Ten inventions that unintentionally changed warfare

Bayonet: In the early 17th century, French and Spanish athletes used the practice of attaching knives to their rifles when hunting dangerous prey such as wild boars. Hunters are particularly fond of knives made in the French town of Bayonne, near the Spanish border, which has long been known for its quality knives. Related content before Steve Jobs: 5 corporate innovators who shaped our world

. The French were the first to use the "bayonet" for military purposes in 1671, and this weapon became the standard version for European infantry in the early 17th century. Previously, armies relied on lancers to defend against musketeer attacks while reloading. With the introduction of the bayonet, every soldier could be a spearman and musketeer.

Even though modern weapons made bayonets increasingly obsolete, they continued into the 20th century in part because they were considered effective psychological weapons. As one British officer remarked, the regiments "charged with bayonets" never met, and never fought sibling; which was probably the best possible excuse for one side to turn and run at the approach of the other, and to do so in order to do evil.

Barbed wire: Invented in the late 19th century as a means of controlling livestock in the American West, barbed wire soon found military application in the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). Especially now in South Africa. As the conflict escalated, British troops took increasingly harsh measures to suppress the rebellion led by Dutch settlers.

One of these measures was the construction of a network of fortified bunkers connected by barbed wire, which restricted Boer movement in Wirth. When British troops launched a scorched-earth campaign, destroying farms and denying the guerrillas the use of barbed wire as a means of support, it led to the construction of what were then called "concentration camps" in which British troops imprisoned women and children. More than a decade later, barbed wire would span the battlefields of World War I as a countermeasure against advancing infantry. A 1917 pamphlet published by the U.S. Army Academy succinctly summarized the advantages of barbed wire entanglement:

"1. It is quick and easy to make. 2. It is difficult to destroy. 3. It is difficult to get through. 4. It does not hinder the vision and firepower of the national defense.

Steamship: "The use of steam as a power source in the warlike navies of all maritime nations was a huge and sudden change in the means of maritime warfare. This must produce a complete revolution in naval warfare," wrote British general Sir Howard Douglas in an 1858 military treatise:

He was right, although this revolution in naval warfare was preceded by a gradual The evolution of the ship. Early commercial steamships were propelled by paddle wheels mounted on the sides of the ship, which reduced the number of cannons the warship could deploy and exposed its engines to enemy fire every few seconds. A hundred miles into port to replenish their coal supplies

Still, ships offered a significant advantage: they did not rely on wind for propulsion, and they were much more maneuverable than sailing ships. It was along the coast where they could bombard forts and cities. Arguably the most important driving force for steam-powered battleships was the invention of the propeller in 1836, which replaced the paddle wheel. The breakthrough was the invention of the modern steam turbine engine in 1884, which was smaller, more powerful, and easier to maintain than older piston and cylinder designs

Loot: Justus Scheibert, a Royal Prussian Engineer during the Civil War. , who observed military operations with the Confederates for seven months, quickly concluded: “Railroads played an important role in the strategy of both sides. ". "The trains were not delivering food until the last moment. So the Federal *** Leave Nothing is designed to span wide ditches. Later known as "Big Willie". The tank made its debut at the Battle of the Somme on September 15, 1916. Historian Reynold Wick noted: "The first military tanks had no American components, neither engines, tracks, nor weapons. However, the technological innovation that occurred at Stockton in November 1904 proved that the use of tracked tanks Treads, heavy machines could move over difficult terrain

Cameras: Aerial photographic reconnaissance came into its own during World War I, thanks to higher flying aircraft and better cameras. The aircraft were deployed to help target artillery fire more precisely, and they were later used to draw detailed maps of enemy trenches and fortifications, assess losses after attacks, and even scout for "rear echelon" activity to gather insight into enemy battle plans. Baron Manfred von Richthofen, the "Red Baron", said that a single photographic reconnaissance aircraft was often more valuable than a full squadron of fighters

Opposing forces took steps to thwart potential photographic reconnaissance. The ground targets were painted with camouflage patterns. (The French, naturally, sought the help of Cubist artists.)

Of course, the most effective countermeasure was to mount guns on the aircraft and shoot down observation aircraft. , fighter jets escorted reconnaissance aircraft on missions. The era of "dog fighting" began, and with it, aircraft became weapons of war.

Chlorine: Historians generally agree that the first instance of modern chemical warfare occurred on April 22, 1915, when German soldiers opened 5,730 canisters of toxic chlorine gas on the battlefield in Ypres, Belgium. British records show 7,000 casualties, 350 of them fatal.

German chemist Fritz Haber recognized that the properties of chlorine, a cheap chemical used by the German dye industry, made it an ideal battlefield weapon. Even in winter temperatures well below zero degrees Fahrenheit, chlorine remains in a gaseous state, and since chlorine weighs 2.5 times that of air, it sinks into enemy trenches. When chlorine gas is inhaled, it attacks the lungs, filling them with fluid and causing the victim to effectively drown.

In response, all parties spent the remainder of the conflict searching for more deadly gases. Chlorine is an important ingredient in the production of these gases, including the nearly odorless phosgene, which was responsible for approximately 80% of gas-related deaths in World War I.

DDT: In the late 1930s, as war approached, the U.S. military prepared to defend soldiers against one of the deadliest enemies on the battlefield: insect-borne disease. During World War I, typhus—a bacterial disease spread by ticks—killed 2.5 million people (servicemen and civilians) on the Eastern Front alone. Health experts are also concerned about the possible emergence of mosquito-borne diseases such as yellow fever and malaria in the tropics.

The military needed an insecticide that could be safely applied as a powder to clothing and blankets. Originally synthesized by Austrian students in 1873, DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) remained a laboratory staple until 1939, when Swiss chemist Paul Müller discovered its insecticidal properties while researching methods of moth-proofing wool clothing. The freak. After the military sifted through thousands of pounds of chemicals, DDT ended up becoming the insecticide of choice: It worked at low doses, worked immediately, and continued to work.

DDT proved so effective that some historians believe World War II was the first conflict in which more soldiers died from bats than from disease. Even before the war ended, however, entomologists and medical researchers warned that the pesticide could have dangerous long-term effects on public health and the environment. The United States banned DDT in 1972

Tide Forecaster: When the Allies were planning to invade Europe in 1944, they faced a dilemma: Should they land on the beaches of Normandy at high or low tide?

The argument in favor of rising tide is that when troops come under enemy fire, they have less terrain to traverse. However, German General Erwin Rommel spent months overseeing the construction of obstacles and booby traps, which he called the "Devil's Garden," to thwart a possible Allied landing. During high tide, the Devil's Garden will be submerged and nearly invisible; but during low tide, it will be exposed.

Eventually, military planners concluded that the best conditions for an invasion were an early morning (but steadily rising) high tide. This allowed the landing craft to avoid German obstacles and Army engineers to begin clearing them for subsequent landings.

To complicate matters, the Allies also wanted a date before the dawn invasion when there would be enough moonlight to help pilots drop paratroopers.

So the Allies consulted meteorologists and other experts to calculate the date when the tides and moon would meet ideal conditions. Among these experts was Arthur Thomas Doodson, a British mathematician who built one of the world's most accurate tide prediction machines, reducing the risk of ships running aground in port. Dudson's machine was essentially a primitive computer that used dozens of pulleys to perform calculations. Dodson himself calculated the ideal date for the D-Day invasion - a range of options including June 5-7, 1944.

The Allies began their invasion of Europe on June 6