by William Weir
The Coalition forces have, as we’ve seen (see Chapter 40) several types of improved armor for tanks and other vehicles. In the Iraq War, the troops themselves have vastly improved body armor — what the news media erroneously call “flak jackets.” Flak jackets were worn by flight crews in World War II. As the name indicates, the jackets — fabric covering metal plates — were designed to protect the wearer from antiaircraft shell fragments. “Flak” is an abbreviation of Fliegerabwehrkanone, German for “antiaircraft gun.” Flak jackets would stop shell fragments but not bullets. In the latter part of the Korean War, infantry got armor jackets. These were made of nylon and were lighter than the aircrew armor. They would stop shell fragments and bullets from a .45 caliber pistol, but they wouldn’t stop bullets from an M 1 carbine or any more powerful rifle — and all other military rifles were more powerful. The new armor will stop bullets from the AK 47 and its modifications — the universal weapon of the Iraqi guerrillas.
Stopping enemy fire is good. Becoming invisible to the enemy is even better. “Stealth” fighters and bombers are designed to present a minimum profile to enemy radar and are covered with material that greatly reduces radar reflec-tion. In the Gulf War of 1991, some U.S. planes carried radar jamming equipment, forcing the Iraqi radar operators to turn their radars up to full power.
That made it easy for other planes to release radar homing missiles from a considerable distance. The missiles then rode down the radar beams and destroyed the radars. In the Gulf War, in spite of all the television footage showing missiles flying into buildings, only about 7 percent of the munitions were “smart” weapons. In the Iraq War, about 70 percent were. Ordinary aerial bombs — the archetypical dumb weapons — became smart by adding a global satellite positioning navigation device and connecting it with movable tail fins.
Some planes, notably the British Harriers, are able to take off straight up and land almost straight down by using movable jet nozzles. Helicopters, of course could always do that, and in the Iraq War there were more and bigger helicopters than ever. One division in that war, the 101st Airborne, is built around helicopters. Parachutes in the 101st had gone the way of gliders. Helicopters carried the 101st troopers, artillery, and vehicles. They fought enemy tanks, destroyed enemy artillery, and strafed enemy infantry. The helicopters carried standard machine guns, the variable-rate chain guns, modern Gatling guns, automatic cannons, and rockets. Helicopter pilots have an aiming device built into their helmets: they can train their weapons on a target just by looking at it.
In the Iraq War, the Iraqis had neither planes nor helicopters, but Coalition forces had antiaircraft guns ranging from the shoulder-fired Stinger to rockets that could knock down enemy aircraft scores of miles away.
The formal part of the Iraq War was over in three weeks. The American forces, which made up the overwhelming majority of the Coalition troops and did by far most of the fighting, lost only 122 troops. The formal war was followed by the guerrilla war. Because of that, as this book went to press American losses approached 1,400.
That calls for a look at “dumb” weapons — the kind guerrillas use.
In 1962, a young officer serving as an adviser to Vietnamese troops stepped on a punji stick smeared with excrement. The sharpened bamboo spike penetrated the sole of his boot and passed entirely through his foot and the instep of the boot. As a result, Captain Colin L. Powell was laid up quite a while in an army hospital. Some men who had the same experience died of the infection incurred.
The punji stick was a favorite improvised weapon of the guerrillas in Vietnam. Some were placed behind trip wires so a victim would fall on them and receive multiple wounds. Others were planted in pits hidden under a rotating platform covered with leaves. Flexible steel spikes in a wooden frame over a pit were another variation. Called a “venus flytrap,” it was almost impossible for a victim to pull his leg out. Jungle warfare made it possible for guerrillas to use a wide variety of deadfalls and other man traps. Another favorite was a poisoned arrow launched by elastic bands made from inner tubes and triggered by a trip wire. Poisoned arrows shot from crossbows, weapons that in east Asia have been used since prehistoric times, killed 20th century soldiers in Vietnam.
Improvised weapons ranging from punji sticks to roadside bombs are weapons American troops may be facing in increasing numbers. United States superiority in “smart” weapons and other high-tech devices makes it unlikely that American forces will be seriously challenged by conventional military organiza-tions. Anyone who thinks that these primitive devices do not constitute a serious challenge should study the Vietnam War.
The simple fact is that while weapons have increased in sophistication and lethality for thousands of years, human beings are still put together the same way. An arrow — arrows will penetrate some forms of body armor that will stop a bullet — can kill an American soldier today just as it could kill a French knight in 1346. A roadside bomb consisting of old artillery shells detonated by a small explosive charge — a weapon that is about as dumb as they come — will kill a person just as dead as the most sophisticated cruise missile.
Reprint of an item in the U.S. Army’s Improvised Munitions Handbook, which tells how to make a wide variety of weapons.
It is true that few places have the abundance of unguarded caches of artillery shells, bombs, and rockets as Iraq. Every country in the world, however, uses explosives in construction and mining. Any guerrilla organization can steal this material without exerting itself. Gasoline and diesel oil are even easier to obtain. These can be used for a variety of weapons, ranging from the lowly Molotov cocktail to anfo (ammonium nitrate and fuel oil) bombs like the one Timothy McVeigh exploded in Oklahoma City. Ammonium nitrate, the other component, besides fuel oil, of McVeigh’s bomb, is a commonly used fertilizer.
It can easily be obtained in it pure form or leached from brand-name fertilizers.
Ordinary flour can be used to make a bomb that purposely reproduces the kind of explosion that accidentally occurs in grain elevators. The list of household products that can be used to make explosives is amazing. It includes granulated sugar, Vaseline, auto battery acid, swimming pool cleaner, and common matches.
Matchheads alone can make a dangerous explosive. All of these explosives can be used in mines and booby traps; many can also be used as propellants in improvised guns.
Information on making explosives, as well as making improvised guns and rockets has been widely disseminated. There are at least 40 books in print on the subject, one of which is published by the United States Army. This training manual also includes directions for making a slew of homemade weapons.
Guerrillas using such primitive weapons will, of course, try to obtain better ones. The classic way to obtain better weapons is to get them from the enemy. In Vietnam, early in the war, many of the Viet Cong carried M 1 and M 2 carbines that they had apparently obtained from South Vietnamese troops, either by sale or capture. Iraqi guerrillas apparently have not obtained many, if any, American weapons, but the Russian-built weapons they have — especially the Kalashnikov rifles and RPG 7s — make pretty good guerrilla weapons. The biggest handicap the Iraqis have is their generally dreadful marksmanship.
Superior weapons mean that just about any regular force can defeat just about any guerrilla force in a formal battle. That’s why guerrillas don’t fight formal battles. Guerrillas ambush troops on the move, plant mines and other IEDs (improvised explosive devices) on supply routes, and attack isolated bases.
They kill supporters of an occupying power. (Most guerrilla enemies are occupying powers.) Guerrillas gave Napoleon’s armies a terrible time in Russia and Spain. And over time, they’ve gradually become more effective. In South Africa, the British had to flood the Orange Free State and the South African Republic (sometimes called the Tranvaal) with more troops than the entire enemy population. And even then, they didn’t win until they had incarcerated virtually the whole civilian population in concentration camps. A few years later in Af
rica, the guerrillas of Abd el Krim, with weapons considerably inferior to those of the Afrikaners, drove the Spanish army out of Morocco and came close to doing that to the French. French air power proved to be too effective against guerrillas in an open desert.
In modern times, those within the memory of most living people, guerrillas have gone from success to success. Consider Africa. Almost every nation on that continent, from Algeria to Zambia, is independent because of a successful guerrilla war. In Malaya, the British put down a guerrilla movement, but that was because the movement was limited to members of a despised minority, the Chinese. Most of the population opposed the guerrillas. Mao Zedong, the most successful guerrilla in modern times, compared guerrillas to fish and the population to the sea. The population shelters the guerrillas and keeps them supplied and informed. Until that human “sea” dries up, the guerrillas are a potent force. They have become more potent in recent years because of three things: (1) instant, world-wide communications; (2) the growth of nationalism; and (3) the development of weapons adapted to guerrilla warfare.
Today guerrillas use television and computers to transmit their propaganda and influence global public opinion. The Irish, in their war of independence made international public opinion their most potent weapon, and modern communications have given propaganda even more potential. In the early years of the last century, colonial powers had a relatively easy time because nationalism was largely confined to Europe and the Americas. In other places loyalty was primarily to the tribe or clan. Today, nationalism is visible everywhere, and in many Muslim lands it’s allied with religious zeal. And early in the century, the
“Boers” of South Africa didn’t have trench mortars or rockets to fire at British bases, and Abd el Krim’s Berbers had no anti-aircraft missiles. That’s no longer true of most guerrillas.
All of this means that to fight guerrillas, the major powers are going to have to concentrate on drying up the “sea” in which the guerrilla “fish” swim — convincing the populations of enemy countries that it’s in their interest to join us.
Honorable Mentions
Whenever you choose the most important of anything, be it battles (as in 50 Battles that Changed the World), or weapons, or ice cream, other people will have other ideas. That’s the reason for elections and the existence of horse races. So here are some weapons that had been suggested or otherwise considered as possibilities and the reasons they didn’t make this list. As in the main list, they are presented more or less chronologically.
• The Ax: The ax was probably an important hand-to-hand weapon in the Stone Age. One large prehistoric European group is even called the Battle Ax People. But we have no record of whether or not the Battle Ax People actually used their stone axes in battles or, if they did, how they used them or how much they depended on them. Until recent times, the ax was an important weapon to many people in central Africa, but it was never as important as the spear, which is the first item on the list of 50 weapons. Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon, and Russian warriors used axes extensively, but those axes were never more important than swords, spears, and bows. Nor did use of the ax result in any change in the tactics of these northern fighters
• The Sling: Although this weapon proved to be quite decisive for young David and was widely used in antiquity, it was never as decisive as the bow was for either the Eurasian nomads or the English yeomen.
• The Spear-Thrower: This weapon, called a woomera in Australia and an atlatl in ancient Mexico, was a major weapon for many primitive hunting peoples. It’s basically a stick with a hook or notch at one end. The user fits the butt of his spear into the hook or notch. When he throws the spear, he flips up the end of the spear-thrower, which adds velocity to the spear. Most people who used the spear-thrower were hunter-gatherers such as the Australian aborigines or the Eskimos, people who lived in small groups and seldom engaged in what we would call war. The Aztecs of Mexico used spear-throwers in war, but their primary weapons were bows and obsidian-edged clubs. They used their atlatls to throw harpoons to collect victims for sacrifice and cannibal feasts.
• The Siege Tower and the Battering Ram: These devices were used in sieges since before history was written. They were still in use after the introduction of gunpowder, but they were usually ineffective. Mining was much more effective if the enemy stronghold were not built on solid rock or surrounded by water, as many of them were. Until the invention of gunpowder, the outcome of most sieges depended on who got hungry first.
• The Halberd: The halberd, a combination of ax, spear, and sharpened hook, was a major weapon in the Swiss struggle for independence. The Swiss phalanx used a wall of pikes (very long spears) to stop enemy cavalry so their halberdiers could move up through the ranks to pull the enemy knights off their horses and chop them up. In the chopping-up process, the Swiss halberdiers were assisted by other infantry with two-handed swords, some of which were more than 6 feet long. On the flanks of the Swiss phalanx were crossbowmen who softened up the enemy before contact. The crossbow, incidentally, was greatly esteemed by the Swiss, as can be seen in the legend of William Tell.
• The Crossbow: This weapon is a favorite of mine and I have owned a couple of crossbows. It is far more powerful than the highly publicized longbow and far more accurate. It can be shot from cover or from the prone position — something extremely difficult with a longbow. It can also be reloaded while the shooter is prone or under cover. Try that with a muzzle-loading musket! The Chinese invented a repeating crossbow that could shoot 10 arrows in 10 seconds or less. Crossbowmen shared, with armored knights and infantry spearmen, credit for the Crusader victories in the Holy Land. But if an inanimate object can be said to have had bad luck, the crossbow had it. Neither the Chinese (who had, in some respects, the best crossbows) nor the Europeans ever used enough crossbows to be decisive. Longbows were far cheaper and could shoot arrows faster (except for the low-powered Chinese repeating crossbow), although with less range, accuracy, or penetration. Even the recurved bows of the nomads — which required great skill to manufacture — were cheaper than crossbows. By the late 14th and early 15th centuries, Europeans finally began making enough crossbows to make a difference, but by that time, they were also making guns, which were cheaper than crossbows and even more powerful.
• The Wagenburg: This item is somewhat marginal, because the wagenburg is really a formation rather than a weapon. It was a ring of armored wagons containing soldiers manning very small cannons, crossbows, and primitive hand guns. It was a decisive factor in the Hussite Wars of the 15th century, but was little used outside of central Europe. Mobile artillery quickly made it obsolete.
• The Horse Pistol: When the Swiss phalanx of pikemen was adopted through-out western and central Europe, mounted lancers quickly learned that their favorite weapon had become obsolete. The pike was longer than any spear a cavalryman could manage on horseback. So the horsemen adopted the pistol. This was a gun you could manage with one hand and had a much longer reach than any pike. The cavalrymen created the caracole — a long column of horsemen, each carrying from two to six large pistols. The pistols used the newly invented wheel lock, which fired the priming charge with sparks caused by the abrasion of a spinning wheel on iron pyrites. The column of cavalry trotted forward, and, as the front rank neared the enemy pikemen, they fired their pistols and rode to the rear, while succeeding ranks were firing. The caracole kept up continuous fire on one point of the pike phalanx. The new formation was an early success. Then armies increased the proportion of musketeers in their ranks. The musket outranged the pistol the way the pistol outranged the pike, and a dense column of horsemen made a splendid target. The horsemen were armored, but the big heavy muskets, which had to be fired from a rest, could penetrate any armor a man could carry.
• Percussion Ignition: Using a small explosive pill to ignite a powder charge instead of sparks caused by the collision of steel and stone greatly improved the reliability of guns. It did not, however, require a change
of tactics. When that percussion lock was attached to a rifled barrel, as happened shortly after the introduction of percussion ignition, a change of tactics become necessary. The need for a change was bloodily demonstrated in the American Civil War.
• The Battleship: The battleship is an armored ship, a classification already on the list. Like the U.S.S. Monitor, it has armored sides and a revolving turret — actually multiple turrets, like some Civil War Monitor-class ships. Like the U.S.S New Ironsides of the Civil War, it has a high freeboard. It’s also powered by engines rather than wind. But, although the battleship is merely a development of ships introduced in the 1860s, it does rate some consideration. One strange thing about it is that, although the most powerful weapon of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it turned out to be more important politically than militarily. The Battle of Manila Bay in 1898 caused the United States to be internationally recognized as a great power, but no U.S. battleships were involved in that fight. The Battle of Tsushima Strait in the Russo-Japanese War was a great and decisive battleship clash, but the war itself had already been decided by the land battle of Mukden. What made Tsushima Strait decisive was that it showed east Asian people, most of them colonized (or, as in China, semi-colonized) that an east Asian people could use modern ships to defeat a European power with a much larger navy. Still, every country considered battleships the ultimate expression of military power. The race between Britain and Germany to see which could build the most battleships greatly increased the tensions that contributed to World War I. When that war came, its greatest battleship fight, the Battle of Jutland, was thoroughly indecisive. Still, battleship construction continued, and the Washington naval treaty, followed by Japan’s construction of the super dreadnoughts, Yamato and Musashi, built up tension between the United States and Japan. But when the two Pacific powers came to blows in World War II, the aircraft carrier, not the battleship, proved to be the new capital ship.
