History of Military Technology Research Papers (original) (raw)

English version of the paper published in 'Waffen- und Kostümkunde' 2016/1

- by
- •
- Arms and Armor Studies, Napoleonic Wars, History of Military Technology, Arms and Armour
- by Andrea Bernardoni
- •
- Sculpture, History of Military Technology, Metal Casting, History of Chemistry
- by Kant Singh
- •
- Philology, Religion, Hinduism, Comparative Religion

Commissioned review, Military Review, accepted Spring 2016 for Spring 2017 publication

This article surveys American eye prosthetics during the World Wars beginning with the shortage of glass eyes during the First World War. It also looks at attempts to address prosthetic eye needs in the Second World War through the acrylic eye program, the use of contact lenses, and a group of Americans seeking to show their patriotism by donating their own eyeballs to blinded veterans.

The goal of this paper is to understand the ways and reasons for the changes that the imposing walls of L’Aquila suffered to the passage from the Spanish Viceroyalty to the Austrian one at the beginning of the eighteenth century . We are going to study first the documentation offered by cartography. Despite the diminishing of his role strategic and economic in the seventeenth century L’Aquila is represented in numerous images, created for different purposes, in particular by military cartography.
The increase in the number of gates highlights the lack of defensive needs and a new relationship between the town and the countryside, resulting from the transfer of landowners in the city. A kind of cartographic documentation is also linked to sheep farming, an economic activity fundamental in the province. The location of L’Aquila was identified with respect to via Claudia Nova, the way of the transhumance between the summer pastures in Abruzzo and the winter ones in Puglia. A significant testimony of the passage from the Spanish Viceroyalty to the Austrian one is provided by the albums drawn "from the reality" by Cassiano de Silva. The collection is dedicated to the Count of Daun, Austrian viceroy in Naples in 1707, for the explicit purpose to allow him to know the centers of the newly acquired kingdom. Antonio Vandi's map of 1753, based on new cartographic survey techniques, highlights an updated report of the city with the territory, and a progressive loss of importance of the walls that will continue to the present day.

- by Martin Moll
- •
- Military History, German History, History of Military Technology
- by Candice Sarah Menat
- •
- Military History, Military Science, War Studies, Great War

in Revue d’histoire maritime n°25, numéro "Le navire à la mer", 2018.

- by Nick Sambaluk
- •
- History, American History, History of Science and Technology, Military History

The Mamluk siege of Montfort castle provides a rare opportunity to examine one of the most celebrated but also misrepresented technologies of the Middle Ages: mechanical artillery. The castle was inhabited for only about forty-five years before it was taken and then destroyed by the Mamluks, creating a time capsule for archaeologists to peer into life in a mid-thirteenth-century stronghold and carefully examine evidence of the siege that ultimately led to its abandonment. Among the finds are a number of artillery projectiles that date to the final siege of the castle. An investigation of the surrounding topography has revealed that there are only a couple of places from which these stones could have been thrown. This rare combination of clearly datable projectiles and a topographical environment that provides a good indication of range allows for a unique quantitative assessment of the development of trebuchet technology.

- by Michael S Fulton
- •
- Military History, Artillery, Medieval History, Crusades

El objetivo de este artículo es realizar un estudio histórico detallado a partir de indicios arqueológicos surgidos en 2018, durante el proceso de restauración del Baluarte de Santiago en la ciudad mexicana de Veracruz. Las señas materiales en el sitio incitan a realizar preguntas desde la metodología histórica respecto a las diversas tipologías de cañones y soportes utilizados en esta defensa costera, no solo desde la descripción sino que pretende ahondar en sus mecanismos de adquisición estatal durante los variados regímenes políticos, desde el periodo virreinal hasta el México decimonónico. El fin último es entender a dichos instrumentos bélicos y sus cureñas como indicadores del proceso de construcción del Estado moderno y poner de relieve la importancia del patrimonio militar.

- by Peter Kritzinger
- •
- History, Ancient History, History of Science and Technology, Technology

Identificada a importância de Goa no contexto político-militar do subcontinente indiano, assim como a necessidade de dotar o recém-criado Estado da Índia de uma praça com um hinterland significativo, Afonso de Albuquerque decidiu-se, em 1510, pela sua conquista. Vinte anos depois, Goa seria elevada a capital, consolidando-se uma estratégia de ocupação territorial com base num sistema defensivo em crescimento concêntrico e gradual. Goa transformar-se-ia na principal peça de afirmação da Coroa portuguesa no Índico no século XVI. É proposta a leitura deste antigo sistema defensivo, hoje a memória da construção de um território, de uma comunidade com a sua identidade, correspondendo a um conjunto integrado de bens com valor patrimonial. A sua legibilidade é, por isso, determinante para a identificação da especificidade de Goa no contexto da Ásia do sul, com o desenho a assumir-se como discurso e ferramenta elementar de investigação.
*****
Identified the importance of Goa within the politico-military context of the Indian subcontinent, as well as the need to equip the newly created State of India with a fortified city with a significant hinterland, Afonso de Albuquerque decided to conquer it in 1510. Twenty years later, Goa was promoted to the status of capital, consolidating a strategy of territorial occupation based on a defensive system in concentric and gradual growth. Goa would become the main statement of Portuguese Crown in the Indian Ocean in the sixteenth century. It is proposed a look at the old defensive system, which today is the legacy of a constructed territory, and the identity of a community, comprising an integrated ensemble of assets with heritage value. The objective is, therefore, to determine the specific nature of Goa within the context of South Asia, with drawing as a discourse and the key research tool.

- by Nuno Lopes
- •
- History, Architecture, Cultural Heritage, Military Architecture
- by Alan J Hawk
- •
- History of Military Technology, Arms and Ammunitions
- by Alan J Hawk
- •
- Military Medicine, Maritime History, Naval History, American Civil War

Die Werke der Festung Mainz waren im Ersten Weltkrieg durch eine Festungsbahn verbunden. Ihre wichtigste Aufgabe der Festungsbahn war es, die Baustoffe für die Armierungsbauten herbeizuschaffen sowie für den Transport von Munition und Verpflegung zu sorgen. Die Festungsbahn hatte im Endausbau eine Gesamtlänge von knapp 49 km. Diesese von der Militärverwaltung gebauten Strecken unterteilten sich wie folgt:
- 40 km lang waren die mit der 60-cm-Spur gebauten Strecken der Ringlinie und der Linie II. Das Schienenprofil dieser Strecken war 8 cm hoch.
- 6,2 km lang waren die mit der 100-cm-Spur gebauten Strecken zwischen Wackernheim und Finthen sowie vor dem Fort Gonsenheim. Das Schienenprofil dieser Strecken war 115 mm hoch.
- 2,5 km lang war die Strecke der Zahnradbahn auf den Westerberg.
Mit Ausnahme der Zahnradbahn waren die Linien der Festungsbahn miteinander verbunden und stellten ein zusammenhängendes Netz dar.

In the immediate aftermath of World War One, the details of British wartime military telecommunications innovations were publicly accessible and contributed to later civilian developments in telecommunications. In contrast to peacetime in 1945 when the Cold War was looming imminent on the horizon and there was a clear need to keep wartime innovations secret, 1918 and thereafter had no such concerns. Instead, the technical details of wartime innovations including those in telecommunications developed for military use were publicly presented, published and discussed (sometimes all three). As well as technical details, innovators, engineers, and operators were able to use this period of openness to claim credit for their wartime work, in particular to their technical and subject specialist peers. For example, the programme of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) between 1919 and into the early 1920s was busy with engineers discussing their wartime work as well as potential civilian application. All of these talks – along with the post-talk debate where other engineers sometimes discussed their related wartime work as well as competing claims of priority and importance – were published in the 'Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers' as well as other electrical engineering periodicals including 'the Electrician' and 'the Post Office Electrical Engineers' Journal'. I will use a selection of articles from these periodicals as well as official publications such as R.E. Priestley's 'The Signal Service in the European War of 1914-1918 (France)' published in 1921 to show how openness and shared technical knowledge of wartime and military work impacted later civilian and peacetime telecommunications developments and innovations.

Lewis and Maslin explore geological markers for the beginning of the "Anthropocene"-beginning, in their periodization, in either 1492 (naming the birth of capitalism as the cause of planetary crisis) or 1945 (naming elitedriven militarization as its cause). In this essay, I argue for a synthesis of these two dynamics, locating both the birth of capitalism and a transformation of elite-driven militarization in the conquest of the New World during the Long Sixteenth Century. As such, I propose narrating planetary history through a "capitalocene as polemocene," "the age of capital as an age of war" framework.

This research will describe the first major operation launched by an Italian army against a heavily fortified city after the assimilation of the French style artillery into the warfare of the Peninsula. The paper will examine, in particular, the preparations for this “marvellous enterprise,” stressing the difficulties with the procurement of ammunition during the early stages of employment of these new guns. Data have been gathered from the State Archives of Florence, Pisa, and Lucca. Furthermore, numerous chronicles and several diaries have been useful in highlighting the political, social, and economic background of the campaign.
The article demonstrates that, from the last years of the fifteenth century, the issues with supplying ordnance compelled the Italian regional states to develop the manufacture of pieces, shot, and powder, facing a “revolutionary challenge” in terms of management, commerce, and production.

- by Fabrizio Ansani
- •
- Military History, Economic History, Renaissance History, Medieval History

Caracalla. A Military Biography is now available as a hardcover, Kindle and e-book an from the website of its publisher Pen & Sword Publishing and from most of the major booksellers. It is not only the first published biography in English of this remarkable individual, but also the first that reassess the evidence from the point of view of military history.

- by Ilkka Syvänne
- •
- Military History, Military Science, Military Intelligence, Military Law

India is arming and modernizing its military with its land forces receiving equipment in an unprecedented manner while its navy is growingly becoming a blue water navy capable of projecting power way beyond its shores and is rapidly arming its air force to become a strategic force capable of playing an independent role. The international environment is favourable for India, which is further adding impetus towards indigenization and modernization of Indian defence and military capabilities while providing an opportunity for the economy to flourish even more. The paper is an endeavour to analyze, assess, predict and prescribe the potential upshots and outcomes of indigenization, local and licensed manufacturing and joint ventures initiated by India in defence and military sectors – and the likelihood of such choices and actions in becoming a vital strategic and security concern for Pakistan.

The crossbow trigger was a powerful device in early Chinese warfare that had a profound impact on military tactics. Against such a background, the word for "trigger," namely ji, became a pregnant metaphor in ancient texts from the Warring States onwards. It refers to the correlation between a "subtle" initial state and a "dangerous" and far-reaching consequence, because the small movement of pulling the trigger may kill a person at a great distance. Borrowing insights from Hans Blumenberg's metaphorology, I offer a new theory of the original meaning of ji and argue that the trigger mechanism inspires a complex metaphorical scheme that consists of three levels of ambiguities and a web of associated images. It provides a linguistic and cognitive pattern for organizing a wide range of heterogeneous life-world situations, from the moral precariousness of human speech to the vulnerability of an outnumbered army in battle.

- by Boqun Zhou
- •
- Chinese Philosophy, History of Military Technology, Metaphorology, Chinese Paleography

Artillery in the Era of the Crusades provides a detailed examination of the use of mechanical artillery in the Levant through the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Rather than focus on a selection of sensational anecdotes, Michael S. Fulton explores the full scope of the available literary and archaeological evidence, reinterpreting the development of trebuchet technology and the ways in which it was used during this period. Among the arguments put forward, Fulton challenges the popular perception that the invention of the counterweight trebuchet was responsible for the dramatic transformation in the design of fortifications around the start of the thirteenth century.

- by Michael S Fulton
- •
- Military History, Artillery, Medieval History, Crusades

Warfare in the Age of Reason is rarely seen as a particularly useful lens through which to examine modern military practices. By contrast, Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic tactics, strategy, and logistics are understood as essentially modern and therefore relevant to the study and conduct of contemporary wars. The interpretive model used to trace and explain this transition from pre-modern to modern warfare is the “military revolution,” a concept that has energized and revitalized military history scholarship during the latter half of the twentieth century. This essay is a reflection on the ways in which research on the military revolution has shaped the teaching of military history. Whereas the concept of a military revolution has redirected research away from decisive battles and Great Captains, it has not had a similar effect on teaching. It, in fact, provides teachers and students with a relatable framework of military modernization and progress that paradoxically preserves field battles as the narrative vehicle to explain change over time. As a result, classroom instruction of early modern warfare tends to focus on transformative commanders like Gustavus Adolphus (1594-1632), John Churchill Duke of Marlborough (1650-1722), and Frederick the Great (1712-86), who are widely recognized as forerunners of Napoleon and harbingers of his modern approach to war and combat. This habit of identifying early modern antecedents of maneuver warfare encourages students, young commanders, and policy-makers to examine early-modern wars through the prism of nineteenth-century practice and culture, and to see field battles as the heart of war. It misrepresents the nature of pre-modern wars, thereby overstating the novelties of twenty-first century warfare.

- by Guy Chet
- •
- Military History, Early Modern History, State Formation, History of Military Technology
- by Alan J Hawk
- •
- Military Medicine, History of Military Technology, Arms and Ammunitions

"The firearm designed by the untutored Evelyn Owen is casually described in the official Commonwealth history Australia in the 1939-45 War as “a very light machine gun firing a pistol-type cartridge [that was] particularly useful in providing at short notice a relatively large volume of fire effective at a short range.” This essay outlines the design and development of the weapon for the Australian armed forces.

Verlagsprospekt / Leaflet

- by Markus Pöhlmann
- •
- Military History, German History, History of Military Technology

Two 11-inch (28cm) muzzleloaders purchased for the defense of Xiamen (Amoy) in 1874 during China’s military standoff with Japan were the largest coastal guns in China at that time and one was dubbed ‘monster gun’ when it arrived in Shanghai. However, the real identity of these guns is shrouded in mystery and it is even not sure whether they were Blakely or Vavasseur guns. The story and technical details of these two guns can provide some insights into both the development of artillery technology in late nineteenth century Britain and the struggle for modernizing coastal defense in China.

I just can't fathom it", he mused. "They were doing so well before the war, and even until 1942, why haven't they put more effort into it? It would seem the natural thing for a crew like that, what with Hitler's unalterable resolves and thousand-year empire and all the rest. Pierce swung back from the window and glared at McLennand. "Doesn't it seem peculiar to you?" 1

- by Matthew F Brown
- •
- European History, Historiography, History of Science, Nuclear Weapons
- by Filippo Camerota
- •
- Military Science, History of Military Technology

Militarizing Outer Space explores the dystopian and destructive dimensions of the Space Age and challenges conventional narratives of a bipolar Cold War rivalry. Concentrating on weapons, warfare and violence, this provocative volume examines real and imagined endeavors of arming the skies and conquering the heavens. The third and final volume in the groundbreaking European Astroculture trilogy, Militarizing Outer Space zooms in on the interplay between security, technopolitics and knowledge from the 1920s through the 1980s. Often hailed as the site of heavenly utopias and otherworldly salvation, outer space transformed from a promised sanctuary to a present threat, where the battles of the future were to be waged. Astroculture proved instrumental in fathoming forms and functions of warfare’s futures past, both on earth and in space. The allure of dominating outer space, the book shows, was neither limited to the early twenty-first century nor to current American space force rhetorics.

- by Alexander C . T . Geppert and +1
- •
- European History, Military History, History of Technology, Cold War and Culture