Warriors and Weapons

By Blago Kirof

This book is written for boys aged 8 to 80.

A set of wonderful pictures show exactly what a warriors and weapons looks like and all boys seem to just love to look them. It is like a picture dictionary of weapons and soldiers. The pictures are accurate; the colors are nice; the text is clear enough.

The book introduces us to war, weapons and soldiers from the Stone Age to the 21st century, from the stone ax to the space technology.

History loves jokes. Its irony always follows one and the same pattern:

"Nothing new under the sun."

The funny thing is that the people do not understand it.

From the first sharp stone in the hand of Pithecanthropus to Stealth bombers the nature of war remains the same.

Unfortunately.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781456616427

Book preview

Warriors and Weapons

By Blago Kirof

Foreword and Illustrations by Blago Kirof

First Edition

Copyright © 2013 by Blago Kirof

*****

Warriors and Weapons

*****

War and Warriors

One legend has it that the Romans adopted a Germanic word for war, to avoid using the Latin bellum, because, when sounded, it tended to merge with the sound of the word bello - beautiful. War is an organised conflict that is carried out by states or non-state actors. It is personified by extreme violence, disruption, and destruction. War should be understood as an extensive armed conflict between taking sides communities, and consequently is defined as a form of violence or intervention. The set of techniques used by a group to carry out war is known as warfare.

Before the dawn of civilization, war likely consisted of small-scale raiding. One half of the people found in a Nubian cemetery dating to as early as 12,000 years ago had died of violence. Since the rise of the state some 5,000 years ago, military activity has occurred over much of the globe. The advent of gunpowder and the acceleration of technological advances led to modern warfare. According to one source, 14,500 wars have taken place between 3500 BC and the late 20th century, costing 3.5 billion human lives, leaving only 300 years of peace. Approximately 95% of known societies throughout history engaged in at least occasional warfare, and many fought constantly. It is problematic however to suggest that people in past societies are any more violent than people today. In Western Europe, only since the late 18th century, more than 150 conflicts and about 600 battles have taken place.

At the end of each of the last two World Wars, concerted and popular efforts were made to come to a greater understanding of the underlying dynamics of war and to thereby hopefully reduce or even eliminate it all together. Shortly after World War II, as a token of support for this concept, most nations joined the United Nations. In 1947, in view of the rapidly increasingly destructive consequences of modern warfare, and with a particular concern for the consequences and costs of the newly developed atom bomb, Albert Einstein famously stated, I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

So - the circle closes - humankind began its first war with sticks and stones and faces the danger of fought its last war again with sticks and stones. It is logical to assume that if there is war, there are warriors. A warrior is individual skilled in combat or warfare, especially within the context of a tribal or clan-based society that recognizes a separate warrior class.

In tribal societies warriors often form a caste of their own. In feudalism, the vassals essentially form a military or warrior class, even if in actual warfare, peasants may be called to fight as well. In some societies, warfare may be so central that the large parts of the male population may be considered warriors, for example in the Iron Age Germanic tribes and Indian clans like the Sikhs.

While the warrior class in tribal societies is typically all-male, there are some exceptions where women formed part of the warrior class. A supposed group of fighting women is the legendary Amazons, recorded in Classical Greek mythology.

The military caste in a feudal society is evolved from the warrior class in a tribal society. This includes the Khalsa and Kshatriya castes in ancient India, the samurai class in feudal Japan, and noble knights in feudal Europe.

With the end of the Middle Ages and the professional standing armies of Early Modern warfare, the concept of a warrior class or military caste became an relic. The term warrior is still sometimes used to refer to professional soldiers or mercenaries. In addition to the literal meaning, now mostly historical, the term has acquired a figurative sense referring to a person who shows or has shown great vigor or courage.

Prehistoric Warfare

The Stone Age is a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make implements with a sharp edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4500 BC and 2000 BC with the advent of metalworking. Stone Age artifacts include tools used by humans and by their predecessor species in the genus Homo, as well as the earlier partly contemporaneous genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus.

The Stone Age is further subdivided by the types of stone tools in use. Stone tools were made from a variety of stone. For example, flint and chert were shaped (or chipped) for use as cutting tools and weapons, while basalt and sandstone were used for ground stone tools, such as quern-stones. Wood, bone, shell, antler (deer) and other materials were widely used, as well.

Prehistoric warfare refers to war conducted in the era before writing, and before the establishments of large social entities like states. Historical warfare sets in with the standing armies of Bronze Age Sumer, but prehistoric warfare may be studied in some societies at much earlier dates.

At this stage, the mobilization of all male group members in a raiding party (as opposed to a hunting party) for the purpose of dawn raids on another group's sleeping quarters shifts the tactical advantage from defenders to attackers, capitalizing on the advantages of surprise and numerical superiority. Of the many cave paintings from the Upper Paleolithic, none depict people attacking other people.

The first archaeological record of what could be a prehistoric battle is at a Mesolithic site known as Cemetery 117. It was determined to be about 14,340 to 13,140 years old and located on the Nile near the Egypt-Sudan border. It contains a large number of bodies, many with arrowheads embedded in their skeletons, which indicates that they may have been the casualties of a battle.

Beginning around 12,000 BC, combat was transformed by the development of bows, maces, and slings. The bow seems to have been the most important weapon in the development of early warfare, in that it enabled attacks to be launched with far less risk to the attacker when compared to the risk involved in the use of mêlée combat weaponry. While there are no cave paintings of battles between men armed with clubs, the development of the bow is concurrent with the first known depictions of organized warfare consisting of clear illustrations of two or more groups of men attacking each other. These figures are arrayed in lines and columns with a distinctly garbed leader at the front. Some paintings even portray still-recognizable tactics like flankings and envelopments.

Warfare originated independently in other parts of the world as late as 4,000 years ago.[

Assyrian Warfare

Assyria originated in the 23rd century BC, its earliest king Tudiya being a contemporary of Ibrium of Ebla. It evolved