Name: 改變戰爭史的10種武器 (10 Weapons That Changed The History Of Warfare)
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關係子句

10 Weapons That Changed The History Of Warfare

If I asked you to name the first gun that comes to mind, I'd be willing to bet it's

the AK-47. That's because it's the most widely produced gun in history, with over

100 million made in total and 75 million in existence right now. That's 20% of all firearms

The AK-47 was invented in 1947 by Russian General Mikhail Kalashnikov as a cheap weapon

for the soviet army. Hence where it gets its other name, Kalashnikov.

From its first use, the gun exploded in popularity across the USSR, thanks to its rugged construction,

ease of production and relative lack of moving parts. That means it was incredibly reliable

and simple to maintain. Even people who had never used a gun could field strip one with

But that prevalence means that Kalashnikovs are commonly used by terrorists and militia

groups worldwide. Since they're so cheap and reliable, countries across Asia and Africa

engage in widespread illegal arms trades.

Most people nowadays probably think of Legolas, Hawkeye or Katniss Everdeen when they picture

bows and arrows. But they actually have massive historical significance, possibly dating back

Classical civilisations like the Ancient Egyptians, Assyrians and Hebrews were known to have made

wide use of longbows, and they eventually showed up throughout every continent except

Australia. But it's not just their ubiquity that's interesting.

Stony Brook University biologists Paul Bingham and Joanne Souza have coined the 'social

coercion hypothesis', which is the idea that more powerful weapons encourage civilisations

to group together out of the threat of being killed by them.

In other words, you're probably gonna follow the person who points a load of lethal weapons

Multiple researchers have pointed to that effect in native american tribes, who became

much less divided and developed more complex societies after bows showed up around 500

Unmanned aerial vehicles hold a special place on this list. That's because they haven't

just changed military history, but they're doing it as I speak. Let's back up for a

The US military was developing drone technology as early as the 1960s, though the technology

didn't really catch up until about three decades later. But it wasn't long until

The first ever Predator drone attack on Afghan insurgents in 2002 was a major turning point

in military technology. It was the first ever instance that a remote attack was made in

And as technology develops, it could see future warfare that entirely skips ground troops

altogether. I mean why risk friendly lives when you don't have to?

But drones have been fiercely criticised as long as they've been used, thanks to their

capacity for indiscriminate killing and the numbing effect some soldiers have described

You might think ancient conflicts were all about soldiers, swords and cavalry, but there's

a lot to be said for artillery. And there might be no more important example of early

Perfecting on the catapult and the ballista, the trebuchet was first invented in 4th century

china as a tool for siege warfare. After its introduction in 6th Century Europe, it eventually

Before Trebuchets were widely used, castles were pretty much impenetrable. But thanks

to its long range and high weight capacity, it was capable of hurling projectiles with

the capacity to breach even fortified walls.

That meant that instead of taking their chances waiting for defending armies to starve, siege

warfare became a lot more proactive. Invaders could push the issue by breaking through defences,

or, if they felt really adventurous, they were known to have pelted disease ridden corpses

They don't quite hold the prestige they used to thanks to defences like anti-tank

missiles, but for decades these behemoth weapons were the pinnacle of wartime tech.

Weirdly enough, the first idea came from Leonardo Da Vinci, whose so-called 'fighting vehicle'

bore more resemblance to a UFO than anything else. Conspiracy? Probably not.

Tanks were first developed by British engineers during World War I in 1914. They actually

got that name from their disguise, since the people working on them were told they were

building water tanks. But from their first use in the Somme in 1916, they redefined trench

Before then, battles overwhelmingly favoured the defender, since it was so difficult to

break the lines of a trench with foot soldiers. But with the advent of armed vehicles, it

was possible to break through the lines with relative ease.

German soldiers were even documented fleeing from the scene of the first tank attack.

It's hard to think of a more iconic ancient weapon than the sword. To most people, they're

the epitome of the age of knights, kingdoms and gruesome duels.

Swords are conventionally thought to have been invented between the second and third

millennia BC, in other words the bronze age. There's evidence from Turkey, though, which

suggests that they could go as far back as 3300.

In any case, those early swords were a huge development but not all that widely used,

since bronze swords tended to either be brittle enough to shatter or flexible enough to bend

But once the Iron Age rolled around everything changed, since blades became much stronger

That meant that battles became a lot shorter and bloodier than the spears knife fights

of old, and any group with the means to mass produce them had the fear-inducing authority

It's pretty hard these days to imagine warfare without guns, so it would be weird not to

Those guns, called hand cannons, originated in 13th century China and were widely used

in warfare before spreading to the west in the following decades. But they weren't

exactly guns in the sense we understand - they literally worked like cannons by igniting

Once they reached Europe, however, they marked a major change in medieval combat.

Before then, you could be pretty sure that your suit of armour would keep you protected,

but that's not so true when an infantryman could fire a projectile fast enough to rip

But hand cannons weren't for just anyone. They needed specific training to use, which

had the knock-on effect that armies began to be made up of less expandable peasant fighters