The first major reappraisal of Pierre Trudeau's controversial defence policy, The Price of Alliance uses the 1976 procurement of Leopard tanks for Canada's troops in Europe to shed light on Canada's relationship with NATO. After six years of pressure from Canada's allies, Trudeau was convinced that Canadian tanks in Europe were necessary to support foreign policy objectives, and the tanks symbolized an increased Canadian commitment to NATO. Drawing on interviews and records from Canada, NATO, the United States, and Germany, Frank Maas addresses the problems of defence policymaking within a multi-country alliance and the opportunities and difficulties of Canadian defence procurement.

In an effort to provide the US infantryman with more firepower to cover the range gap between the hand grenade and the light mortar, the 40mm M79 grenade launcher - a shoulder-fired, single-shot weapon - entered service with US forces in 1961. Reliable, easy to use, and lethally effective, the M79 soon became an iconic symbol of the Vietnam War and had a profound influence on small-unit tactics. As the Vietnam conflict continued, it was joined on the front line by experimental models such as the magazine-fed T148E1, as well as two launchers intended to be fitted under the barrel of the new M16 assault rifle: Colt's XM148 and AAI Corporation's M203. The M203 remains in US Army service today, while the US Marine Corps now also fields the M32 multiple grenade launcher - like the M79, a standalone weapon. Featuring full-colour artwork, this is the story of the rugged and formidable grenade launchers that equipped the United States and its allies in Vietnam and beyond from the 1960s to the present day.

Nanoweapons just might render humanity extinct in the near future-a notion that is frightening and shocking but potentially true. In Nanoweapons Louis A. Del Monte describes the most deadly generation of military weapons the world has ever encountered. With dimensions one-thousandth the diameter of a single strand of human hair, this technology threatens to eradicate humanity as it incites world governments to compete in the deadliest arms race ever. In his insightful and prescient account of this risky and radical technology, Del Monte predicts that nanoweapons will dominate the battlefield of the future and will help determine the superpowers of the twenty-first century. He traces the emergence of nanotechnology, discusses the current development of nanoweapons-such as the "mini-nuke," which weighs five pounds and carries the power of one hundred tons of TNT-and offers concrete recommendations, founded in historical precedent, for controlling their proliferation and avoiding human annihilation. Most critically, Nanoweapons addresses the question: Will it be possible to develop, deploy, and use nanoweapons in warfare without rendering humanity extinct?

The Winchester Rifle, the iconic gun made in New Haven, Connecticut, and sold in its hundreds of thousands around the world, mirrors American expansion at a key period in the young country's history. The lethal repeating rifle became the defining image of America's frontier - and was known amongst Native Americans as "the spirit gun". It represented both the pioneering vigour and the brutal force which conquered the West. Laura Trevelyan explores the history of, and the family behind, this renowned representation of American power. The entrepreneurial drive of Oliver Winchester led the rifle to rapidly assume legendary status not long after its release in 1866, gaining endorsements from the likes of Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley and President Teddy Roosevelt. This engaging history sheds light on the story and myth of an American legend.

World War I's defining weapon for many, Germany's MG 08 machine gun won a formidable reputation on battlefields from Tannenberg to the Somme. Although it was a lethally effective weapon when used from static positions, the MG 08 was far too heavy to perform a mobile role on the battlefield. As the British and French began to deploy lighter machine guns alongside their heavier weapons, the Germans fielded the Danish Madsen and British Lewis as stopgaps, but chose to adapt the MG 08 into a compromise weapon - the MG 08/15 - which would play a central role in the revolutionary developments in infantry tactics that characterized the last months of the conflict. In the 1940s, the two weapons were still in service with German forces fighting in a new world war. Drawing upon eyewitness battlefield reports, this absorbing study assesses the technical performance and combat record of these redoubtable and influential German machine guns, and their strengths and limitations in a variety of battlefield roles.

In the age of modern warfare the changing landscape of the 21st century battlefield has demanded a transformation within the US Marine Corps Special Operations. Adapting to a huge range of combat environments, an enormous array of specialist uniforms, protective armour and battlefield electronic devices have been developed to facilitate missions in the most extreme conditions. A special forces operator may now have available to him a dozen distinct types of body armour and two dozen different weapons; never before in American military history has so much been given to so few. Authored by J. Kenneth Eward, professor at the American Military University, and illustrated throughout with photographs and meticulous colour plates, this volume offers the first detailed, authoritative study of the characteristics, and performance in the field, of the most modern combat gear and weapons provided for USMC specialist operators to date.

Napalm, incendiary gel that sticks to skin and burns to the bone, came into the world on Valentine's Day 1942 at a secret Harvard war research laboratory. On March 9, 1945, it created an inferno that killed over 87,500 people in Tokyo-more than died in the atomic explosions at Hiroshima or Nagasaki. It went on to incinerate sixty-four of Japan's largest cities. The Bomb got the press, but napalm did the work. After World War II, the incendiary held the line against communism in Greece and Korea-Napalm Day led the 1950 counter-attack from Inchon-and fought elsewhere under many flags. Americans generally applauded, until the Vietnam War. Today, napalm lives on as a pariah: a symbol of American cruelty and the misguided use of power, according to anti-war protesters in the 1960s and popular culture from Apocalypse Now to the punk band Napalm Death and British street artist Banksy. Its use by Serbia in 1994 and by the United States in Iraq in 2003 drew condemnation. United Nations delegates judged deployment against concentrations of civilians a war crime in 1980. After thirty-one years, America joined the global consensus, in 2011. Robert Neer has written the first history of napalm, from its inaugural test on the Harvard College soccer field, to a Marine Corps plan to attack Japan with millions of bats armed with tiny napalm time bombs, to the reflections of Phan Thi Kim Phuc, a girl who knew firsthand about its power and its morality.

An attacker's missile-borne countermeasures to ballistic missile defenses are known as penetration aids, or penaids. To support efforts to prevent the proliferation of penaid-related items, this research recommends controls on potential exports according to the structure of the international Missile Technology Control Regime.

This beautiful book combines archaeological documents, paintings and photos of a reconstruction of the first wooden amphitheatre at the Coliseum. It is a complete documentation with all categories of gladiators with their particular equipment up their fighting methods and ways of dying. This excellent reference guide is a must-have for all fans of archaeology and the Romans. - TEXT IN FRENCH -

"Assesses alternatives for a next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) across a broad set of potential characteristics and situations and weighs them against the costs of those alternatives."

For over 30 years this was the only book on this subject. It places on record some of the many changes in the design of the Shoulder-Belt Plate & Buttons worn by the Regular Army. It gives details of change in titles, and dates of battle honours awarded during the period when the Shoulder-Belt Plates were worn. An encyclopedia of Regiments of Horse & Foot (in their post 1881 order) going by their original numbering system. The design of buttons are covered up to 1911 with all their various changes. An average entry for one Regiment can show up to 10 different examples.

Examines the Army's readiness reporting system in light of changes experienced by Army units in the past decade, particularly the ability of units to adapt to emerging requirements by adding and training up new capabilities quickly.

A classic and poignant treatment of Japan's struggle between recognition of the kamikaze's futility and the country's pride in having made the attempt to stem the tide of the American advance in 1944-1945, this account, given by two former Kamikaze pilots, testifies to Japanese perspective of the last days of World War II. This book stands out among English-language translations of Japanese accounts of the Pacific war, and was translated by a former American officer who fought against the Japanese in the Pacific.

The Department of Defense's (DOD) development work on high-energy military lasers, which has been underway for decades, has reached the point where lasers capable of countering certain surface and air targets at ranges of about a mile could be made ready for installation on Navy surface ships over the next few years. More powerful shipboard lasers, which could become ready for installation in subsequent years, could provide Navy surface ships with an ability to counter a wider range of surface and air targets at ranges of up to about 10 miles. This book examines Navy shipboard laser technologies and applications for surface, air and missile defence.

The M16 rifle is one of the world's most famous firearms, iconic as the American weapon of the Vietnam War - and, indeed, as the U.S. military's standard service rifle until only a few years ago. But the story of the M16 in Vietnam is anything but a success story. In the early years of the war, the U.S. military had a problem: its primary infantry rifle, the M14, couldn't stand up to the enemy's AK-47s. The search was on for a replacement that was lighter weight, more durable, and more lethal than the M14. After tests (some of which the new rifle had failed) and debates (more than a few rooted in the army brass's resistance to change), Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered the adoption of the M16, which was rushed through production and rushed to Vietnam, reaching troops' hands in early 1965. Problems appeared immediately. Soldiers were not adequately trained to maintain the new rifle - billed as self-cleaning--nor were they given cleaning supplies or instructions. The jungle humidity corroded the rifle's inner components (the manufacturer had decided against chrome-plating); the cheap gunpowder in the rounds fouled the chamber. The M16 often failed to eject spent cartridges, often jammed, making the rifle "about as effective as a muzzleloader," in the words of one officer. Men began to be killed in combat because they couldn't return fire or because they had paused to fix their rifles. Congress investigated, and the rifle and its ammunition were modified, greatly improving its reliability by 1967-68. But the damage to its reputation had been done, and many soldiers remained deeply skeptical of their rifle through the war's end. Misfire combines insider knowledge of U.S. Army weapons development with firsthand combat experience in Vietnam to tell the story of the M16 in Vietnam. Even as it details the behind-the-scenes development, tests, and debates that brought this rifle into service, the book also describes men and M16s in action on the battlefield, never losing sight of the soldiers who carried M16s in the jungles of Vietnam and all too often suffered the consequences of decisions they had nothing to do with.

In the early 14th century, a new weapon entered the arsenals of European armies. This first generation of black powder weapons put fear into the heart of the enemy and in 1453 Ottoman cannon succeeded in pummelling the once-impregnable walls of Constantinople. But cannons, which are both slow and cumbersome, were difficult to use and often proved inaccurate. The first handgonnes were the answer. Easily dismissed by later historians as nothing more than crude tubes that shot wildly inaccurate lead balls, more recent research has revealed the true accuracy of the medieval handgonne together with its penetrative power. This volume, complete with detailed illustrations and colour photographs of reconstructed handgonnes, reveals the true history of what could easily have been the most revolutionary weapon in history. This book will be a must for medieval enthusiasts and re-enactors.

This analysis uses data from Selected Acquisition Reports to determine the causes of cost growth in 35 mature major defense acquisition programs. Four major sources of growth are identified: errors in estimation and scheduling, decisions by the government, financial matters, and miscellaneous. The analysis shows that more than two-thirds of cost growth (measured as simple averages) is caused by decisions, most of which involve quantity changes, requirements growth, and schedule changes.Cost growth in major weapon-systems programs results from errors in estimation and scheduling, government decisions, financial matters, and miscellaneous sources, with decisions involving changes in requirements, quantities, and production schedules the dominant cause.

The 19th century was the century of the bayonet, and this book is probably the most complete guide to the correct use of the weapon as it was fixed to the newly introduced British magazine rifle in 1890. Alfred Hutton, whose other works include the aptly titled 'Cold Steel' gives an expert guide to offensive and defensive bayonet lunges, parries and positions, together with glossaries of English, French and Italian terms used in bayonet fencing. Profusely illustrated, this is surely the definitive guide to a weapon which has stubbornly retained its place in the military armoury from its introduction in the 18th century right up till today.This offer expires 21 December 2007