Weapons of World War 2
If you ever decide to rent the 1989 movie "Fat Man and Little Boy," starring Paul Newman, be prepared. Watching this film about the development of the atomic bomb is undeniably disturbing. The film, titled for the nicknames of the two weapons dropped on Japan at the end of World War II, confronts the arguments against creation of the bomb: that Japan seemed defeated by the time it was ready for use; that there was uncertainty over its aftereffects; that if the U.S. stopped the bomb project, the vague possibility existed that the age of nuclear weapons would not begin. But they also address the counter-arguments: that Japan still had the capacity to inflict terrible casualties and remained, in any case, responsible for the war in the Pacific; that any scientific discovery carries a risk; that the theoretical knowledge of how to make atomic weapons meant their practical invention was inevitable.Most of us have seen the movie heroics portrayed John Wayne or Gary Cooper where the hero, armed with only a rifle or sheer determination storms the bunker of the evil "Gerry's" or the inscrutable Japanese. The mythos attached to World War II almost always falls short of the full-on devastation of two Japanese cities, devastation never befo
The main action against Germany during the fall of 1944 was in the air. Escorted by long-range fighters, particularly P-51 Mustangs, U.S. bombers hit industrial targets by day, while the German cities crumbled under British bombing by night. Hitler had responded by bombarding England, beginning in June, with V-1 flying bombs and in September with V-2 rockets; but the best launching sites, those in northwestern France and in Belgium, were lost in October. The effects of the Allied strategic bombing were less clear-cut than had been expected. The bombing did not destroy civilian morale, and German fighter plane and armored vehicle production reached their wartime peaks in the second half of 1944. On the other hand, iron and steel output dropped by half between September and December, and continued bombing of the synthetic oil plants, coupled with loss of the Ploiesti oil fields in Romania, severely limited the fuel that would be available for the tanks and planes coming off the assembly lines. "Artillery," the general military term for large weapons such as cannons and rocket launchers, had its scope expanded dramatically during the Second World War The largest weapons known as artillery are used by ground forces or mounted on aircraft and ships and include four main types of weapons: large guns, mortars, howitzers, and rocket launchers. World War II's basic statistics qualify it as by far the greatest war in history in terms of human and material resources expended. In all, 61 countries with 1.7 billion people, three-fourths of the world's population, took part. A total of 110 million persons were mobilized for military service, more than half of those by three countries: the USSR (22-30 million), Germany (17 million), and the United States (16 million). For the major participants the largest numbers on duty at any one time were as follows: USSR (12,500,000); U.S. (12,245,000); Germany (10,938,000); British Empire and Commonwealth (8,720,000); Japan (7,193,000); and China (5,000,000). (Ziemke) World War I (1914-18) began as a war of movement, but after the first few weeks of engagement, troops (and nations) found themselves in the midst of what amounted to a stand-off, or, at the very least, a war of wills. Each side suffered enormous casualties in vain efforts to breach the other's defenses; new weapons such as the airplane and the tank were introduced, and sea warfare was revolutionized by the submarine. (Miller, Clarke) Most statistics on the war are only estimates. The war's vast and frenzied sweep made record keeping impossible but rough consensus has been reached on the total cost of the war. In terms of money spent, it has been put at more than $1 trillion, which makes it more expensive than all other wars combined. The human cost, not inclu
Some common words found in the essay are:
War II, World War, Cass Howitzers, Cass Rocket, September December, Empire Commonwealth, War II's, France Belgium, Europe Pacific, United Navy's, world war, war ii, world war ii, rocket launchers, atomic bomb, guns 40-mm guns, hiroshima nagasaki, miller clarke, sea warfare, war german, blumenson world, 50-caliber machine guns, fought opposing fleets, mortars fired shells, explode impact,
Approximate Word count = 1871
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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