EIGHT IDEAS THAT CHANGED THE ARMY - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

EIGHT IDEAS THAT CHANGED THE ARMY

It’s clear the tools of battle have come a long way from the days of the flintlock musket. But not every technological breakthrough has required millions of dollars in research and development.

Here are eight significant ones to mull over.

Mobile artillery

Fast-moving artillery weapons have long been the key to successful campaigns, but America’s early siege guns were often anything but mobile. “Most of the weapons were very cumbersome,” said Walter Bradford of the Army’s Center for Military History. “It was like moving your house from point A to Point B.”

And despite several efforts, significant improvements did not arrive until 1841, when the Army perfected a field carriage capable of rapidly moving cannons the size of today’s 75 mm guns or larger. The system proved decisive in both the Mexican and Civil wars.

“They could actually bring artillery on the battlefield and move it around on a commander’s whim,” Bradford said.

The repeating revolver

Prior to the Civil War, cavalrymen were armed with a saber and two single-shot, percussion-cap pistols.

The Colt 1860 Army revolver, which was used by both Union and Confederate forces, gave the cavalry the ability to deliver a high volume of accurate fire while riding on horseback. The Colt repeater soon became a standard fixture on the front lines of the Civil War, too.

Because of the reliability of the design, Colt became the preferred choice of the Army for side arms, including other technological breakthroughs such as the 1911 .45 automatic pistol.

But the Army’s adoption of a repeating battle rifle would not come for many years.

The rifle musket

One of the first major advancements in long-arms technology came with the Army’s choice of the 1861 Springfield Rifle Musket.

Previously, infantry weapons had been manufactured with smooth-bore barrels, offering a maximum effective range of only about 60 meters, so the tactics of day called for rows of soldiers, marching abreast, to advance within close range of the enemy and fire volley after volley.

The rifle musket’s rifled barrel had grooves cut into the inside of the barrel that would put a spin on the projectile, increasing its maximum effective range out to 300 meters. But in the early years of the Civil War, soldiers still fought at close range, pouring deadly accurate fire into each other’s ranks.

It wasn’t until 1863 that soldiers began to adapt their tactics to suit the new weapon.

The breech-loader

But the real advancements in infantry rifles did not begin to take off until the Army adopted its first repeating, breech-loading rifle in 1892. The bolt-action Krag-Jorgensen rifle featured a five-round magazine and was chambered for .30 to .40 caliber cartridges.

But as innovative as the Krag seemed, it proved less than effective in the Spanish-American War when pitted against an enemy armed with superior Mauser bolt-action rifles, featuring a 5-round stripper clip for easy loading.

The Krag’s side-loading magazine box proved awkward and was replaced when the Army adopted the 1903 “Springfield” rifle, which also loaded with the modern stripper clip. In addition to allowing soldiers to easily load and fire rapidly from the prone position, the breech-loader also led to the Army adopting the first squad-sized elements under the command of the noncommissioned officer, Bradford said.

These early breech-loaders also led the Army to adopt other innovations in rifle design such as the M1 Garand and the current M16 assault rifle.

The machine gun

One of the greatest advancements in ground warfare to dominate the 20th century was the machine gun. The idea of a single gun matching the firepower of hundreds of soldiers began with the invention of the hand-cranked, multiple-barreled Gatling gun in 1862.

But the first modern machine didn’t find its way into soldiers’ hands until World War I, when the Army adopted the Browning .30-caliber machine gun in 1917.

Unlike with earlier models such as the Maxim machine gun that used the force of the bullet to eject each spent round, John Browning used the gas created from the bullet to power a drive piston, which extracted the cartridge, chambered a new round and fired the weapon.

The Browning .30-caliber machine gun and its variants saw service through World War I, World War II and Korea. The air-cooled Browning .50-caliber machine gun, adopted in the 1930s, is still in service today.

The tank

Since their debut with the British, nothing has struck fear in an enemy’s heart like the rolling thunder of heavy armor. But early attempts at tank technology were just as frightening for the British, which in the middle of World War I fielded a tank that soon was given the nickname “Little Willie.”

Little Willie weighed 14 tons, moved at a top speed of two miles per hour over rough ground and was unable to cross broad trenches. When the American Army entered the war in 1917, they soon developed a successful tank known as the Mark VIII or Liberty, a 37-ton behemoth that could cross trenches 15 meters across.

The truck and helicopter

Despite the fanfare weapons like the machine gun and the tank receive, there isn’t a soldier alive who hasn’t at some time been thankful for one of the most forgotten heroes of the Army — the truck. Since World War II, they have continued to push farther and drive through the toughest of conditions to deliver supplies, evacuate wounded and lighten the load of tired GIs.

By comparison, the helicopter began as a transport vehicle and ended up revolutionizing how the Army deploys soldiers. When the Army Air Corps became a separate service in 1947, commanders needed their own air support.

The answer appeared in the Korean War with the OH-13 helicopter. While size limited its capability, it was successful as a medevac helicopter Just a decade later, in Vietnam, the UH-1 “Huey” and the AH-1 Cobra helicopters began to dominate the first helicopter war. Hueys inserted and extracted soldiers during heavy fighting while the Cobra hovered close by, giving air support with machine guns and rockets.

Night vision and GPS

More recently, situational awareness has become key for combat success. Night-vision equipment and Global Positioning Systems are two examples.

In the late 1960s, soldiers began receiving star light scopes which used ambient light from the moon and stars to illuminate the battlefields. The Army’s research in using global positioning satellites to assist in land navigation yielded a backpack-sized system in 1985 that weighed 17 pounds. But during Operation Desert Storm — and the challenges of the Arabian desert — Army officials turned to the commercial market for help.

The AN/PSN10 was the answer. It was the size of a large textbook and allowed soldiers to navigate in the desert without the use of terrain identification.

Less than 10 years later, the Army has issued more than 100,000 GPS systems and is slated to have up to 600,000 in the inventory by 2010.

Matthew Cox