of old matchlock muskets. The fine inlay suggests they were made for the nobility, probably for sport rather than war. To load one of these, you poured in gunpowder from a flask, then shot (lead, rocks, scrap metal) then wadding to hold it all in place. Then you poured a little powder in an exterior tray and lit it with a smoldering wick. Rate of fire, once a minute or so.
	Some rather more modern matchlocks as shown by the round barrels.
	An early pistol from the 1600's. The large ball is probably a counterweight to provide balance.

Modern Warfare Since 1800

	By the 19th century, artillery technology had rendered star forts obsolete. This fort, Castle Clinton, was built at the tip of Manhattan Island early in the 1800's to guard New York harbor. This area is called the Battery to this day because there was once an artillery battery here.
	The Statue of Liberty was built on the site of an old star fort.
	A view down from the Statue of Liberty, showing one of the points of the star. The tablet reads "July IV, MDCCLXXVI" (July 4, 1776).
	A Confederate submarine, on display in New Orleans. It held two men and was hand-propelled.
	The missile age was ushered in by the V2. This one is on display at Fort Bliss, Texas where, ironically, many street signs are in German because German soldiers frequently train there.

Nuclear Weapons

The pictures here were taken at the Sandia Atomic Museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Needless to add, only the outer casings of nuclear weapons are on display! (As a general rule, the outer casings of nuclear weapons are unclassified, since they contain no markings or other information that tells what is inside them. A number of different warheads might be designed to fit inside the same casing, and many casings can also be used for conventional weapons as well.)

	A replica of Little Boy, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.
	Fat Man used a different design from Little Boy, hence the different shape. It was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. The only nuclear war in history exhausted the entire world's nuclear arsenal at the time. After the attack on Hiroshima, refugees fled the city in all directions. About two dozen were unlucky enough to pick Nagasaki, and they form an elite club - the only people ever to have been nuked twice. Only one of the known members was killed in the second attack.
	The casing of a hydrogen bomb from the 1950's. We relied on manned bombers to carry these. The Russians, whose bombs were even bulkier, concentrated on massive rocket boosters. Much of the disparity in satellite launches in the first few years of the space race stems from that difference in strategy.
	An early air-dropped nuclear weapon. It was slowed by parachute to give the bomber time to get to a safe distance.
	This and the following two photos show several weapon configurations, all designed to employ the same nuclear warhead. Just about every military explosive device has a nuclear equivalent.
	Nuclear artillery shells were once stored in Europe by the thousands. Some packed about the equivalent of a Hiroshima weapon. The bulbous object was a missile called the Davy Crockett. It was intended to be a nuclear bazooka for the infantryman but, as the shape suggests, was not very stable in flight and the concept was abandoned. This picture shows how small nuclear weapons can be.
	The small hanging rocket was called Little John. The large rocket on the stand in the background with the bulbous nose is the Honest John. It could carry either a nuclear or conventional warhead and was a staple of the U.S. arsenal into the 1970's. In conventional form it is still part of the arsenal of a number of nations.
	An early atomic cannon. It fired a 12-inch shell.
	Shown here are two Minuteman warheads. They are about half a meter in diameter at the base and 70-80 cm long. The dark one survived a re-entry into the atmosphere. These warheads are in the megaton yield range.
	A Titan missile warhead, almost a meter in diameter and two meters long.

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Created 18 September 1998; Last Update 20 November 1998