History of weapon formation in the world

With the original purpose of hunting, fighting against dangerous animals, weapons have been developed and improved throughout history. The Industrial Revolution 4.0 has promoted the great advancement of weapons.

Early period

Since ancient times, weapons have become tools to protect people from stalking and attacks of animals and fellow humans. Cave paintings have recorded scenes of Stone Age men fighting with rudimentary weapons such as sticks, axes, spears, etc.

Arrows, bows and arrows of the BC period are simulated.

Growing from a wooden stick cut from the strongest trees in the jungle, many tribes across Africa and the Pacific turned to casting axes from wood and stone. In Australia, primitive people built large boomerangs from wood to fend off enemies. However, the disadvantage of this weapon is that it is easy to lose, the damage is not high.

The Sumerians, living in Iraq, were the first to use bronze weapons. In wars, Sumerian soldiers used bows and arrows, fighting with spears, axes, and batons. Sumerian soldiers invented copper-encrusted leather jackets and cast bronze helmets, carrying rectangular shields to protect themselves in battle.

From 850 to 800 BC, the Assyrians, living in what is now Iraq, created a great empire in the Middle East. Assyrian soldiers converted the ramparts into mobile ramparts, using a new technique of forging iron into steel suitable for weapons.

In particular, soldiers combined tanks, cavalry and infantry in the corps. Each chariot carried a battle crew of 3, a charioteer, an archer and a shield bearer. Cavalry fought with bows and arrows. The infantry used bows, spears, swords, and slings. The Assyrians also equipped their soldiers with sturdy boots for long marches.

By the 400s BC, the Spartans, Greeks, knew how to prepare sulfur blocks against their enemies. More than 100 years later, the Macedonians invented catapults, which were considered extremely useful tools for attacking the most fortified strongholds. The catapult operates on a thrust mechanism, supporting soldiers to throw large, hard stones into enemy strongholds.

Closing the period BC, in 250, the Chinese invented the crossbow. The invention of the crossbow revolutionized warfare, and the technology spread from Asia through the Middle East and into Medieval Europe.

Thanks to the use of crossbows, archers don't need much strength or technique to shoot arrows. Moreover, the crossbow has a compact size, can shoot 10-15 arrows at a time, so it both saves strength and gives high combat results when compared to bows and arrows.

Many inventions were born

Painting depicting long bows and arrows invented by the British army.

In the era of the era, people knew how to build battle formations to save energy and create great destructive power on the battlefield. Leading these advances were the Saxons.

The usual Saxon tactic was to form a 'barricade' by arranging soldiers to stand side by side, spread out their shields in rows. Tactical walls are very effective. In particular, soldiers of the Saxon upper class were also equipped with chains.

Following the Saxons, the Vikings spread terror across Europe. They also fought with spears, axes and swords; use the 'wall of the wall' tactic. In addition, they dug ditches, built earthen embankments with wooden fences at the top to protect the inner ramparts.

However, in the 14th century, war was changed by the weapon of the longbow, invented by England in 1298. In fact, the longbow is not a new weapon but has been used since B.C. However, the British used it in a completely new way.

In the early Middle Ages, archers would strike to 'soften' the enemy before infantry charged into battle. However, the British used a new tactic of dismounting the horsemen to protect the archers and allowing the enemy to charge forward. Thus, the enemy's cavalry was quickly annihilated by the archers.

Long bows helped the British army win decisive victories on historic battlefields such as Crecy (1346), Poitiers (1356) and Agincourt (1415). A bow can shoot arrows 5-6 seconds away, more than 200m away. The downside of this weapon is that it takes soldiers years to learn how to use it properly.

Also during this time, the Mongol Empire used cannons in the battle of Ain Jalut against the Mamluk Sultanate. Cannons were made during the Song Dynasty in China. It was originally a gunpowder spell, but it was improved into a small handgun. It can perform the dual purpose of fighting infantry and besieging castles.

Not long after the introduction of the cannon, the Europeans turned it into a handgun. Initially, the guns were activated by burning matches. The soldier will use a match to ignite the conduit leading to the gunpowder compartment. Each soldier usually carries 2-3 guns and swords to be ready to fight in any situation. Gradually, the British longbow fell out of use.

To retrofit guns, in 1688, Sebastian de Vauban, a French military engineer, invented a bayonet, similar to a lance but smaller, to be attached to guns. With this weapon, the soldier can stab the enemy at any time.

In 1846, Houiller, a gunsmith in Paris, invented the metal bullet, ushering in a new revolution in weapons. After that, a series of guns were invented such as rifles, machine guns, torpedoes . with destructive ability and amazing firing speed.

At the beginning of the 19th century, British William Congreve invented the Congreve rocket, which was used on the battlefields of Copenhagen in 1807. However, the missile lacked range and accuracy, so after the Napoleonic Wars, it did not also popular.

During this period, biological weapons were also put into use. Specifically, taking advantage of the Plague pandemic, the Mongol Empire used catapults to throw the bodies of people carrying the plague virus into the enemy's stronghold to spread the disease.

Crafting 'leapfrog' weapons

Tanks were used by the German army during World War I.

When the First World War broke out in 1914, the infantry could not advance because the weapons were so powerful. As a result, in 1915, the German army devised the use of gas, chemical weapons, on the Western Front. The military uses chlorine gas, gas masks. In parallel, they used mines to destroy enemy trenches.

Chemical weapons were in relatively common use at the beginning of World War I. In 1907, the Hague Convention was formed, prohibiting warring countries from using chemical weapons. But the US did not participate.

Meanwhile, in 1913, the British Army launched the Vickers EF 8.1, the world's first military aircraft. Two years later, Britain continued to research and develop tanks. The aircraft was used to observe the enemy, then to bomb the cities, destroying the industrial achievements of the enemy.

Tsar Bomb, a type of nuclear bomb with great destructive power.

In the Second World War, the history of weapons had a leap forward when people discovered nuclear energy. Energy weapons research developed so rapidly and so dangerously that in 1939, physicist Albert Einstein wrote to US President Rooosevelt to warn about the dangers of nuclear bombs.

On July 16, 1945, the US successfully tested the first atomic bomb at Trinity, at Alamagordo Air Base. On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan.

Just two days later, another atomic bomb exploded in the city of Nagasaki. Each explosion has killed hundreds of thousands of people, proving the immense and terrible destructive power of this weapon.

Not stopping there, in 1951, the US successfully tested the first hydrogen bomb in the Marshall Islands. Also known as hydrogen bomb, thermonuclear bomb is a second-generation nuclear weapon, generating thousands of times more destructive power than nuclear weapons used in World War II.

When this weapon is activated, the thermal radiation from the nuclear explosion will heat and compress the warhead carrying materials such as deuterium, tritium, leading to a fusion reaction.

In 1957, the Soviet Union announced the successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile. At this time, countries around the world have an arms race, focusing on research into the use of nuclear energy. It was not until 1963 that the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty that could prevent nuclear weapons tests in the air, on the ground and under water.

Moving to the 21st century, the century of technology and digital, weapons are designed to meet the requirements of reducing human damage but still have a high ability to attack. That's when new concepts of weapons such as unmanned weapons, robotic weapons were born.

Developed countries such as the US, Russia, and the UK have invented unmanned equipment such as aircraft, submarines.; aircraft carrier construction; invention of high-energy lasers, sniper bullets, stealth armor, infrared tracking satellite systems.

High-tech weapons contribute to changing the face of war in the future. There, humans take control of their own, controlling technical equipment and technology through machine learning. However, high-tech weapons also raise questions about morality and human control.

Currently, humans can master and control robots, machine learning, but whether this technology can one day exceed human control is what the world cares about.