50 Weapons That Changed Warfare

This is another fascinating book and quite a good read. The Author actually took pain and time to classify and categorise the weapons used in the different era of Military History. From the reading, I am able to relate why certain battles were fought the way they fought and come to appreciate why it was so and how advancement of technology also played such a significant role in Warfare... from 1st Generation of Warfare to the Third Generation and now, we are entering into the Fourth Generation of Warfare already... Steven Lim (RSTN)

This book, the work of a gifted amateur historian, gives you exactly what the title promises: Short (4-5 page) sketches of fifty different weapons that, in their day, revolutionized the way wars are fought. Each sketch includes a clear, non-technical description of what the weapon does and an explanation of its tactical impact, the latter illustrated by an account of the weapon in action. The fifty entries each stand on their own, but the book as a whole--read from cover to cover--is a good introductory survey of the history of weaponry. Weir has, with this single book, met two important needs. It is the first introduction to this subject aimed at general readers rather than military professionals, historians, or "war buffs." It is also the first introductory book to attend to hard-to-research topics like the history of land mines, smokeless powder, and recoilless artillery. The book deserves--for these reasons--wide attention from school, college, and public librarians. It is a crucial stepping-stone to more sophisticated works like Robert O'Connell's _Arms and Men_, William McNeill's _The Pursuit of Power_, and Martin van Creveld's _Technology and War_. Two persistent flaws diminish the book's value somewhat. The first is atrocious copyediting. "Theodolite" (a surveyor's tool) is rendered as "the odolite," naval aviator Wade McClusky is inexplicably renamed Clarence, the Japanese "supercarrier" Shinano is referred to three times in two pages as "Sinano," and a British soldier is described as being "invalidated" (rather than "invalided") out of the army as a result of his injuries. The second, more serious flaw is the near-total absence of line drawings that would reinforce the text by illustrating *how* specific weapons (or the tactics they spawned) work. Illustrations abound, but they generally add more atmosphere than enlightenment. If introductory books on the history of weaponry were more numerous, these flaws woudl be more serious. As it is, Weir has the field virtually to himself, and the good points of his work far outweigh the bad.