Weapons That Changed Warfare

Any work of history owes a huge debt to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of persons the author does not know and may not have even heard of. That’s especially true if the subject is invention, even invention of weapons. And it should be noted that inventors of these bloody devices were not necessarily bloody‑minded.

Many inventors of weapons, such as Hiram Maxim, with his machine gun, and Alfred Nobel, with dynamite, thought their inventions were so powerful they would make war too horrible, and the world would try to settle disputes in a more peaceful way. The inventor of the spear probably considered it nothing more than a way to bring more meat to the family cave. The inventors of riding and the composite bow aimed to make it easier to herd cattle and sheep and protect them from predators, not to make it easier for Genghis Khan to conquer most of the known world. Like the inventors of barbed wire, they were thinking of the cattle business, not the battle business. The Wright brothers were mainly interested in soaring through the air with wings, like birds. They may have had some thoughts about faster transportation, possibly also the use of planes in war. But it is most unlikely that they had any inkling of the way their invention would be used in World War II.

Other inventors, of course, knew very well what their innovations would do.

Callinicus knew that his “Greek fire” would annihilate enemy fleets and enemy sailors, but his object was not killing people but saving Christian civilization.

David Bushnell, who built the first submarine used in combat, was interested only in freeing his country from British domination.

It should also be said that new weapons have made war different, but not necessarily more horrible. Genghis Khan, in the course of a few years, managed to kill 20 million people, which in the 13th century was quite chunk of humanity. And he did this primarily with bows, arrows, and swords.

In addition to the inventors, anyone writing about the development of weapons over the last million or so years had to rely on the testimony of writers who have seen them and seen their effects. Finding those writers would have been impossible without the research staff at the Guilford, Connecticut, public li‑brary and their librarian colleagues around the country and around the world.

That’s just the work involved in writing the book. To produce what you’re reading took the efforts of another team: Mike Lewis, my editor at Career Press/New Page Books and his colleagues in the editorial and production departments. Mike had the concept of a list of 50 weapons that changed warfare, and my agent, John White, convinced him I could handle the project. Finally, and most important, there’s my wife, Anne, who not only put up with me hog‑ging the family computer, but read every chapter and contributed much helpful criticism.

If, after all this help, you find any mistakes, there’s only one place to lay the blame: on the evil spirits that inhabit my computer.

– Guilford, Connecticut, November, 2004