ABOUT FACTS NET Weapons

Hundreds of times through out history man has been convinced that he has invented the ultimate weapon. I guess it must have started when tribes were fighting with their hands and someone picked up a rock and killed a member of the other tribe with it. He must have thought, wow we can conquer anyone with these rocks. Unfortunately for him, the other tribes must have begun to use the same weapon. A man once said that there is nothing as fleeting as a military secret. I think that truer words were never uttered. You don't have to be good at inventing weapons, just stealing them. I think this was proven adequately when the Soviet Union was able to steal the secret of the Atom Bomb, one of the most closely guarded military secrets in history, then steal the secret of the Hydrogen Bomb. The truth of the matter is that the Soviet Union had one of the best spy agencies that the world have ever known.

So here we were, we thought that we would be invincible with our atomic shield but our enemy now had it also. We would have been better off if neither of us had it. But this is usually the way it works with weapons. When the bow and arrow were invented, it was thought that this could be used to defeat any infantry. The first bows and arrows were used somewhere around 10,000 BC in the Paleolithic Period but they did not have the power of future bows and could be shielded against rather easily. All this changed around 1500 BC when the first composite bows appeared. The difference was that the wood was laminated with horn, sinew or other types of wood making it much more powerful and harder to defend against. Some of its users truly thought that this was the ultimate weapon. The Mongols conquered nation after nation using composite bows as their main weapon. They were expert marksmen even when firing from horseback. Their bows were so powerful that the arrows penetrated armor. I think you could say that for about 100 years they did have the ultimate weapon. But then again, other nations started using more powerful bows. The English used the long bow which could also pierce armor and fire an arrow to a long distance. By now everyone knew something better was needed. Then the crossbow came along. The truth is that the crossbow had been invented a long time ago, somewhere around 209 BC in China. They were made from bronze and could fire over 650 feet. The crossbow didn't reach Europe until the 1200s. They were very powerful and very easy to shoot. They shot bolts that would pierce armor easily. The religious leaders of the time initially outlawed them stating that they were unfit for Christian warfare, what ever that means. They seemed to have no qualms about people being chopped up or speared. So effective were the crossbows that they lasted into the 17th century as a weapon of war.

Originally fortifications were thought to be the ultimate weapons of war. If your fort was stout enough you could hold up in there forever if you had enough food. In the beginning there were only two ways to get into a fortified position. The first was to charge it with ladders and siege machines that soldiers could climb onto the walls from. The second was to starve out the inhabitants, but this could take years. As time went by someone thought of another way and that was to throw diseased bodies over the walls infecting the population on the other side. This was especially effective during the time of the Black Plague. Catapults came along in 399 BC, they came in the form of large bows that shot arrows mechanically and devices that could throw rocks. They would throw large stones at the walls of the forts but if the forts were built strong enough they might withstand the continued pounding. Some historians say that the Romans never used catapults, every siege engine that they had, and there were many different kinds, were based on the bow and arrow, yet others disagree. It is hard to say who is right.

It was believed that the ultimate war machine was the trebuchet. People tend to mix up the ordinary catapult and the trebuchet. The trebuchet was a device that used lever action to throw stones with great accuracy for long distances. The beauty of this war machine was the fact that it could hit the same spot over and over therefore weakening any defenses. This machine would have a large box full of heavy rocks at one end of the lever and a seat for a large rock at the other end. When the box was allowed to drop down, it would make the other end of the lever fling the rock. Before the invention of the canon this was the most powerful of all the war machines. Eventually the steady pounding would bring down most castle walls. The problem with these weapons was that once you saw it in operation it was easy for someone else to build one. The real ultimate weapon is one that you have exclusively.

Now gunpowder comes along. It is said that around the mid 100s BC the Chinese were doing extensive research on finding eternal life. Some of the ingredients that they were using were sulphur and saltpeter. These are two of the three ingredients for black powder and this led to the invention of gunpowder. When gunpowder was actually invented can not really be stated. Opinions differ by hundreds of years. Some say it was before the birth of Christ, while on the other end, some say around the 8th century AD. I think most agree that it was somewhere between 100-400 AD. It didn't take the Chinese long to invent a 'hand cannon' which you wouldn't want to hold in your hand when firing. In a Chinese book it was recorded that cannons were fired in the defense of a city in 1126 AD. Between the 12th and 13th century cannons spread to Europe. Again, no one had the ultimate weapon because everyone had access to cannons. Now we had real castle destroyers. But the early cannons were not that good. By the time the 16th century had arrived, it was felt that no fortification could be made that couldn't be destroyed by cannon in a few days. Castles as defenses were finished.

Cannons got more and more powerful until we had railway guns that took crews of hundreds of men to man and which could fire huge shells many miles. But bigger wasn't always better. While more devastation could be accomplished with one shell, the huge guns demanded too many resources and were to vulnerable to air attack. While cannons got bigger and better, the early flying machine of World War I had also progressed into hunter killer machines. They were now capable of carrying bombs with payloads that were at least the equal of any cannon. Were airplanes the invincible weapons of the future? It is true that airplanes may have progressed further than other weapons because they are complete systems but several nations have the capability of building planes of the same class. Because of this it is almost impossible for one country to dominate the air, but the US is giving it a good try. The problem that the US faces in airplane development is the fact that planes are getting so expensive that even the richest country on Earth can not keep upping the ante with newer planes. We are paying over $100,000,000 apiece for the new Raptor fighter planes and there is no end in sight for rising prices. You would think that the aircraft companies would be afraid to kill the golden goose but it doesn't seem that they have anything to worry about, no one seems to be checking these charges too closely.

So here we are, we have developed poison gas, germ warfare, nuclear bombs, giant aircraft carriers, stealth fighters and stealth bombers, tanks made from spent uranium, giant atomic submarines, lasers, microwave weapons and so much more in an attempt to have invincible weapons. Have we accomplished this or have we just made more weapons forcing other countries to keep up with us by making more weapons too? Admittedly this is not all our fault. Many weapons were created to keep up with other countries, but my point is that no one country has ever been invincible because of its weaponry and it doesn't look like any one country ever will. The days of stalemate just continue ever forward. With each new weapon the world becomes a more dangerous place.