Military Power

Please list your thoughts on the top ten combat innovations of all time. Please tell what criterion you used in the determining of your top 10.

What exactly are you talking about when you say "combat innovations"?

What I mean are innovations that either soldiers came up with in the field to deal with problems that they ran across (such as using silly string to discover tripwires in buildings they are clearing) or innovations that engineers came up with to improve existing equipment, or create new equipment. I know this is a very loose definition, so I'm hoping for a lot of diversity in answers.

Oh! You mean like British Tommys in the Great War building Mortars out of empty Jam tins in order to hurl grenades into the enemy trenches. It worked so well that it brought about the introduction of the lightweight Stokes Mortar. This provided, for the first time, a means by which the infantryman could provide indirect fire for himself, without having to call upon the Field Artillery.

The Mayan civilization of Central America are reported to have employed 'Hornet Nest throwers'.

Sounds like a pretty unpleasant task to me (but as they went into a bit of Human Sacrifice, I don't suppose they had many people refusing to 'volunteer').

Hobilar wrote:The Mayan civilization of Central America are reported to have employed 'Hornet Nest throwers'.

Sounds like a pretty unpleasant task to me (but as they went into a bit of Human Sacrifice, I don't suppose they had many people refusing to 'volunteer').

Which kind of hornets did they use? Something similar to a bald-face hornet? Or something like a supped-up Japanese hornet? Or did they use something like the F-18 Hornet??

Mayan Hornet Throwers gather nests of stinging insects and hurl them into combat. Once thrown, the nest erupts on impact, sending forth a swarm of angry stinging insects which can even get inside European armor and cause serious pain to the recipient. The Hornet Throwers cover themselves in mud to protect themselves from being stung.

Forestry_manDCNR07 wrote:
Or did they use something like the F-18 Hornet?? :D

Ha! Ha! Much more likely to have been the De Havilland DH103 Hornet. This was one of the sleekest fighters of the late 1940s. A development of the earlier Mosquito, this Hornet could achieve a remarkable speed (for a piston engine aircraft) of 472 mph IN FIGHTING TRIM.

That is pretty impressive

The Number 1 innovation of the 20th century has to be the Molotov Cocktail, though.

1. Packaged and canned food for the military
2. Camouflage
3. Global Positioning Systems (GPS)
4. Night vision and Infra Red Vision
5. Bow and arrow
6. Artillery
7. Rockets
8. Smart weapons
9. Naval war ships
10. Military Aircraft