WWI

World War I was a military conflict that lasted from 1914 to 1918 and involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Allies centred around the Triple Entente and the Central Powers. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilized in one of the largest wars in history. More than 15 million people were killed, making it one of the deadliest conflicts in history. The war is also known as the First World War, the Great War, the World War prior to the outbreak of World War II, and the War to End All Wars.The First World War began as a clash of twentieth century technology and nineteenth century tactics, with inevitably large casualties. By the end of 1917, however, the major armies, now numbering millions of men, had modernized and were making use of telephone, wireless communication, armoured cars, tanks, and aircraft. Infantry formations were reorganized, so that 100 man companies were no longer the main unit of maneuver. Instead, squads of 10 or so men, under the command of a junior NCO, were favoured. Artillery also underwent a revolution.

In 1914, cannons were positioned in the front line and fired directly at their targets. By 1917, indirect fire with guns as well as mortars and even machine guns was commonplace, using new techniques for spotting and ranging, notably aircraft and the often overlooked field telephone. Counter-battery missions became commonplace, also, and sound detection was used to locate enemy batteries.

Germany was far ahead of the Allies in utilising heavy indirect fire. She employed 150 and 210 mm howitzers in 1914 when the typical French and British guns were only 75 and 105 mm. The British had a 6 inch 152 mm howitzer, but it was so heavy it had to be hauled to the field in pieces and assembled. Germans also fielded Austrian 305 mm and 420 mm guns, and already by the beginning of the war had inventories of various calibers of Minenwerfer ideally suited for trench warfare.

Much of the combat involved trench warfare, where hundreds often died for each yard gained. Many of the deadliest battles in history occurred during the First World War. Such battles include Ypres, the Marne, Cambrai, the Somme, Verdun, and Gallipoli. The Haber process of nitrogen fixation was employed to provide the German forces with a constant supply of gunpowder, in the face of British naval blockade. Artillery was responsible for the largest number of casualties and consumed vast quantities of explosives. The large number of head-wounds caused by exploding shells and fragmentation forced the combatant nations to develop the modern steel helmet, led by the French, who introduced the Adrian helmet in 1915. It was quickly followed by the Brodie helmet, worn by British Imperial and U.S. troops, and in 1916 by the distinctive German Stahlhelm, a design, with improvements, still in use today.

The widespread use of chemical warfare was a distinguishing feature of the conflict. Gases used included chlorine, mustard gas and phosgene. Few war casualties were caused by gas, as effective countermeasures to gas attacks were quickly created, such as gas masks. The use of chemical warfare and small-scale strategic bombing were both outlawed by the 1907 Hague Conventions, and both proved to be of limited effectiveness, though they captured the public imagination.

The most powerful land-based weapons were railway guns weighing hundreds of tons apiece. These were nicknamed Big Berthas, even though the namesake was not a railway gun. Germany developed the Paris Gun, able to bombard Paris from over 100 kilometres 60 mi, though shells were relatively light at 94 kilograms 210 lb. While the Allies had railway guns, German models severely out-ranged and out-classed them.
RAF Sopwith Camel.

Fixed-wing aircraft were first used militarily by the Italians in Libya 23 October 1911 during the Italo-Turkish War for reconnaissance, soon followed by the dropping of grenades and aerial photography the next year. By 1914 the military utility was obvious. They were initially used for reconnaissance and ground attack. To shoot down enemy planes, anti-aircraft guns and fighter aircraft were developed. Strategic bombers were created, principally by the Germans and British, though the former used Zeppelins as well. Towards the end of the conflict, aircraft carriers were used for the first time, with HMS Furious launching Sopwith Camels in a raid to destroy the Zeppelin hangars at Tondern in 1918.

German U-boats (submarines) were deployed after the war began. Alternating between restricted and unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic, they were employed by the Kaiserliche Marine in a strategy to deprive the British Isles of vital supplies. The deaths of British merchant sailors and the seeming invulnerability of U-boats led to the development of depth charges hydrophones (passive sonar, , blimps, hunter-killer submarines HMS R&-1, 1917, forward-throwing anti-submarine weapons, and dipping hydrophones (the latter two both abandoned in 1918. To extend their operations, the Germans proposed supply submarines. Most of these would be forgotten in the interwar period until World War II revived the need.
British Vickers machine gun.

Trenches, machineguns, air reconnaissance, barbed wire, and modern artillery with fragmentation shells helped bring the battle lines of World War I to a stalemate. The British sought a solution with the creation of the tank and mechanized warfare. The first tanks were used during the Battle of the Somme on 15 September 1916. Mechanical reliability became an issue, but the experiment proved its worth. Within a year, the British were fielding tanks by the hundreds and showed their potential during the Battle of Cambrai in November 1917, by breaking the Hindenburg Line, while combined arms teams captured 8000 enemy soldiers and 100 guns. Light automatic weapons also were introduced, such as the Lewis Gun and Browning automatic rifle.

Manned observation balloons, floating high above the trenches, were used as stationary reconnaissance platforms, reporting enemy movements and directing artillery. Balloons commonly had a crew of two, equipped with parachutes. If there was an enemy air attack, the crew could parachute to safety. At the time, parachutes were too heavy to be used by pilots of aircraft with their marginal power output) and smaller versions would not be developed until the end of the war; they were also opposed by British leadership, who feared they might promote cowardice. Recognized for their value as observation platforms, balloons were important targets of enemy aircraft.
Johnson's Nieuport 11 armed with Le Prieur rockets for attacking observation balloons.

To defend against air attack, they were heavily protected by antiaircraft guns and patrolled by friendly aircraft; to attack them, unusual weapons such as air-to-air rockets were even tried. Blimps and balloons contributed to air-to-air combat among aircraft, because of their reconnaissance value, and to the trench stalemate, because it was impossible to move large numbers of troops undetected. The Germans conducted air raids on England during 1915 and 1916 with airships, hoping to damage British morale and cause aircraft to be diverted from the front lines. The resulting panic took several squadrons of fighters from France.

Another new weapon, flamethrowers, were first used by the German army and later adopted by other forces. Although not of high tactical value, they were a powerful, demoralizing weapon and caused terror on the battlefield. It was a dangerous weapon to wield, as its heavy weight made operators vulnerable targets.

Trench railways evolved to supply the enormous quantities of food, water, and ammunition required to support large numbers of soldiers in areas where conventional transportation systems had been destroyed. Internal combustion engines and improved traction systems for wheeled vehicles eventually rendered trench railways obsolete.No other war had changed the map of Europe so dramatically—four empires disappeared: the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and the Russian. Four defunct dynasties, the Hohenzollerns, the Habsburg, Romanovs and the Ottomans together with all their ancillary aristocracies, all fell after the war. Belgium and Serbia were badly damaged, as was France with 1.4 million soldiers dead, not counting other casualties. Germany and Russia were similarly affected.

Of the 60 million European soldiers who were mobilized from 1914–1918, 8 million were killed, 7 million were permanently disabled, and 15 million were seriously injured. Germany lost 15.1% of its active male population, Austria–Hungary lost 17.1%, and France lost 10.5%. About 750,000 German civilians died from starvation caused by the British blockade during the war. By the end of the war, famine had killed approximately 100,000 people in Lebanon. The war had profound economic consequences. In addition, a major influenza epidemic spread around the world. Overall, the Spanish flu killed at least 50 million people. In 1914 alone, louse-borne epidemic typhus killed 200,000 in Serbia.

There were about 25 million infections and 3 million deaths from epidemic typhus in Russia from 1918 to 1922. The best estimates of the death toll from the Russian famine of 1921 run from 5 million to 10 million people.By 1922 there were 4.5 7 million homeless children in Russia as a result of nearly a decade of devastation from World War I, the Russian Civil War, and the subsequent famine of 1920–1922. Considerable numbers of anti-Soviet Russians fled the country after the Revolution; by the 1930s the northern Chinese city of Harbin had 100,000 Russians.

Lobbying by Chaim Weizmann and fear that American Jews would encourage the USA to support Germany culminated in the Balfour Declaration of 1917 by the British government. This endorsed the creation of a Jewish Homeland in Palestine. Over 1,172,000 Jewish soldiers served in the Allied and Central Power forces in World War I, including 450,000 in Czarist Russia and 275,000 in Austria-Hungary. Over 2000 pogroms accompanied the Revolution of 1917 and the ensuing Russian Civil War, 60,000–200,000 civilian Jews were killed in the atrocities throughout the former Russian Empire.[ Most of the pogroms occurred in the Ukraine. INFORMATION FOUND ON WIKIPEDIA.COM

The American Civil War

The American Civil War was a war fought by North part of American and the South part of America. This war was caused to do slavery and new laws that the southerners did not aggree with.In the presidential election of 1860, the Republican Party, led by Abraham Lincoln, had campaigned against the expansion of slavery beyond the states in which it already existed. The Republican victory in that election resulted in seven Southern states declaring their secession from the Union even before Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861. Both the outgoing administration of President James Buchanan, and Lincoln's incoming administration rejected the legality of secession, considering it rebellion.

Hostilities began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces attacked a US military installation at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Lincoln responded by calling for a volunteer army from each state, leading to declarations of secession by four more Southern slave states. Both sides raised armies as the Union assumed control of the border states early in the war and established a naval blockade. In September 1862, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation made ending slavery in the South a war goal,[2] and dissuaded the British from intervening.[3]

Confederate commander Robert E. Lee won battles in the east, but in 1863 his northward advance was turned back with heavy casualties after the Battle of Gettysburg and, in the west, the Union gained control of the Mississippi River after their capture of Vicksburg, Mississippi, thereby splitting the Confederacy in two. Long-term Union advantages in men and material were realized in 1864 when Ulysses S. Grant fought battles of attrition against Lee, while Union general William Tecumseh Sherman captured Atlanta, Georgia, and marched to the sea. Confederate resistance collapsed after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.

The American Civil War was one of the earliest true industrial wars in human history. Railroads, steamships, mass-produced weapons, and various other military devices were employed extensively. The practices of total war, developed by Sherman in Georgia, and of trench warfare around Petersburg foreshadowed World War I in Europe. It remains the deadliest war in American history, resulting in the deaths of 620,000 soldiers and an undetermined number of civilian casualties. Ten percent of all Northern males 20-45 years of age died, as did 30 percent of all Southern white males aged 18-40. Victory for the North meant the end of the Confederacy and of slavery in the United States, and strengthened the role of the federal government. The social, political, economic and racial issues of the war decisively shaped the reconstruction era that lasted to 1877.

Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, at the McLean House in the village of Appomattox Court House.[118] In an untraditional gesture and as a sign of Grant's respect and anticipation of peacefully folding the Confederacy back into the Union, Lee was permitted to keep his officer's saber and his horse, Traveller. On April 14, 1865, President Lincoln was shot. Lincoln died early the next morning, and Andrew Johnson became President.

Events leading to Lee's surrender began with the capture of key Confederate officers Richard S. Ewell and Richard H. Anderson on April 6, following Confederate defeat at the battle of Sayler's Creek. On April 8, Union cavalry under Major General George Armstrong Custer destroyed three trains of Confederate supplies at Appomattox Station, leading to the surrender of General Lee the next day.[119] General St. John Richardson Liddell's army surrendered after the loss of the Confederate fortifications at the Battle of Spanish Fort in Alabama, also on April 9.

Unaware of the surrender of Lee, on April 16 the last major battles of the war were fought at the Battle of Columbus, Georgia and the Battle of West Point. Both towns surrendered to Wilson's Raiders.

On April 21, John S. Mosby’s raiders of the 43rd Battalion Virginia Cavalry was disbanded, and on April 26, General Joseph E. Johnston surrendered his troops to Sherman at Bennett Place in Durham, North Carolina. Surrendering on May 4 and 5 were the Confederate departments of Alabama, Mississippi and East Louisiana regiments and the District of the Gulf. The Confederate President was captured on May 10 and the surrender of the Department of Florida and South Georgia happened the same day. Confederate Brigadier General "Jeff" Meriwether Thompson surrendered his brigade the next day and the day following saw the surrender of the Confederate forces of North Georgia.

On June 23, 1865, at Fort Towson in the Choctaw Nations' area of the Oklahoma Territory, Stand Watie signed a cease-fire agreement with Union representatives, becoming the last Confederate general in the field to stand down. The last Confederate ship to surrender was the CSS Shenandoah, whose officers did not know of the end of the war until August 2. Not wanting to surrender to Federal authorities, the ship's commander plotted a course for the country of his ship's birth, so that they surrendered on November 6, 1865, in Liverpool, England.[120] These surrenders marked the conclusion of the American Civil War.

Listen to LA

The Iraq war’s cause was to ensure that the Iraqi people would establish a government and to get Saddam Hussein out of Iraq. So on June 10^th 2002 the first invasion, there they scouted the area. At 5:34 AM Baghdad time on March 20, 2003 (9:34 p.m., March 19 EST) the military invasion of Iraq began. The invasion was a quick and decisive operation encountering major resistance, though not what the US, British and other forces expected. The Iraqi regime had prepared to fight both a conventional and irregular war at the same time, conceding territory when faced with superior conventional forces, largely armored, but launching smaller scale attacks in the rear using fighters dressed in civilian and paramilitary clothes. This achieved some temporary successes and created unexpected challenges for the invading forces, especially the US military. In the north, OIF-1 used the largest special operations force since the successful attack on the Taliban government of Afghanistan just over a year earlier. The Iraqi army was quickly overwhelmed in each engagement it faced with US forces, with the elite Fedayeen Saddam putting up strong, sometimes suicidal, resistance before melting away into the civilian population. On April 9 Baghdad fell, ending President Hussein's 24-year rule. US forces seized the deserted Ba'ath Party ministries and stage-managed the tearing down of a huge iron statue of Hussein, photos and video of which became symbolic of the event, although later controversial. In November 2008, Iraqi protesters staged a similar stomping on and burning of an effigy of George W. Bush. The abrupt fall of Baghdad was accompanied by a widespread outpouring of gratitude toward the invaders, but also massive civil disorder, including the looting of public and government buildings and drastically increased crime.

According to the Pentagon, 250,000 short tons (230,000 t) (of 650,000 short tons (590,000 t) total) of ordnance was looted, providing a significant source of ammunition for the Iraqi insurgency. The invasion phase concluded when Tikrit, Hussein's home town, fell with little resistance to the US Marines of Task Force Tripoli and on April 15 the coalition declared the invasion effectively over.

WW II : RARE COLOR FILM : D-DAY : JUNE 5TH 1944

WWII

WWII was a global military conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945 which involved most of the world's nations, including all of the great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances the-----
Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, with more than 100 million military personnel mobilize. In a state of the major participants placed their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities at the service of the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Marked by significant action against civilians, including the Holocaust and the only use of nuclear weapons in warfare, it was the deadliest conflict in human history,with over seventy million casualties.The war is generally considered to have begun on 1 September 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and most of the countries of the British Empire and Commonwealth. Many countries were already at war by this date, such as Ethiopia and Italy in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War and China and Japan in the Second Sino Japanese War. Many that were not initially involved joined the war later in response to events such as the German invasion of the Soviet Union and the Japanese attacks on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor and on British overseas colonies, which triggered declarations of war on Japan by the United States, the British Commonwealth, and the Netherlands.On 16 December 1944, Germany attempted its last desperate measure for success on the Western Front by marshalling German reserves to launch a massive counter-offensive in the Ardennes to attempt to split the Western Allies, encircle large portions of Western Allied troops and capture their primary supply port at Antwerp in order to prompt a political settlement. By January, the offensive had been repulsed with no strategic objectives fulfilled. In Italy, the Western Allies remained stalemated at the German defensive line. In mid-January 1945, the Soviets attacked in Poland, pushing from the Vistula to the Oder river in Germany, and overran East Prussia. On 4 February, U.S., British, and Soviet leaders met in Yalta. They agreed on the occupation of post-war Germany,[207] and when the Soviet Union would join the war against Japan.[208]
In February, the Soviets invaded Silesia and Pomerania, while Western Allied forces entered Western Germany and closed to the Rhine river. In March, the Western Allies crossed the Rhine north and south of the Ruhr, encircling a large number of German troops,[209] while the Soviets advanced to Vienna. In early April, the Western Allies finally pushed forward in Italy and swept across Western Germany, while Soviet forces stormed Berlin in late April; the two forces linked up on Elbe river on 25 April. On 30 April 1945, the Reichstag was captured, signalling the military defeat of Third Reich.[210]


A devastated Berlin street in the city centre post Battle of Berlin, taken 3 July 1945.


Atomic explosion at Nagasaki, August 9, 1945.
Several changes in leadership occurred during this period. On 12 April, U.S. President Roosevelt died and was succeeded by Harry Truman. Benito Mussolini was killed by Italian partisans on 28 April. Two days later, Hitler committed suicide, and was succeeded by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz.
German forces surrendered in Italy on 29 April and in Western Europe on 7 May. On the Eastern Front, Germany surrendered to the Soviets on 8 May. A German Army Group Centre resisted in Prague until 11 May. In the Pacific theatre, American forces accompanied by the forces of the Philippine Commonwealth advanced in the Philippines, clearing Leyte by the end of April 1945. They landed on Luzon in January 1945 and seized Manila in March, leaving it in ruins. Fighting continued on Luzon, Mindanao and other islands of the Philippines until the end of the war.
In May 1945, Australian troops landed on Borneo, overrunning the oilfields there. British, American and Chinese forces defeated the Japanese in northern Burma in March, and the British pushed on to reach Rangoon by 3 May. American forces also moved toward Japan, taking Iwo Jima by March, and Okinawa by the end of June. American bombers destroyed Japanese cities, and American submarines cut off Japanese imports.
On 11 July, the Allied leaders met in Potsdam, Germany. They confirmed earlier agreements about Germany], and reiterated the demand for unconditional surrender of all Japanese forces by Japan, specifically stating that the alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction. During this conference the United Kingdom held its general election, and Clement Attlee replaced Churchill as Prime Minister. When Japan continued to reject the Potsdam terms, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in early August. Between the two bombs, the Soviets, pursuant to the Yalta agreement, invaded Japanese-held Manchuria, and quickly defeated the Kwantung Army, which was the primary Japanese fighting force. The Red Army also captured Sakhalin Island and the Kurile Islands. On 15 August 1945 Japan surrendered, with the surrender documents finally signed aboard the deck of the American battleship USS Missouri on 2 September 1945, ending the war.

The war ended with the victory of the Allies in 1945, leaving the political alignment and social structure of the world significantly changed. Info Found on Wikipedia.com

Vietnam War

T
he Vietnam War was a military struggle fought in Vietnam from 1959 to 1975. It was started by the Communist guerrillas (the so-called Vietcong) in the South, whom were backed by Communist North Vietnam, in an attempt to overthrow the South Vietnam government. Unlike conventional wars, the Vietnam War was a turning point in the history of modern conventional warfare. A guerilla war, fought on difficult terrain with no defined front lines, consisting of hit-and-run attacks with guerillas striking at government outposts and retreating into the jungle. The reliance on helicopters afforded mobility in a difficult terrain.

The Vietnam War can be regarded as a people's war, because guerilla fighters were not easily distinguished from noncombatants and most civilians were mobilized into some sort of active participation. The civilian people of Vietnam suffered greatly, in one way or another. The extensive use of napalm by US forces maimed and killed many thousands of civilians, and the use of defoliants destroyed ground cover, devastating the ecology of an essentially agricultural country.

Khe Sanh, a US Marine base, was one of the most remote outposts in Vietnam and was facing a full-scale siege by the North Vietnamese Forces. By 1968, President Lyndon Johnson had become interested in this remote base and a question was asked - whether to abandon the base or whether to defend the base. American officials and the President decided to keep the base. On the morning of 21 January, 1968, at 5:30 am, the Vietnamese Army Forces launched the awaited attack by a barrage of shells, mortars and rockets, and the siege of Khe Sanh began. During the first two days, 18 Marines were killed instantly and 40 were wounded.

The 55 day battle from March 13 to May 7, 1954, was a climatic battle between the French and the Viet Minh (Vietnamese Communist forces) that led to the division of Vietnam into North and South Vietnam. From 1947 until the Dien Bien Phu battle, the French mastered the skies, but were unable to stop the flow of supplies reaching the Vietnamese guerilla.



The battle of Dien Bien Phu, and the International Peace Conference that began in Geneva the day after the battle. Information from Vietnam War.com

Ryan O Bio

My name is Ryan Ortega, and I am 14 years. When I was in 4th grade, I moved to Grayslake. There I went to Woodland District. I have been going there for 4 years. I'm about 5/5, with black hair and brown eyes. I enjoy watching the military channel, going to the park, and playing that Xbox. The reason I want to do my blog on the military because it shows what kind of equipment we can use against our enemies. I find that a strong military is what a country needs to be successful. The way that we advance the farther we come closer to the best technology.

The Military is an essential factor in a successful country. Without a power military it would be difficult to to expand your nation, and manage what is in your possessions. The military is set in rankings. These are some of the major rankings. Private, Corporal, Sergeant, Second Lieutenant, First Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Colonel, Brigadier, and General. These rankings are achieved over time, from serving time in the army.

I will be talking about equipment used through out the US Military. First off the most used Assault Rifle in the US Military the M16. This weapon was first used in Vietnam. Although the weapon was very effective alot of soilders started to have problems with it. Because of Vietnam muddy terain the weapon started jam alot and was very unreliable. Then after a few updates on the weapon it started to be very effective. It was very accurate with its three burst shots with high accuracy.

But in the last twenty five years a new Assault Rifle was replacing the M16. The M4. The M4 being very similar to the M16 with minor differences, making the gun more accurate on fully automatic and not jamming as much. With a barrel extension it makes it have more range then the M16.

Although Assault Rifle is effect during combat, another type of weapon that has been changing the battlefield is Snipers.

The M40A5 is the most used and one of the most accurate weapons ever created. First used in 1966 this Sniper originated in the United States, with five shots it the clip. Weighing 7.5KG, shooting 7.62 x 51mm shots this gun can take a man down from 800 meters away.

The next sniper im going to take about is the biggest and baldest sniper in the world. The Barrette 50. Caliber. This sniper is so deadly shooting a human without isn’t even necessary. This sniper at first was to shoot a man with one shot. Then they realized that it was so deadly that they started to not use it to take down enemy soilders but to take down there vehicles. This sniper shots a bullet is a 50 caliber and has a range of 5,906 Ft. This sniper can shoot down enemy vehicles with one clean shot to the engine. This sniper shoots a bullet at such a fast rate that you cant even hold this gun up when you shoot. It needs to be mounted or else the recoil would hit the soilder at a incredible force.