Weapon History

Kenneth Chinran was a disaffected youth who joined the military and was recruited for an elite deep cover unit, completing training and exercises so tough that several of the recruits did not survive. At the peak of his career, he was sent by his star nation to infiltrate a fascistic, militaristic planet: Earth.

From 1951 to 1967 Egypt pursued a secret program to build military rockets that could have conceivably posed a threat to neighboring Israel. Because such an ambitious project required Western expertise, the Egyptian leader President Nasser hired West German scientists, many of them veterans of the Nazi rocket program at Peenemünde and elsewhere. These covert plans soon came to the attention of Israel’s legendary secret service, Mossad, and caused deep alarm in Tel Aviv.

Soon after its debut at the time of the Civil War, the Gatling gun changed the nature of warfare and the course of world history. Discharging 200 shots per minute with alarming accuracy, the world's first machine gun became vitally important to protecting and expanding America's overseas interests.

Gavin reassesses the strategy of flexible response, the influence of nuclear weapons during the Berlin Crisis, the origins of and motivations for US nuclear nonproliferation policy, and how to assess the nuclear dangers we face today. Archival evidence makes it clear that decision makers were more concerned about underlying geopolitical questions than about the strategic dynamic between two nuclear superpowers.

Who’s really to blame for America’s catastrophic financial meltdown and devastating national recession? Contrary to what the “Occupy Movement” might tell you, it’s not greedy Wall Street executives. No, as one of America’s top financial professionals reveals in this shocking book, the real culprit is economic warfare, with our foreign enemies exploiting our lurking financial weaknesses. In Secret Weapon, Kevin Freeman unveils how all the evidence - including motive, means, and opportunity - points to America’s foreign enemies deliberately pushing our economy over the brink.

Chronicler Tsai Yini monitors the tachyon communication system, which transmits data faster than the speed of light. When classified results from an astrobiologist's research are leaked to her, she cannot believe what she reads. The report reveals that intelligent life forms exist on a tropical planet in the Gliese system. Their civilization is still in its infancy but revolves around an artifact of unknown origin that seems to influence their body chemistry.

In Night Hunters, air power historian William P. Head provides the first detailed study of the development and deployment of the AC-130 gunship. While other airframes and other types of close air support (CAS) and interdiction weapon systems preceded or flew with the AC-130s, this four-engine cargo airframe proved to be not only the longest serving fixed-wing gunship but also the most effective by far.

Internationally renowned political commentator Noam Chomsky examines America's pursuit and exercise of power in a post-9/11 world. Noam Chomsky is the world's foremost intellectual activist. Over the last half century, no one has done more to question the great global powers who govern our lives, forensically scrutinizing policies and actions, calling our politicians, institutions and media to account. The culmination of years of work, Who Rules the World? is Chomsky's definitive intellectual investigation into the major issues of our times.

During the occupation of Japan after WWII, the US had an important decision to make. Should they hold those responsible for atrocities during the war accountable or should they take the information to advance the national interest? The researchers who worked at Unit 731, the biological and chemical warfare research and development unit, were given immunity in exchange for their research data. Unit 731 included factories filled with humans, tested with various diseases, as well as field tests on civilians of the Soviet Union and China. Imperial Japan had aspirations to develop operative ...

The dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 changed the nature of war forever. The awesome power of the atomic blast and its deadly fallout meant that nowhere was safe: every town, village, street and home in Britain fell under the nuclear shadow, and the threat of annihilation coloured every aspect of ordinary life for the next forty years. As the media reported on the inevitability of approaching conflict with the Soviet Union, the British people were told to prepare for the coming apocalypse.

From Afghanistan's Hindu Kush peaks and sunbaked Helmand Valley to Baghdad, Mosul and Ramadi in Iraq, American snipers have braved heart-pounding situations to hit their human targets dead-on. Few military feats stir the imagination like the image of a pair of riflemen waiting quietly in a building, a bomb crater, or a mountain pass for a Taliban or Al Qaeda fighter to walk into their crosshairs. Sniper presents real-life tales from the military's frontline snipers---their hits and their misses, the anguish of loss, and the anxiety of the first kill.

Tens of millions died during World War II as the warring powers raced to create the best fighter planes, tanks, and guns, and eventually that race extended to bombs which carried enough power to destroy civilization itself. While the war raged in Europe and the Pacific, a dream team of Nobel Laureates was working on the Manhattan Project, a program kept so secret that Vice President Harry Truman didn’t know about it until he took the presidency after FDR’s death in April 1945.

Science and violence converge in modern warfare. While the finest minds of the 20th century have improved human life, they have also produced human injury. They engineered radar, developed electronic computers, and helped mass produce penicillin all in the context of military mobilization. Scientists also developed chemical weapons, atomic bombs, and psychological warfare strategies. Rational Fog explores the quandary of scientific and technological productivity in an era of perpetual war.

Continuously in demand since its first, prize-winning edition was published in 1975, this is the classic history of Hiroshima and the origins of the arms race, from the development of the American atomic bomb to the decision to use it against Japan and the beginnings of U.S. atomic diplomacy toward the Soviet Union.

This audiobook traces the evolution of the Browning Automatic Rifle from the Model of 1918, first to face combat in World War I, through its various configurations in all arenas of combat all the way to the present-day1918 A3 SLR developed and manufactured by Ohio Ordnance Works. Used sparingly during World War I because of the United States’ late entry into the war, it played a major role during World War II and the Korean Conflict, offering a very reliable combination of rapid fire and penetration.

In Leveraging Latency, Tristan A. Volpe argues that having greater capacity to build weaponry doesn't translate to greater coercive advantage. Volpe finds that there is a trade-off between threatening proliferation and promising nuclear restraint. States need just enough bomb-making capacity to threaten proliferation, but not so much that it becomes too difficult for them to offer nonproliferation assurances. The boundaries of this sweet spot align with the capacity to produce the fissile material at the heart of an atomic weapon.

Tracing his roots from recording beats in his mom's attic in Edmonton to performing with some of the most recognizable names in rap and electronic music—De La Soul, Public Enemy, Mos Def, Questlove, Diplo, and more—Polaris Prize winner Rollie Pemberton, a.k.a Cadence Weapon, captures the joy in finding yourself, and how a sense of place and purpose entwines inextricably with a music scene.

Grandmaster Chan represents the sixth generation of the Wah Lum Kung Fu system and has over 60 years of martial arts experience. He has instructed thousands of students and has schools throughout the world. Grandmaster Chan has appeared on national television in Discovery Channel’s Secret of the Warrior’s Power and in ESPN.

This is the story of a British deterrent. Much has been written about the V-bombers—the Valiant, Victor, and Vulcan—but virtually nothing has been said about their strategic nuclear strike role. How would Britain's small force of subsonic bombers have retaliated following a Soviet attack, and would they have succeeded? This book is the product of seven years of research by Dr. Tony Redding.

After the last shots of World War II were fired and the process of rebuilding Germany and Europe began, the Western Allies and the Soviet Union each tried to obtain the services of the Third Reich's leading scientists, especially those involved in rocketry, missile technology, and aerospace research.