Scientific War Machine

The ‘Leopard 2′ is a German main battle tank built by the German company Krauss-Maffei-Wegmann, developed in the early 1970s and first entering service in 1979, replacing the earlier Leopard 1 as the foremost MBT in the Bundeswehr. Its different versions have served in the armed forces of Germany and ten other European countries, as well as non-European countries. More than 3,200 Leopard 2s have been manufactured.

There are two main development batches of the tank, the original models up to Leopard 2A4 which have vertically faced turret armour, and the “Improved” batch, namely Leopard 2A5 and newer, which have angled arrow-shaped turret add-on armour together with a number of other improvements. (more…)

Ann Brown gripped the handle of a .50-caliber machine gun that appeared to be larger than her slight frame. Peering down the sights, she squeezed off a five-round burst in less than a second.

Taken aback by the sudden burst, Brown, president of a graphic design company in Colorado, looked up as if shocked and then laughed, almost embarrassed. She said she didn’t realize it would fire that many rounds so fast.
Her companions in the Joint Civilian Orientation Conference quickly, and jokingly, dubbed her “Machine Gun Annie.”
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“There’s a jolt from it, but more than that, I was amazed at how quickly I could shoot out five shots. That really shocked me. Plus, when I realized that each shot can go 3,000 feet, … that’s really scary,” Brown said.
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Fighter aircraft are fast and maneuverable military warplanes designed to destroy other enemy combat aircraft as well as military and civilian targets. Fighter aircraft are the fastest warplanes employed for combat operations. Their velocity is over twice the speed of sound or mach two (2,450 kilometers per hour; 1540 miles per hour).

They launch their attacks from land airbases and aircraft carrier warships. Fighters are generally small in size relative to other military warplanes, such as long range strategic bomber aircraft. Fighters are armed with bombs, missiles, and machine guns or cannons and they are built with high structural strength to withstand the tremendous gravitational forces they undergo while fighting enemy warplanes. Since the 1950s, many fighter aircraft were built primarily out of titanium and aluminum metals.
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‘High explosive anti-tank’ (‘HEAT’) rounds are made of an explosive shaped charge that uses the Neumann effect (a development of the Munroe effect) to create a very high-velocity jet of metal in a state of superplasticity that can punch through solid armor.

The jet moves at hypersonic speeds (up to 25 times the speed of sound) in solid material and therefore erodes exclusively in the contact area of jet and armor material. Spacing is critical, as the jet disintegrates and disperses after a relatively short distance, usually well under 2 metres. The jet material is formed by a cone of metal foil lining, usually copper, though tin foil was common during the Second World War.
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In 1776 Major Patrick Ferguson patented his breech-loading Ferguson rifle, based on old French and Dutch designs of the 1720s and 1730s. One hundred of these, of the two hundred or so made, were issued to a special rifle corps in 1777, but the cost, production difficulties and fragility of the guns, coupled with the death of Ferguson at the Battle of Kings Mountain meant the experiment was short lived.

The Ferguson rifle was most likely the first breech loading rifle to be adopted by any organized military force. It was a .65 (.648 true) caliber rifle used by the British Army in the American Revolutionary War at the end of the 1770s. (more…)