From the jungles of Vietnam to the unforgiving deserts of Afghanistan and Iraq, one breed of soldier has achieved legendary status in the arena of combat -- the sniper. Their only mission: wait, watch, and when the target is in sight, put the...
Crosshairs on the Kill Zone
From the authors of the classic sniper chronicle "One Shot-One Kill" comes a new generation of true tales from some of the most expert and deadly marksmen in the world. Meet Adelbert Waldron II, whose 109 confirmed kills in Vietnam made him the most successful sniper in American military history, and Tom "Moose" Ferran, who coined the term "Fetch ," whereupon the infantry would retrieve the sniper's dead quarry. Also included are stories from snipers in Beirut, the Bosnian conflict, and both wars with Iraq -- including the feat of Sergeants Joshua Hamblin and Owen Mulder, who took down thirty-two enemy soldiers in a single day outside Baghdad in 2003.
The military sniper has evolved into one of the most dangerous and highly-skilled warrior professions. They suffer through weather, terrain, and enemy action, lay unmoving for days on end, and take out their targets with unerring accuracy -- proving that the deadliest weapon in any battle, anywhere in the world, is a single well-aimed shot.

Edited and compiled by Emmy Award winning historian Bob Carruthers this is the compendium edition featuring five complete reprints from the series entitled 'Hitler's War Machine.' Comprising a varied range of materials drawn from original writings covering the strategic, operational and tactical aspects of the Panzers in action, this single volume edition is designed to provide the well-read and knowledgeable reader with an interesting compilation of primary sources combined with the best of what is in the public domain to build a comprehensive picture of the tanks and the men who fought in them. Featured here are wartime intelligence reports which contain an intriguing series of contemporary articles on weapons and tactics. Many of the articles are written in, what was then, the present tense and they produce a unique a sense of what was happening at the face of battle as events unfolded.

Primitive Weapons Miscellany collects seven early papers on primitive weapons like boomerangs, harpoons, slings, and blowguns, taken primarily from anthropological journals. These papers show examples of the weapons, and describe their use in hunting prey. This volume includes facsimile reprints of The Cane Blowgun in Catawba and Southeastern Ethnology (Frank G. Speck), Boomerangs (Gilbert T. Walker), Australian Throwing Sticks, Throwing-Clubs, and Boomerangs (D. S. Davidson), Distribution and Use of Slings in Pre-Columbian America . . . (Philip Ainsworth Means), Sling Contrivances for Projectile Weapons (F. Krause), Throwing Sticks in the National Museum (Otis T. Mason), and Aboriginal American Harpoons (Otis T. Mason).

This unique book serves as both text and practical reference for all personnel involved in avionics and weapons system evaluation and testing, in the air and on the ground. Whether you are training pilots and personnel or actually planning to test systems, this book will provide you with the fundamentals and practical information you need to get the job done. The book is a compilation of experiences and methods from over 25 years in the business and interaction with Test Pilots and Test Engineers over the last 15 years as an Instructor/Director at the National Test Pilot School in Mojave, California. The book was also reviewed by a dozen voluntary experts from the military and industry to ensure all critical components are covered properly. Their comments and suggestions were integrated into the text toward the goal of creating this invaluable textbook and companion to the fighter or heavy aircraft test team, no matter their geographical location. Lessons learned, good and bad, are addressed in each chapter so readers can avoid the pitfalls common to test and evaluation of these systems. Exercises at the end of each chapter provide instructors with the ability to reinforce critical concepts and all the war stories in the book are true.

On the battlefield, a soldier's best friends are his gun and his gear-because his life depends on them. But what will it take to fight and survive on the battlefields of tomorrow? What will those combat arenas consist of, and where will they be? And what will our nation's fighting men and women carry with them into battle? This is a compendium of the weapons of war that may accompany our soldiers in the near and far future, as well as an insightful look at the soldier, sailor, and airman of today and tomorrow. All manner of military hardware is covered, as well as information about cutting-edge technology that will become standard in weapons to come, the possibility of robotic soldiers, vehicles, protective armor, and the prospects of fighting a war in both space and cyberspace.

Bombs are as old as hatred itself. But it was the twentieth century--one hundred years of incredible scientific progress and terrible war--that brought forth the Big One, the Bomb, humanity's most powerful and destructive invention. In "The Bomb: A Life," Gerard DeGroot tells the story of this once unimaginable weapon that--at least since 8: 16 a.m. on August 6, 1945--has haunted our dreams and threatened our existence.

The Bomb has killed hundreds of thousands outright, condemned many more to lingering deaths, and made vast tracts of land unfit for life. For decades it dominated the psyches of millions, becoming a touchstone of popular culture, celebrated or decried in mass political movements, films, songs, and books. DeGroot traces the life of the Bomb from its birth in turn-of-the-century physics labs of Europe to a childhood in the New Mexico desert of the 1940s, from adolescence and early adulthood in Nagasaki and Bikini, Australia and Kazakhstan to maturity in test sites and missile silos around the globe. His book portrays the Bomb's short but significant existence in all its scope, providing us with a portrait of the times and the people--from Oppenheimer to Sakharov, Stalin to Reagan--whose legacy still shapes our world.

This unique book covers the whole field of electronic warfare modeling and simulation at a systems level, including chapters that describe basic electronic warfare (EW) concepts. Written by a well-known expert in the field with more than 24 years of experience, the book explores EW applications and techniques and the radio frequency spectrum, with primary emphasis on HF (high frequency) to microwave. A detailed resource for entry-level engineering personnel in EW, military personnel with no radio or communications engineering background, technicians and software professionals, the work helps you understand the basic concepts required for modeling and simulation, as well as fidelity and other practical aspects of simulation design and application. You get clear explanations of important mathematical concepts, such as decibel notation and spherical trigonometry. This informative reference explains how to facilitate the generation of realistic computer models of EW equipment. Moreover, it describes specific types of EW equipment, how they work and how each is mathematically modeled. The book concludes with a description of the various types of models and simulations and the ways they are applied to training and equipment testing tasks.

A spinning bullet leaving a 'rifled' barrel is much more accurate than a musket ball but the technology of grooving a barrel and shaping the projectile to make an efficient and reliable weapon has exercised military minds for centuries. Here is a concise history of the attempts to develop and improve the British Army's most important individual weapon - from the Ferguson of the American Revolution, to the Baker of the Napoleonic Wars, the Brunswick, the Snider, the Maritini-Henry and the famous Lee-Enfields - and the ammunition designed for it.

Today's arsenal of war contains some of the most sophisticated weapons ever seen on the battlefield. The technological revolution has drastically altered how war is fought and brought about the invention of some highly unusual (and effective) weapons. In the recent war with Iraq, we caught a glimpse of the new high-tech weapons in America's arsenal and the wide-ranging array of modern equipment and transportation used by our armed forces. America's modern military hardware is the envy -and fear-of the world.In U.S. Armed Forces Arsenal, noted military historian Samuel A. Southworth takes the reader on an informal and informative guided tour of this new arsenal of weaponry. He explains in clear and concise prose the new generation of military hardware, from rifles to mortars, jeeps to tanks, robotic drones to night vision sensors, and all manner of bombs, missiles and rockets-the arms and armaments that have reshaped the way the U.S. goes to war, on land and sea and in the air.

Data of illustrations of all German ordnance material as collected during World War II by the office of the Chief of Ordnance - Washington, D.C., including supplements issued up to June 1945. Covered are full specifications and detailed photographs of tanks, motor vehicles, artillery, small arms, aircraft armament, ammunition and rockets with both German and English nomenclature.

This study focuses on the sheaths and scabbards of the Anglo-Saxon period, rather than the blades once held within them. Esther Cameron presents a largely technical approach to the study of material from the period of the first Anglo-Saxons in England in the 5th century, through to the 11th century. Alongside a large corpus of examples, she looks at the nature of the material evidence, of skin, leather and wood, and the composition of the materials used, their decomposition and preservation in the archeological reord. The wider significance of her findings for Anglo-Saxon archaeology and for the study of organic materials form archaeological contexts in general, are revealed in the final chapter.

Based on fieldwork at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory - the facility that designed the neutron bomb and the warhead for the MX missile - "Nuclear Rites" takes the reader deep inside the top-secret culture of a nuclear weapons lab. Exploring the scientists' world of dark humor, ritualized secrecy, and disciplined emotions, anthropologist Hugh Gusterson uncovers the beliefs and values that animate their work. He discovers that many of the scientists are Christians, deeply convinced of the morality of their work, and a number are liberals who opposed the Vietnam War and the Reagan-Bush agenda. Gusterson also examines the anti-nuclear movement, concluding that the scientists and protesters are alike in surprising ways, with both cultures reflecting the hopes and anxieties of an increasingly threatened middle class. In a lively, wide-ranging account, Gusterson analyzes the ethics and politics of laboratory employees, the effects of security regulations on the scientists' private lives, and the role of nuclear tests - beyond the obvious scientific one - as rituals of initiation and transcendence. He shows how the scientists learn to identify in an almost romantic way with the power of the machines they design - machines they do not fear. In the 1980s the 'world behind the fence' was thrown into crisis by massive anti-nuclear protests at the gates of the lab and by the end of the Cold War. Gusterson links the emergence of the anti-nuclear movement to shifting gender roles and the development of postindustrial capitalism.

"Bar none, the best book on fire support in the English language and one of the most accessible works on tactics I have ever read."--Bruce Gudmundsson, author of On Artillery The military of the United States is the world's strongest. Our armed forces are equipped with weapons of remarkable accuracy and unprecedented destructive power. In the Gulf War, allied forces used these weapons in what turned out to be a high-tech shooting gallery. The pinpoint accuracy of the sharpshooter's rifle is now routinely expected in the delivery of thousand pound bombs. Events in Somalia and the Balkans have aptly demonstrated, however, the profound limitations of firepower in limited conflicts of low intensity. Yet, these are the kinds of war we are most likely to encounter as we proceed down the path of the new world order. Robert Scales examines this problem through his analysis of the role of firepower in the wars in Indochina, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the Falklands War, and the Gulf War. Chosen for the prestigious Marine Corps Commandant's Reading List, Firepower in Limited War is must reading for everyone interested in national defense and all military professionals.

The U.S. Army Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program was established with the goal of destroying the nation's stockpile of lethal unitary chemical weapons. Since 1990 the U.S. Army has been testing a baseline incineration technology on Johnston Island in the southern Pacific Ocean. Under the planned disposal program, this baseline technology will be imported in the mid to late 1990s to continental United States disposal facilities; construction will include eight stockpile storage sites. In early 1992 the Committee on Alternative Chemical Demilitarization Technologies was formed by the National Research Council to investigate potential alternatives to the baseline technology. This book, the result of its investigation, addresses the use of alternative destruction technologies to replace, partly or wholly, or to be used in addition to the baseline technology. The book considers principal technologies that might be applied to the disposal program, strategies that might be used to manage the stockpile, and combinations of technologies that might be employed.

"When Virgil sang of arms and the man, words like ""smart"" and ""friendly"" characterized the warrior, not his weapons. Today, because of modern technology, these terms are more often used to describe the machine than the man. Dramatic advances have spawned a generation of weapon systems designed to tell friend from foe, to stalk the enemy with precision and stealth, and to destroy him with unprecedented efficiency. But can ordinary Americans operate and support these advanced systems, or have emerging technologies pushed military hardware beyond the capabilities of the people the armed forces can expect to attract and retain? How can the military better match weapons and skills? Martin Binkin looks at the complex issues from several angles, starting with skill levels and jobs in today's military. He profiles America's arsenal in the 1990s and examines the implications of electronic warfare for manpower needs. Links among hardware complexity, reliability, and maintenance are unraveled, and current demographic trends traced. The study assesses various policy options available to hedge against the possibility that the military could become squeezed between growing demands for technologically adept people and a declining supply of recruits. Among these are efforts to design simpler systems with more reliable engineering techniques. Binkin reviews ways to make weapons easier to maintain, stressing component accessibility, technical documentation, and automated diagnostics. He covers the use of advanced technology to prepare people to handle new systems. Finally, he discusses the principal manpower management alternatives-expanding the role of women, substituting civilians, retaining more personnel, and returning to conscription. "

Department of Defense (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 focuses on potential Navy shipboard lasers for countering surface, air, and ballistic missile threats.

A History of Artillery traces the development of artillery through the ages, providing a thorough study of these weapons. From its earliest recorded use in battle over a millennium ago, up to the recent Gulf War, Balkan, and Afghanistan conflicts, artillery has often been the deciding factor in battle. Black shows that artillery sits within the general history of a war as a means that varied greatly between armies and navies, and also across time.

The Department of Defense (DOD) acquires goods and services from contractors, federal arsenals, and shipyards to support military operations. Acquisitions is a broad term that applies to more than just the purchase of an item of service; the acquisition process encompasses the design, engineering, construction, testing, deployment, sustainment, and disposal of weapons or related items purchased from a contractor. As set forth by statute and regulation, from concept to deployment, a weapon system must go through a three-step process of identifying a required weapon system, establishing a budget, and acquiring the system. One of DOD's main efforts to improve acquisitions is the Better Buying Power Initiative. This book provides an overview of the process by which DOD acquires weapon systems and discusses recent major efforts by Congress and the Department of Defense to improve the performance of the acquisition system.

Recent advances in ultra-high-power lasers, including the free-electron laser, and impressive airborne demonstrations of laser weapons systems, such as the airborne laser, have shown the enormous potential of laser technology to revolutionize 21st century warfare.

"Military Laser Technology for Defense," includes only unclassified or declassified information. The book focuses on military applications that involve propagation of light through the atmosphere and provides basic relevant background technology. It describes high-power lasers and masers, including the free-electron laser. Further, "Military Laser Technology for Defense" addresses how laser technology can effectively mitigate six of the most pressing military threats of the 21st century: attack by missiles, terrorists, chemical and biological weapons, as well as difficulty in imaging in bad weather and threats from directed beam weapons and future nuclear weapons. The author believes that laser technology will revolutionize warfare in the 21st century.