This is the first history of the legendary US Army's HAWK missile system, the world's first mobile air-defense missile system, which saw service and combat around the world.The HAWK surface-to-air missile system was the world’s first mobile missile system and one of the most advanced air defense weapons deployed during the Cold War. Designed to counteract the threat posed by advanced 1950s Soviet-built aircraft, the first HAWK unit became operational in 1959. At its peak, it saw frontline service in the Far East, Panama, Europe, and in the Middle East. Units were also used during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam War, and Persian Gulf War. In the hands of other nations, HAWK proved its efficacy in combat during the Arab-Israeli Wars, Iran-Iraq War, Chadian-Libyan War, and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.Credited with shooting down more than 100 aircraft during its combat career, the HAWK system was respected for its lethality. Such was Soviet concern, that it developed electronic jammers,
Big Bertha, Germany's World War I top secret mobile artillery piece, easily destroyed French and Belgian forts, helping set the stage for trench warfare.In the first days of World War I, Germany unvei
As the outbreak of World War II approached, Nazi Germany ordered artillery manufacturers Krupp and Rheimetall-Borsig to build several super-heavy siege guns, vital to smash through French and Belgian
The First World War was the Golden Age of the railway gun. More railway artillery pieces were used during this war than in any other conflict, even though at the start of the war none of the armies h
Jagging across northwestern Europe like an ugly scar, the Hindenburg Line was Germany's most formidable line of defense in World War I. Its fearsome reputation was matched only by its cunning design,
