The united states is the most formidable
military power the world has ever seen. arguably since the end of the cold war. Merica has enjoyed a level of dominance
unparalleled in history neither rome nor
the british empire enjoyed such a level
of superiority over rival powers. While the american military is not the
largest on earth it is by far the best
trained and best equipped force on the
planet putting rivals like russia and
china to shame.
But it took generations to develop
america's military into the world
beating force it is today and it wasn't
until the end of the civil war that the
u.s fielded armies that could challenge
european militaries on the battlefield. From then onwards it took two world wars
before the u.s military finally
established itself as the most dominant
force on earth. here are five of all time deadliest
innovations in america's arsenal.
1. The Gatling Gun
First fielded during the american civil
war which to this day is the deadliest
war in u.s history with over 600,000
military dead the gatling gun was one of
the first rapid fire weapons in history. Consisting of multiple barrels rotating
around a central axis, the weapon
invented by richard gatling solved the
problem of providing sustained fires for
the first time in the gunpowder age. Initially the u.s army due to the
service's conservative nature was
reluctant to adopt gatling's invention.
After gatling had improved on his
initial six-barrel design that fired 350
rounds per minute. The army did
eventually adopt the new weapon. After the end of the civil war the army
used a 10-barrel gatling gun that could
fire 400 rounds per minute during
various conflicts with the native
american population in what are now the
western states.
The maxim machine gun eventually
replaced the gatling gun but the crude
hand-driven weapon heralded what was to
come. during the brutal trench warfare of
world war one, untold thousands fell to
machine gun fire.
2. The Atomic Bomb
The united states developed the atomic
bomb during the height of the second
world war under a program called the
manhattan project. The project kicked off in 1939 when the
advisory committee on uranium told
president franklin roosevelt that the
element. Would provide a possible source of bombs
with a destructiveness vastly greater
than anything now known. Work on the bomb went into overdrive
after the attack on pearl harbor on
december 1941.
When the united states formally entered
world war ii against nazi germany and
imperial japan. Much of the urgency was driven by the
belief that the nazis were working on
their own version of the bomb. The project eventually succeeded and
yielded the two weapon designs that
ultimately brought the second world war
to an end.
On august
1945 a lone B-29 bomber called Enola Gay
commanded by call. Paul Tibbetts destroyed the city of
hiroshima with a single 15 kiloton
nuclear weapon called little boy. A few days later a 21 kiloton yield
weapon called fat man destroyed Nagasaki
on august 1945.
3. Precision Guided Weapons
Since the 1970s one of america's
decisive advantages in war has been its
ability to hit targets precisely. During most of history war has basically
been about throwing a huge volume of
fire at a target with a small chance of
actually hitting anything. The introduction of precision guided
weapons changed all that.
In 1972
laser-guided bombs allowed u.s air force
and u.s navy jets to hit targets
precisely. instead of dozens of jets trying to
strike a single target in Vain, one jet
could hit multiple targets during a
sortie. In 1972 there were only a handful of
precision guided weapons available, in
2015 almost all weapons dropped from
american warplanes are precision guided.
Precision guided weapons have given us
forces the edge for the past 40 years
but it's an advantage that is starting
to slip as other nations develop their
own equivalent weapons.
4. Stealth
With the development of ever more
capable soviet surface-to-air weapons
during the 1960s and 1970s. The united
states air force had to come up with a
solution to defeat the ever-increasing
threat. The answer was stealth technology which
would reduce an aircraft's radar
cross-section and infrared signature. Ironically it was a soviet scientist by
the name of Pyotr Yuffimsev who first
discovered the equations to develop a
low radar cross-section aircraft.
Yufem Sev's work was eventually came to
the attention of lockheed engineer
dennis overholser. Who then developed the
configuration for the first stealth
aircraft which he called the hopeless
diamond. The hopeless diamond eventually evolved
into the lockheed F-117, the world's first operational stealth
aircraft in 1981. From that initial starting point
american stealth aircraft development
took off in new directions.
5. Drones
When Abe Karim first developed the gnat
which eventually evolved in the general
atomics MQ-1 predator he probably could
not have imagined his invention would
herald a revolution in the ways wars are
fought. Instead of risking lives over the
battlefield american forces can fight
remotely with these new systems. While initially considered a passing fad
the past 15 years have shown that
unmanned aircraft are here to stay in
war will never be the same.
The MQ-1 predator which was first
introduced over the balkans in 1990s is
a crude aircraft. Its follow-on the MQ-9C reaper is a
little more sophisticated but it's the
start of something that will change
warfare forever. Aircraft like the carrier-based Northrop Grumman X-47B are starting to show the
true potential of such machines.
Indeed aircraft without pilots might be
the dominant weapon during the remaining
decades of this century. As recently as yesterday navy secretary
ray mabus told an audience that the u.s
navy will never buy another manned
strike fighter again after the f-35c
and if mabus vision comes to fruition
unmanned aircraft will give the u.s
unmatched capabilities well into the
future.
