Boring But Practical / Real Life — Military and Warfare

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Military and Warfare

In General

• Discipline: sure, being a huge fellow with a large sword that can shout loud is impressive. Sure, being the maverick hero who doesn't answer to anyone and save the day by going against everyone's expectations looks cool. But in the end, these expectations exist because following orders in a disciplined fashion is just damned efficient. And this becomes Mundane Made Awesome when a huge army comes in a massive Zerg Rush.
  • Related to this is Formation Flying. Sure, a pilot that can fly rings around another pilot is great, and having an aircraft that can smack a target hundreds of miles away is also great, but the idea of flying in a formation has been around since the first military aircraft took off. The reason for this is quite simple: If four aircraft take off bound for a destination or target, and they fly in a specified formation, than all four will reach that point at the same time. In air-to-air engagements, formation flying (which is a massive skill prospective fighter pilots must master in the USAF) is key in self defense as well. While one pilot lines up the kill, the other watches their backs for additional threats. More importantly, if a plane goes down, the remaining aircraft can stay on station and relay coordinates to the SAR teams, and potentially protect them. Put short, there's more reasons to maintain formation than to leave it.
    • Though formation flying can be made to look pretty awesome, the US Navy runs the Blue Angels stunt flying team, whose shtick is pulling off complex aerobatic maneuvers in incredibly tight formation.
• "Amateurs study tactics. Professionals study logistics."
  • A tale commonly told in the military: Generals are a happily blessed race who radiate confidence and power. They feed only on ambrosia and drink only nectar. In peace, they stride along confidently and can invade a nation simply by sweeping their hands grandly over a map, pointing their fingers decisively up terrain corridors, and blocking defiles and obstacles with the sides of their arms. In war, they must stride more slowly, because each general has a logistician riding on his back and he knows that, at any moment, the logistician may lean forward and whisper, "No, you can't do that!"
  • This is why most generals tend to be far behind the front lines; they have the experience and knowledge to know where sending supplies or causing a disruption in enemy logistics would make or break a battle. Their knowledge can also help avert more hotheaded behaviour on new recruits, ensuring that they can inflict a maximum amount of damage to the enemy while maintaining a minimum of casualties (which is why discipline is so important, as the reason for a commander's orders might not be immediately clear to you, but certainly is to the guy shouting it). They're also often too old (or in some cases too injured) to be physically fit for combat, so while paperwork and map plotting isn't exactly exciting or glamorous work, it's certainly practical as hell.
  • Even more boring are the suppliers who have to accompany the infantry in order to keep them fed and armed. Terribly overlooked, suffering many of the same inadequacies and woes as their peers, oftentimes not being even armed, the humble caravan seeks to it that the rest of the army is able to do their jobs, be it through land, air, or sea. Unglamorous and under-appreciated as they are, other branches of military wouldn't function as smoothly as planned without 'em. Just don't mess with the log guys — it isn't wise to anger the men who are responsible for you being watered, fed, shod, clothed, sheltered, supplied, and equipped perhaps for years on end.
  • As mentioned above and below in Technology part cargo container, it's very important to deliver the necessities (food, uniforms, fuel, ammo, blankets, tents, etc.) to the guys on the front lines while also important to prevent guys from the other side retrieving theirs. Differences of competence of logistics can greatly tip the balance of war. One of the reasons that the Allies won in WWII was that the Allied logistic corps (both Western and Eastern, and both Pacific and Atlantic) were far better than any Axis logistics corps. For example, the notoriously undersupplied Chinese (though there were exceptions) managed to maintain a defensive stalemate against Japan into 1945, despite huge losses of land, manpower and a lack of adequate foreign aid, mainly due to their much better-supplied Japanese opponents severely overstretching their supply lines. Another example was in North Africa — while Rommel may have been a brilliant tactician, he's widely considered a terrible logistician by many historians. In his eagerness to drive back the Allied forces, he often overran his own supply lines, so much that capturing fuel dumps barely saved the Africa Korps from defeat in some cases.
    • Another problem is that for all of the Axis's tactical victories, the Allies had the boring advantage of having more men and materials to dedicate to the fight, particularly of critical resources like oil and food. While the Japanese forces faced starvation and every navy ship lost was nearly impossible to replace, the United States had a ship dedicated solely to delivering ice cream to its troops and was building thousands of ships (mostly merchant ships) each month.
  • All of this is one of the main reasons why Dwight D. Eisenhower became Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces — not because of his combat record (which was basically non-existent), but his ability to muster needed resources and supplies for the armed forces while making flamboyant field commanders like Bernard Montgomery and George Patton work together despite their egos and extreme personalities.
  • Julius Caesar once said an army marches on its stomach. Napoleon similarly said "The outcome of the battle is incidental to the decisive question of supply." He lost his campaign in Egypt, for instance, because the British Navy destroyed the French fleet that was providing Napoleon's army with supplies. The supplies on hand allowed him to operate for a time, but he left before things inevitably went south on him.
  • It was Napoleon's insistence on stocked supply lines that led to the invention of one of the most Boring, but Practical aspects of modern life: canned food. (Connections explains — it takes about 20 minutes to get there, but it's worth it!).
• In World War II: the Allies in general count. Contrasting with the Axis side's love for Awesome, but Impractical devices (the Tiger, Panther, Type-93 Torpedo, Type-97 20mm AT Rifle, Yamato-class Battleships, the list continues....) the Allies simply used less flashy (a.k.a. boring) things that nevertheless did their job very well. The aforementioned trucks? Japan, Italy and Germany combined didn't produce as many trucks as Canada alone...
  • ...speaking of which, Canada's contribution to WWII in general. While they fought with distinction in many places, and were responsible for one of the five beaches on D-Day (two Brit, two US, one Canuck), their most important contributions to the war were industrial (trucks and arms production), training (aircrews), and raw materials and foodstuffs. Much like its southern neighbor, Canadian industry was simply out of the enemy's reach and could not be disrupted by bombing raids.
• While elephants are particularly famous for their use in warfare being very inconsistent, elephants nonetheless remained in use for military forces long after this was realized... because they were still very useful in the ultimate of an army's Boring, but Practical: the logistics train!
• One of the factors that makes US military power so fearsome is its unparalleled ability to supply its front line combat formations with all the food, water, ammunition, fuel, spare parts and the hundreds of other items required to operate at peak efficiency. The sheer number of aircraft, ships, vehicles and personnel in their logistics operations division are larger than many other countries' entire military personnel combined!
  • The US has, historically, also had the very simple advantage of being too far away for the enemy to target its industrial base; Japan could take the Philippines and Germany could bomb Britain, but nobody had the range to even attempt attacks on North America.
• The Infantry. As noted by Robert A. Heinlein, while technology may evolve to include incredibly dangerous tanks, bombs, aircraft carriers, missiles, nuclear weapons, and everything else that can conceivably kill a thousand people inside a nanosecond, there has only ever been one branch of Armed Forces remarkable in its consistency; a man, trained or untrained, between fourteen and fifty years of age, and a weapon in his hand. This man (and occasionally, this woman) has endured the scorching jungles of Guadalcanal, the lung-busting altitude of Tenochtitlan, and the unbearable hell of Stalingrad. When a Tank rolls across his path, he puts a bit of fuel in a bottle, sets a light, and throws it underneath. When a plane flies overhead, he finds a ridge and hides under it. When poison gas lands near him, he pisses on his handkerchief and covers his mouth. He can fight in damn near any conditions, run on (in comparison to other forms of warfare) minuscule amounts of fuel, cross any terrain (in time), and defeat any foe given enough of him. He is the Duckfoot, the Mehmet, the Tommy, the Poilu, the GI, the average infantry soldier. He is the most boring arm of any Armed Force, to the point that many of its members are forced to be there. But, boy, is he the most practical.
  • And the most common thing carried by the infantry, besides their weapons? Baby powder/foot powder. Foot injuries, like trench foot or blisters (to say nothing of their groin equivalents, chafing and "swamp ass"), can make movements and marches a special kind of torture, and can easily get infected, putting a trooper out of the fight until they are better. Keeping the feet and groin dry and healthy is incredibly important, with some units having their medics going over everyone's feet after every march over a certain distance (you'll probably have to get real close to Doc if you want him to examine your groin, though...)
  • "You can bomb it, you can strafe it, you can cover it with poison, you can turn it into glass, but you don't own it unless your infantry's on it and the other guy's isn't."
  • "Aerial bombardment can obliterate, but only infantry can occupy." — a Finnish Army officer, Operation Allied Force (1999), Kosovo.
• The Navy as a whole too. Oh sure, we've gone from oars to sails to steam-engines to IC engines to (in some cases) nuclear power, but a floating hull capable of carrying armed men has been pretty much a constant theme for a very long time. Interestingly enough, while the Navies of the world were long a very important factor in warfare it took until the late 19th century that a Naval War College grad by the name of Alfred Thayer Mahan wrote a book called The Influence of Sea Power upon History in which he laid out a very convincing case as to the importance of naval power.
  • Ironically one of the effects of Mahan's book and what came to be dubbed "Mahanian thought" was an Lensman Arms Race mostly concerned with flashy Dreadnoughts and other capital ships which helped escalate tensions in Europe (the German High Seas Fleet was explicitly built as a challenge to the British Royal Navy to be too large to ignore — forcing them to either ally with Germany or refrain from war as a confrontation would be to risky — in the actual war, the German surface ships mostly stayed in port and were ultimately scuttled by their crews in Scapa Flow after the war). What naval combat in both world wars showed was that what mostly mattered was convoy duty which was so boring, its very boringness (and lack of honor as an assignment) led to the British admiralty delaying its implementation until it was almost too late.
  • What Mahan actually wrote was that any country that could maintain command of the sea during a war would most likely win a war because they could maintain supply lines and maritime trade while denying the same to the enemy. He recommended using a large decisive battle to win command of the sea essentially to counter the possibility of defeat in detail; if you kept your big navy together, then the other navy would have to stick together to have a possibility of winning an engagement, and thus when both fleets fought it would be an all-or-nothing deal that would leave one side without the power to contest command of the sea. Mahan also advocated for logistics and advised care with forward bases, but these tend to get ignored in favor of the 'decisive battle' bit.
• Medevac personnel. Sure, these people don't kill any bad guys, but being in the battlefield without any weapons to constantly drag other human beings to relative safety multiple times requires serious dedication and true bravery. One serious advantage the US had at the Pacific Theatre was a dedicated medevacs force to treat their wounded on land and on sea.
  • The Engineer. All kinds of them. What Medevacs do for humans, these guys do with equipment. Effective damage control is often mooted as one significant factor in keeping the US Navy afloat during the early years of the Pacific War.
  • The US Navy has their Construction Battalion, or 'Seabees'. They do basically everything in an active war zone that isn't combat or medical in nature; building, electronics, mechanics, utilities, et cetera. In the hectic environment of the Pacific Theater, having a bunch of Seabees throw up a makeshift airfield and barracks on some tiny barren island as fast as possible could mean the difference between taking another island easily and having to slog through months of extra Japanese reinforcement, or your ships having air cover vs. having to swat kamikazes out of the sky with their AA batteries until they ran out of ammo or got unlucky. Very little has changed about the Construction Battalion from their inception to the present day, they're just that useful.
• For all the focus most writers and the general public place on bold high-risk operations, the majority of useful intelligence has been and probably will continue to be gathered through open sources. This means newspapers, blogs, media, and anything else that anybody can have a gander at. To quote General Anthony Charles Zinni, USMC (Ret.), former Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Central Command (CINCENT): "80% of what I needed to know as CINCENT I got from open sources rather than classified reporting. And within the remaining 20%, if I knew what to look for, I found another 16%. At the end of it all, classified intelligence provided me, at best, with 4% of my command knowledge."
  • This is true also for civilian/technological espionage. While KGB might've used James Bond-ian spies to steal highly classified industrial information, the bulk of tech data that Soviets were receiving from the West was retrieved by an army of simple office workers who every day read every single scientific and technical magazine, publication or book available on the "capitalist" market.
  • It even works with negative information — prior to and during WWII, nuclear physicists around the world could tell that many governments were researching atomic bombs because their colleagues had stopped publishing papers (i.e. their research had become classified).
  • One popular tactic to gauge how high an intelligence agency's alert level is is to take a quick glance at their parking lot and see how many cars are parked there. Of course there is yet another boring but practical solution to have your opponent guessing: Have them all arrive by public transit. You can still see how busy the Metro station is, but you can't do that from aerial or satellite photography, and even then it could blend in to the normal workday traffic.
  • An example of just how simple intelligence gathering can be: after writing The Hunt for Red October, Tom Clancy was visited by government agents who were very put out that the book had discussed highly classified aspects of modern submarine technology. Clancy was able to get off the hook by showing that he had gotten all his information by going to the local library, reading up on unclassified information there, and just doing a little extrapolating. All that top-secret information was essentially lying around in the open for anyone who cared to invest in nothing more than a library card and a few hours of studying.
    • Something similar happened with Dr. Strangelove; the military got very worried about how the filmmakers had managed to create such an extremely elaborate mockup of the classified cockpit of a bomber plane. Turns out, they had simply looked at a picture of an earlier, de-classified model of bomber, and then adjusted it to fit the exterior dimensions of the newer plane.
• The elaborate Ultra operation by which the British managed to break many of the German Enigma codes and the Magic operation by which the Americans managed to break various high-grade Japanese codes are all well known. What received a lot less attention was the Germans breaking the British merchant marine codes. That was a rather simpler matter, but nevertheless brought the Western allies close to losing the Battle of the Atlantic in 1942.
• It's well-known that radar was one of Britain's greatest advantages in fending off the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain. What's not so well-known is that not only did the Germans also have radar, theirs was more advanced. But Robert Watson-Watt, radar expert at the Ministry of Aircraft Production, encouraged a policy of "second-best tomorrow" — it was more important to have something that worked tomorrow than something that might be perfect next year. Germany wasted resources trying to improve radar's ability to detect numbers, range and direction all at once, while Watson-Watt helped design the integrated ground-control interception system. Radar signals from Chain Home were combined with coastline observers armed with binoculars, a system of "Filter Rooms" to sort good information from bad, and people doing plain old geometry by hand to vector fighters towards incoming Luftwaffe raids, with no simple point of weakness. If telephone lines were broken, runners and bicycles were standing by.
• Despite having an arsenal of high-tech weaponry, the ability to call down airstrikes at the ready, the very latest in military vehicle technology and the best equipment available to a soldier, U.S Special Operations forces in the early part of the Afghan war found the best way to get around in isolated, mountainous country was the same one that the Afghans had used for centuries; the horse. Mules are generally preferred. Indeed it's now considered so important for operations in mountainous regions that the Marines' Mountain Warfare Training Center runs an 11-day course on Animal packing.
• Tying into their use of shovels below, the Roman Legions were famously fond of figuring out the simplest way to win a battle, and adapting to it. The result was a military machine that was extremely imitative of its greatest enemies, but uniquely Roman in how much they integrated it with their famous discipline and another Boring But Practical trait: Experience. In their prime, Legions were comprised of thousands of actual combat veterans who all knew how to fortify their camps every night, used a shield and sword copied off successful enemies of theirs, employing auxiliaries as their Simple, yet Awesome specialists for cavalry, artillery, etc… and they mastered rotating their lines in battle, a simple tactic that allowed them to ground their enemies down without losing too much energy.
• Armor is very important. Regardless of if your enemy is carrying spears and swords, or firearms, if you can't protect your guys, they'll end up dead. Simply wearing more than a few layers of linen, such as a thick Gambeson-type armor, can increase one's chances of survival by quite a bit. Add on a layer of metal, even better odds of survival. Add on a good shield, and all other forms of protection, and one is practically a walking armored tank. Even Modern armors, like Kevlar and Dragonscale, operate on this principle.
• Movies would have you believe that a big handgun like a. 357 Magnum is a superior firearm, but there's a reason the 9mm Beretta has been standard issue in the US military for almost 30 years. It's reliable, easy to break down, clean, and reassemble, fires with high velocity, and is lightweight and more portable than heavy handguns.
  • The other component is that 9mm ammunition is NATO standard, meaning that ammunition supplies from partner countries are guaranteed to be compatible (unlike the .45 ACP M-1911 in prior use, which had better stopping power but had to rely exclusively on U.S. Military supply lines to keep them fed).

Tactics

• The Spartans had three advantages over the hoplites of the rest of Greece. Their physical training is the most famous, but the truly decisive ones were the discipline to turn their phalanx (meaning they could suddenly change direction and charge an enemy phalanx on the side, if the terrain allowed it) and knowing how to use their decorative swords. The latter carried the day at Plataea: the Persians had figured they could effectively disable the hoplites by grabbing their spears and using their own swords and were defeating the Tegean force this way, but when the Spartans reacted to the trick by simply drawing their swords, the Persians found themselves back to square one.
• The Pincer Maneuver, though sometimes difficult to set up, is remarkably simple. Lure the enemy into the center of your forces (sometimes through concealment of The Cavalry, sometimes through a feint that the center is weakening), then wrap your own forces around them. This forces the enemy to fight on multiple fronts while your forces only need to focus on one. Variations exist, as well.
  • Shaka Zulu utilized the "Bull Horn" technique, in which the veterans comprised the Chest, pinning the enemy into place, as the Horns closed in to attack the flanks, with the Loins held back in reserve in case they were needed.
  • Admiral Yi Sun-sin of Korea invented the "Crane Wing" formation, relying on the unique Turtle ship to execute it. Since the opposing Japanese navy relied on boarding tactics, this allowed him to send the Turtle ships into the center of their fleet to wreak havoc, as they were designed to repel boarding tactics, while the rest of his fleet encircled the enemy and obliterated them.
• True castles, not palaces or houses "Inspired by…" castle architecture. Being built for defense and protection means that they're usually cold, dark, and not very nice to look at. But hey, it withstands a siege really well!
  • This is extremely true of those castles which have been built and expanded over several centuries. The oldest parts of the castle are usually purely defensive and functional, while the newer parts are administrative and newest parts are habitative. This trope is very much present at Turku castle, Finland. Also compare the castles of Turku (court), Hämeenlinna (administrative center) and Olavinlinna (purely military): the Olavinlinna castle lacks any romanticism the Turku castle has, but it is purely a Medieval military fortress — designed to defeat cannon fire and to control important logistical routes. It has never been conquered by an attacking army.
  • The Medieval city walls of Dubrovnik, Croatia, successfully stood the fire of the modern artillery by the Serbian besieging troops for almost six months in the Croatian War of Independence in 1992. Not only was the city not conquered then, but it has never been conquered in its whole history.
  • British Fourteenth Army ran into a similar problem in the reconquest of Burma in 1945. The walled city of Yangon had to be besieged, forcing a throwback to medieval siege tactics, to win it back from the Japanese. Its thousand year old walls could only be breached by bringing up some of the heaviest guns possessed by the Royal Artillery — weapons designed to throw a shell nearly twenty miles — and have them firing point-blank at the wall for several days until they forced a breach. Which then had to be stormed by assault infantry, much as Henry V stormed Calais in 1414...
  • If castles are too exciting, try a motte-and-bailey castle. Basically a tower built on a mound of earth adjacent to courtyard surrounded by a simple ditch and wooden palisade. The courtyard held most of the buildings, resources and people, if a serious attack threatened, everyone could retreat into the tower. It was crowded and uncomfortable, but highly defensible. Compared to traditional castles, these could be built quickly (in months, as opposed to years), using mostly unskilled labor. Not great for a multi-year siege, but they could withstand most assaults very effectively.
• During Hannibal Barca's invasion of Rome, Quintus Fabius Maximus was appointed dictator in order to fend him off after Hannibal had crushed two Roman armies that assembled against him. The Fabian Strategy he employed is frustratingly simple — don't engage directly, but wear them down through skirmishes, ambushes, and attrition. While the Senators in Rome weren't happy, it had the effect of demoralizing and depleting Hannibal's troops while not risking Roman forces in open combat.
• Trenches. Bad guys have guns? Big guns? Artillery? Dig a ditch and use it for cover. Foxholes are an even simpler version, literally just being a big hole you dig up and hide in. You can even put a smaller deeper hole in the middle of it in case the bad guys chuck a grenade at you. Just kick the grenade into the hole and your chances of surviving just went up considerably. If you're in a hurry, just scrape out a "Ranger Grave", a slit trench barely big enough for you to lie in. It's not comfortable, and in fact it's barely adequate, but it will give you considerably more protection than being at ground level. More than a few extended battles in modern history could be described as brief periods of fighting punctuated by long periods of soldiers digging constantly to turn their patch of grass into a slit trench, then into a foxhole, then into a better foxhole.
  • Dirt in general makes better cover from gunfire than most harder materials that are readily available. Bullets that will readily splinter trees, crack masonry, and shred sheet metal will be stopped cold by a humble parapet of dirt less than a foot thick.
• Taking down a castle is hard work, and almost impossible without either an extreme numeric advantage, lots of equipment, and help from the inside. Unless you surrounded the castle, killed anyone who tried to bring in supplies, and wait till the defenders surrender or starve.
  • Sieges in general can be considered this for ancient and medieval warfare in general. Open battles were extremely risky affairs that could lead to huge losses on both sides, and were often only willingly carried out if one side greatly held the advantage. A siege, on the other hand, was a comparatively simple waiting game that if done successfully, would lead to a surrendered enemy army to be held as hostages, a captured enemy territory, and minimal losses on the attacker's side, although when you have thousands upon thousands of men gathered together in filthy conditions, infectious disease loves to scoff at your sure thing.
  • The Trebuchet and Catapult lobbing stones at a castle wall while still pretty impressive looking, is far less glamorous and "Epic" than simply sending men with ladders at the castle or a battering ram. Yet despite this, it's safer, and when you either need to take the castle quickly or retreat, far more effective than simply running in.
  • Sunzi especially warns on storming castles and cities: he insists to pass them by or to besiege them and let them starve and wither, and take them without assault.
  • During the Middle Ages, if a castle or city was stormed and taken by an assault, it was customary to have the invader rob, rape and plunder it for three days and three nights. If the castle or city surrendered after a siege, it was customary to tax the inhabitants ("fire tax") in lieu of torching it. If the castle or city surrendered without a siege, it usually was completely spared. This reflected the risks involved in each method. This is also the reason why the Crusaders plundered Jerusalem in 1099, but Saladin didn't in 1187 but only taxed it: the Crusaders took the town on assault, while it surrendered to Saladin after a siege.
  • The German word brandschatzen is now often misinterpreted as meaning "burn down something"; what it actually meant (at least during the Thirty Years' War) was threaten to burn down something (usually a city), hence the brand part — unless one was given something, usually the city treasure, hence the "schatz part. Sure, burning down a town might give you some satisfaction and if it was a useful town to the enemy, give you some military advantage, but people tend to dislike having their stuff burned down and fight back and ultimately, what material advantage do you gain by turning it all to ash? Better to just blackmail yourself into some nice cash. You can always use cash.
• The shield-wall tactic is slower and far less glorious then everyone-for-himself melee battle but it gives the group of users a sense of camaraderie, sense of security, better defense, and higher chance to fight for another day. Greeks, Macedonians, Romans, and Nords (think Vikings) — and even modern cops and rioters in street battles — usually go into a battle with this tactic.
• The Art of War (Sun Tzu) and The Thirty-Six Stratagems are all about simple, practical strategies, which include making preparations before actually fighting, deceiving the enemy, befriending defeated foes, and exercising patience instead of reckless abandon. Even the thirty-sixth stratagem is a simple retreat when the battle cannot be won, and Sun Tzu's ideal of a supreme strategist is not one who wins every battle, but one who never has to fight at all, i.e. being so powerful and well-prepared that your opponent gives up or doesn't even want to start fighting you.
• Miltiades' tactic at the Battle of Marathon: to put it simply, being a first-hand witness to Persian tactics was rather useful, considering that the Persians were bent on destroying Athens, and thus, he ordered the two tribes in the center to be arrayed to a depth of four ranks while the rest of the tribes, on their flanks, were arrayed in eight ranks and he also had his men march to the end of the Persian archer range, and then, break out in a run straight at the Persian army. The result? A decisive victory for the Greek Army and a defining moment for the young Athenian democracy, marking the start of the "Golden Age" of Athens. This tactic is still taught in military academies.
• Navies have shore bombardment. It's a highly boring way to use your battleships, and only useful in areas close to the ocean, but there's absolutely nothing like 15 or 16-inch guns chucking tons of high explosives at a target to completely ruin the enemy's day. One major reason the USN retained the Iowa-class battleships for so long is because using their guns was a much cheaper and safer way to erase grid coordinates from existence than using aircraft or missiles.

Personal weapons

• Shields. Rocks, pieces of wood, animal hide, a convenient wall and metal shields are damn useful. Even in the modern day shields still find use in riot work and even in tactical entry (although they can't be expected to stop much more than pistol rounds). It functions well with armor and strap shields can be used with any one handed weapon. If you need a smaller one to have an open hand, you can use a buckler. Someone trained with a shield can easily defeat someone without one, or an untrained person with one. Oh, and countless examples have proven that handheld shields can make good weapons, too.
  • The old good Roman shield-wall tactics actually still lives on: most riot police forces around the world are basically a modern take on the Roman formation: they wear (fiberglass and HDPE) lamellar armor, carry tower shields, which they often use to bash rioters with, they frequently form shield wall.
• The viking helmet. (No, not◊that◊one◊. Ah yes, this one◊). May be disappointing because it doesn't have the same fanciness than the fake ones, but these are actually more practical. Why? As you can see, these helmets not only have a nose guard (which is pretty useful), but also have a cheek guard, which protects you from eye and face attacks; you may get a little scratch if your opponent hit you, but you will still be safe — unless your opponent makes a very decisive cut to the throat. If that wasn't sufficient, they also have a neck guard on the back, which prevents backstabbing. Pretty useful helmets.
• The humble spear. Basically the next step of weapons development after inventing the knife (or sharpened rock) and has been in use for tens of thousands of years by almost every single culture that has ever existed. A simple stone and wood spear turns a human from a nearly helpless, underpowered naked ape to a serious threat. Arm a group of skilled humans with spears together and they're suddenly the apex predator on earth. Entire armies were equipped with spears until firearms made them obsolete and even in modern times, their descendants (in the form of bayonets) remain relevant.
  • The length of the spear makes a world of difference, as well. The Spartans need no introduction with their prowess with their spears, their training, their shields and their military record. How did Philip II of Macedonia defeat them to conquer Greece and Trace? He doubled the length of the spear.
• The humble short sword and shield of the Roman legions. Compared to the massive swords and axes of their opponents, these seemed sadly undersized, but combined with Roman tactics, it easily carried the day in thousands of engagements. There's a reason it's known as "the sword that conquered the world".
  • Also, the way they used their swords. Nothing fancy, just a thrust in the belly of the enemy, or, if they had a shield, a slashing attack to hack the arm holding the shield (something you couldn't do with larger swords) before the thrust. Those two simple moves and the thrust in particular, were so efficient that, to this day, Italian swordfighters and fencers continue to carry the day using that move (Italian fencers practically dominate their sport).
• The Roman shovel, even more boring, but even more practical as the tool that conquered the world. The Roman legions were trained even more rigorously with their shovels than with their swords. Why? With their shovels, they could construct earthworks around their camps, making them much harder to assault while at rest. They could dig latrines for sanitation. They could build roads so that the legions that would follow them could arrive faster. They could dig underneath walls during sieges, then collapse the tunnels, causing the walls to weaken and fall. You can also improvise a shovel as a polearm or a club. Over a lifetime, the average Roman soldier would use his shovel nearly a thousand times more than his sword. After all, you could only use a sword to fight, but you can use a shovel for ANYTHING.
  • To this very day, many armies train their soldiers in the use of shovels (or Entrenching Tools, shortened to E-tools) as weapons. Specific examples include the Green Berets, who are trained in using their E-Tools as hacking and stabbing weapons and the Spetsnaz who are trained in how to throw them like hatchets. The Spetsnaz also quickly learn how to use them to cook; apparently, the Spetnaz entrenching tool makes for a good frying pan. (For a nonmilitary example, this Art of Manliness video will teach you to use a shovel to cook steak.)
    • Worse yet, it's not a Spetsnaz equipment. It's a common infantryman gear, as indicated in its name of MPL-50 — "Small Infantry Spade, 50 cm". EVERY Russian soldier has one and while few are trained in fancy moves like throwing, everyone knows how to use it as a hatchet. It also changed remarkably little since its introduction 150 years ago^note Ironically, invented by a Dane who's been told that It Will Never Catch On by his own Government — Denmark ordered only a token amount of them and he never made any money until the huge orders by Russia and Austria. However, only Russia has ever bothered to pay for a license.: the only meaningful change was rounding it off to the exactly 50 cm after the metric system was introduced.
  • Robert E. Lee, who, despite some reappraisals by historians, is still widely considered one of the better overall commanders the South had during the american civil war. He was (jokingly) called the "King of Spades" by his soldiers because he ordered them to dig in so much. While they initially hated it (that was the work of slaves, after all), after the military successes started coming in, they learned the wisdom behind that strategy. In fact, most of the mistakes Lee made were of an offensive nature (e.g. Pickett's charge), not the fact that he dug in too much.
• How about the bow and arrow? The first truly effective projectile weapon (after the primitive sling). Used and improved upon for thousands of years and only finally outclassed by gunpowder weapons. However, their popularity in movies and as a recreational sport has greatly diminished the "boring" aspect.
  • During the feudal era of Japan, arrows took the lives of far more soldiers than any other type of weapon, roughly 70% of the casualties of any major battle, even after the introduction of firearms into the Japanese arsenal. The bow was the primary weapon of the Samurai when large-scale battles were still fought by the daimyo; they were used as armored archers who had swords simply to defend themselves if the enemy closed to melee range. The obsession with the sword only really began in the Tokugawa Shogunate when full-scales battles ceased to happen.
  • Also, just why did firearms replace bow and arrow? It is generally assumed that firearms are just all around superior and while that is true for modern firearms, the first firearms were primitive, muzzle loading, cumbersome pieces that did not work well (or at all) when it rained ("Keep your powder dry" is still a well known saying for a reason), they were so inaccurate some drill sergeants actually advised their soldiers to close their eyes when they fired, they are loud (which has both advantages and disadvantages — it can scare away enemies, but it hinders communication on the battlefield and it is the death of stealth) and they were not necessarily deadlier than the bow and arrow in the hands of a well trained archer. So what was their advantage? Well, while it takes a while to get a bunch of recruits to march in step, load a muzzle loader reasonably quickly and fire a clean volley (as opposed to the much less effective ragged fire) that can be done in years or perhaps even months — and you can, if push comes to shove, get something out of your recruits within weeks. Whereas when it comes to archery, the old saying goes, if you want a good archer, start with his grandfather. The muscles used in archery are basically used for nothing else and need constant training, to say nothing of aim (the secret behind archery is to do the same set of movements precisely the same way over and over again until you are as accurate as a machine). So while pound for pound an elite archer beats a grunt with a boomstick (especially when it comes to accuracy and rate of fire) — it's simply much easier to Zerg Rush your opponent with a bunch of boomstick grunts, especially since they can have a normal civilian occupation during peacetime and don't need to spend several hours each day honing their weapons skills to avoid losing them.
  • And what was between the bow and the firearm? The crossbow. It was more cumbersome to reload than a bow but could throw its bolt with enough force to pierce plate armor, while arrows generally needed to hit a spot where plates met. In addition, since crossbows had a locking mechanism, the shooter didn't need to keep the string under tension with their strength while aiming. And, most importantly, crossbowmen could be trained in months as opposed to years for longbowmen.
• By the way — that "primitive" sling? A weapon of terror. Ammo is basically infinite, you can use either specially-made shots or anything small and hard, it is essentially the ancient counterpart of pistols. The Romans dreaded sling-masters because they could kill armored soldiers through concussions. Reloading is extremely quick and trained sling wielders only needed one swing to get to full power. By the accounts from Old Testament Bible, the Israelite militias utilised slings way earlier than the Romans, and was famous for killing a giant in one hit. (Though modern versions of the story often forget the part where David beheaded him after taking him down. And gave his head to king Saul. The Bible isn't all fit for kids.) The slingshot is actually a step backwards in lethality. The Spanish armies included slingers until the 16th century — they could easily kill an unarmoured Muslim horseman at distance. Slings were considered so deadly there was a time where their use could be considered a war crime. Again, they only disappeared from the field because firearms developed to the point where they could do the same thing without years of training behind them. Nowadays, some shepherds use slings to keep the sheep from predators — which is by all accounts how the biblical David learned to handle a sling in the first place.
• The warhammer. Step 1: Take a somewhat largish regular hammer. Step 2: Give it a longer handle. You now have one of the most effective weapons of the pre-gunpowder era. Is your enemy unarmored? Simple, crack his skull. Is your enemy armored? Simple, crack his skull—his helmet might keep him from dying, but he'll be so dazed anyway there's no functional difference.
  • Enemy still on his feet? Turn it around and swing again. Almost all warhammers had a solid spike on the opposite side. Very few weapons could pierce armor like that little beauty.
• The knife. Sure, it's probably mankind's oldest tool, but it has that title for a reason. It's a tool you can use to cut, as well as make new tools with. It is such an effective weapon that it is the only remaining pre-gunpowder era weapon that still sees consistent use with the military. In fact, its utility is only limited by the materials used to make it and the amount of force that can be applied to it.
  • Really, a knife is this in spades. It also falls into Simple, yet Awesome territory when you take into account the sheer versatility of a good unspecialized knife. It has literally countless uses, even around the average home (Cutting open packaging, use as an impromptu screwdriver or hammer with the butt, use in place of scissors and that's to say nothing of its culinary applications) and if you ever ask a survivalist what three things to take into any survival type situation, they'll list off "Knife, fire or a way to make fire and clean water" in that order. If you're stuck in the woods with just a knife (or a hatchet), with a little thought you have it made—a knife can net you all the tools you need to make fire, get food and get the resources to make clean, drinkable water. And in addition to all of this it also has self defense applications, really, a knife is probably the single most versatile tool ever created.
• In various tropical and subtropical countries, any machete-like blade is this. Like the axe to Europeans and North Americans, machete has self-defense use as well as mundane use. Frequently used to cut through rain forest undergrowth, removing small branches and plants, for agricultural purposes (e.g. cutting sugar cane) any many other use.
  • Basically any weapon derived from an agricultural tool: blade, sickle, and knife are this trope, as they have both mundane use and self defense weapon use, i.e. it is a common sight for any Nepalese farmer to wield kukri while they work, and some schools of martial arts in Java and Madura even developed some moves using sickles.
• Speaking of which, the axe counts. There's a reason why the simple hand axe was one of the first human inventions ever. An axe can chop wood, break through barriers, butcher fish and game, and more. As a weapon, it's better for penetrating armor than swords, and even if it doesn't penetrate, it's not half-bad as a bludgeoning weapon like a warhammer, not to mention easier to make and maintain. For millennia, pretty much everyone owned an axe of some kind, so it's the perfect Improvised Weapon, especially for peasants.
• The French Nail. In the early days of World War One when trench warfare was the name of the game. Unfortunately military intelligence and supply hadn't yet caught up to the actual battlefield conditions and were supplying long rifles and sword-like bayonets to the troops that were far too cumbersome to use. So what did the French do for trench-raiding weaponry? They stole barb wire posts from the German lines and wrought them into the form of crude stabbing implements that were much more compact and maneuverable. After it was deployed against them the Germans took a cue from the French and did the same with their own equipment.
• How 'bout the Martial Arts Staff? A long, plain piece of wood — that can kill a man with a powerful, well-aimed blow. It was the spear and warhammer before the spear and warhammer were invented. It's got range that swords don't have, heft that can hurt you through armor, pretty light and portable as a weapon, and if you've got a forest of any kind, you've got a staff. Basically the Jack of All Trades of hand-to-hand weapons.
• Wanna kill a guy really fast but don't have a knife or rock or weapon of any kind? Bite him. In the throat. As Y: The Last Man explained, a human bite delivers more force per area than a punch or kick, and it works a lot faster than a stranglehold or grapple. Ever bitten into a steak or crunched through bone? You may not have the bite strength of a crocodile and have to get in real close for it to work, but your jaw muscles and teeth can easily puncture through the skin and flesh of any body part. And even if it doesn't kill, it can still induce bleeding, or expose your opponent to bacterial infection if they manage to survive the initial assault. It is also hella scary to your enemies and his friends. People tend to think twice about taking a swing at the maniac who bites people.

Firearms

Firearms

Russia

Russian small arms design deserves a standing ovation across the board, at least for the designs which wound up being mass issued in the field. To be brief:

• The AK-47 and AKM assault rifles are the most widely used rifle in the world. They ain't flashy or the most ergonomic, but they're easy to operate, are simple to take apart and put back together, and are extremely durable. Mikhail Kalashnikov set out to make the simplest, toughest automatic weapon he could, and he succeeded.
  • Spawned a line of successors using a simple long stroke piston and a rotating bolt. The AK family is the global gold standard of reliability and the AK-47 and AKM have been produced more than any other gun in the world, so much so that nobody really knows how many AK's there are. Name a war, any war after 1955, and you may be damn sure AKs were in it.
• Topped by the even older SKS, a simple, semi-auto rifle chambered in 7.62x39mm with a fixed 10-round magazine. Known for being very reliable. Meant to be used by conscripts with minimal training. While the Kalashnikov replaced it shortly into its career in Russia, the SKS has gone on to be a common sight around the world, and remains very popular on the civilian market as a cheap, yet still highly-effective, sporting rifle. And despite being largely decommissioned in the most roles, it looks fancy enough that it's still used as a ceremonial rifle by the Russian military. It also served as the standard service rifle of the People's Liberation Army for a time, and even today they still use it as their ceremonial rifle as well.
• The PPS Submachine gun family. It is similar to the Sten in that it was a low cost weapon using the absolute minimum number of parts, and over 2 million were produced between 1942 and 1946. This was an often seen weapon in the Red Army, and served alongside the PPSh-41 as the weapon that most often ended up in the hands of soldiers that didn't use rifles. It was nothing to look at, but it got the job done, and when you have an underfunded, stretched thin army, that's really all that matters at the end of the day.
  • Ironically, PPS is often said to be even better than the venerable "Papasha", because… it's even more rugged and reliable, and because of the longer barrel it even has the better accuracy.
• The Mosin-Nagant 1891 and its variants: Perhaps the simplest bolt action rifle ever made, terrifyingly rugged, both it and its cartridge still serve to this day around the world. Simple as hell to operate, aim, and maintain. If the bolt gets jammed, you can open the bolt with a boot. Uses 7.62x54mmR, the oldest military cartridge still in use. Hits like a mofo out to a distance beyond which 99% of users or rifles could make hits, and is so widely available that one can be had for less than $200. Aside from being the standard service rifle for Russia in both world wars, Mosins were seen on the front lines of the Russian Civil War, saw heavy use by the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, were used against the Russians by the Finns in the Winter War (famous sniper Simo Häyhä made most of his kills with a Finnish-built variant, the M/28-30), and saw action with the North Korean and Chinese forces during the Korean War. Even as Kalashnikovs became more commonplace, Mosins were still used by the NVA and Viet Cong throughout The Vietnam War. And in the present day, despite all the modern technology available, the old "garbage rod" has seen use in the various Middle East conflicts as well as in Ukraine.
  • On the other hand, the "nugget" may not be the smoothest bolt action to operate, and the basic design doesn't scale up well if one wants to use it for a gun meant to fire higher-pressure ammunition. For this reason the majority of modern bolt-action rifles use Mauser-derived designs. The "nugget" still remains practical for shooters because of its affordability and the relative ease of getting ammunition.
• The good old DShK. Just as iconic as a legendary Ma Deuce below, and only ever overcame by it in a length-of-service department, it's still a Navy's darling despite being largely replaced by an NSV as a Ground Forces heavy machinegun. Rugged to the point of being able to fire with at least some accuracy while being rusted all over, and being easily available because of the so much surplus ones due to being largely retired, it's also extremely popular with all the paramilitaries and rebel forces around the world, and is one of the first choices for the infamous "technicals".
• The Tokarev TT pistol, the service pistol of the USSR during WW2, inspired by Browning's short action and the M1911. Simple design, chambered in the powerful 7.62x25mm Tokarev round, which can defeat any body armor short of rifle plates, and has an earned reputation for effectiveness and being very rugged and dependable. It still sees formal and informal use worldwide.
• There's also the Makarov PM, the Tokarev's successor from the late 1940s until 2003. The Makarov is a straight blowback design, firing the astonishingly powerful 9x18mm Makarov round. It has a fixed barrel as part of the frame, making it very simple and very accurate. No linkages, locking lugs, or any of that; all that's going on is simple spring pressure from one that goes around the barrel to bring the slide back after the force of the exploding propellants of the cartridge drive it back. It's also extremely compact compared to other service pistols.

Other countries

• The Sten submachine gun, a gun that can be — and was — built in people's sheds. It may have looked nasty, but it provided the British army with lots of firepower in a pinch, and it became more reliable as the war progressed.
  • Somewhat coupled with the M3 "Grease Gun", made by General Motors (yes, that General Motors). The M3 and the improved M3A1 didn't have much in the way of looks, was designed primarily for mass production and had a slower rate of fire. But it proved to be wonderfully compact, could be easily rechambered in 9x19mm, took a suppressor without much difficulty and was so good in its role that it remained a PDW for AFV crews and drivers up to the Gulf War. The Philippines Naval Special Operations group have even started issuing suppressed M3A1s again, while their Marines still use theirs for boarding ships.
• In spite of its many complainers, the AR-15 rifle and its derivatives. Eugene Stoner noticed two major issues with the existing M1 and M1-derivative rifles that the US military used in the aftermath of World War II: The wooden furniture and large bullets were heavy, and the stock being at an angle to the barrel reduced accuracy. Stoner replaced the wood with lightweight alloy and plastic, chose the smallest bullet capable of reliably killing a person (the .223 Remington, barely larger than the .22 long rifle) and made the entire weapon frame so that the stock would be in line with the barrel, reducing muzzle climb. Although the original M16 suffered from reliability issues, the design has evolved into such a well-balanced and reliable service rifle that although multiple attempts over the last five decades have been made to replace it, no weapon is better enough to justify doing so.
• The M1911, both the gun and the design itself. It is often times called an American masterpiece of firearm design, and was only replaced by the American Army after Vietnam. With very few to no changes the design is still popular today among police officers and civilians, at least in the country of origin. It's also used in the Marines (see the MEU(SOC) Pistol) and by many American Special Forces groups, who prefer it to the M9 for the .45's excellent stopping power and the gun's world-class reliability. An over-100-years-old pistol is still the beloved favorite of soldiers generally considered to be at the cutting edge of modern warfare.
• Glock pistols. A very plain looking (and boxy) black pistol, sometimes ridiculed by old timers as a "plastic gun," it's nevertheless one of the most reliable firearms in the world, easily on par with the AK-47's famed reliability and tolerance of abuse and neglect. And to top it off, it has very simple mechanics, lacks a traditional safety, is very simple to clean, and costs about half what most 1911 clones or high end revolvers cost. There's a reason why nearly every police department in the US and many others around the world have adopted them as standard issue. It's also easy enough to operate and has enough variants and aftermarket parts made for it to be massively, massively popular with civilian gun owners.
• Revolvers in general. They don't carry as much ammo or look as flashy as automatics, but they have fewer components and since they don't have to deal with magazines, which are the source of 80% and some of malfunctions, reliability of a properly made revolver is incredible. Sadly, they are also often prized by criminal elements because they leave no cartridge behind for investigators. Crooks who just held up a convenience store will not spend several minutes policing up their brass.
• While we're still on the subject of firearms, how about the lowly .22 Long Rifle cartridge? It's rimfire, meaning it's low-pressure and awfully weak compared to other ammunition, and thus is not recommended for striking down anything larger than a rabbit. Then again, the proven design is older than any human alive, has less shock than a pellet rifle, and is so ubiquitous that you can buy hundreds of rounds for a few bucks. It's what competitors use in the Olympics. And yes, it can kill someone, although it is highly inadvisable to recommend it for any kind of social use. Also, being a "weak" rimfire, it escapes most restrictions on what types of guns you can buy in urban America, meaning you can legally possess an "assault weapon" even in gun-phobic states like California, as long as it is chambered for a .22LR
• During World War II the Lee-Enfield was certainly this. While all the nations used bolt-action rifles to varying extent, Britain was the only one to not pursue a semi-automatic one at all. The rifle was accurate, had ten shots compared to the Kar98k's five and most importantly was extremely reliable. In the hands of a skilled marksman, it could fire up to twenty aimed shots in about a minute. In fact, the current world record for aimed bolt-action fire was set in 1914 by a British Army instructor, who managed to squeeze out thirty eight aimed shots in under a minute, all of which hit a 24-inch target at 300 yards.
  • A few reasons for what gave the Lee-Enfield its speed and accuracy in the hands of a skilled shooter: its locking lugs are in the rear reducing bolt travel, the shooter doesn't have to tilt their head to get it out of the way of the bolt so they can keep the sight picture, the bolt handle is close enough to the shooter's hand that they can actually keep hold of it with their index finger and shoot with their middle finger, and it's a cock-on-close system which makes it easier to overcome the firing pin spring's resistance.
  • Bolt-action rifles in general, really. They do not fire as fast as semi-automatic or fully-automatic firearms, but they are easier to maintain, less likely to misfire, cheaper, more accurate in longer ranges (in a semi-automatic or fully-automatic firearm, some of the energy of the bullet is used for cycling the action), and more suitable for stealth (they lack the clacking sound of the bolt closing and opening in autoloaders, and the user's is less likely to be revealed to enemies since the cartridge isn't visibly flung into the air). They can also chamber powerful cartridges without increasing the size/weight of the weapons^note A well-known example: Trying to shoot the more powerful 5.56x45mm NATO in autoloading rifles chambered for the identical .223 Remington might result in a malfunction, but bolt-action rifles chambered for .223 Remington can fire 5.56x45mm NATO without much incident — some of the most powerful elephant guns are almost the same size as your typical deer rifle.
    • The British, in the run-up to World War I, placed enormous value on infantry rate-of-fire, because this A: was what had smashed Napoleon, and B: was the best tactic against armies of tribesmen. Similarly, they used small-caliber, horse-drawn, fast firing small artillery pieces. Other armies did not. This is why, before Britain raised its conscript army, the British Expeditionary Force (of regulars) was able to hold off German formations ten or twenty times its numbers. A famous instance was when a German conscript attack, headed by a company of elite Prussian regulars, attacked a British battalion a tenth of its numbers in a forest. A shell-shocked Prussian prisoner and the British commander had this exchange.
      Prussian: (understandably still nervous at being kept essentially on the front line) But sir, where is your second line?
      Briton: We seem to have misplaced it — Sergeant! Where is the second line?
      Sergeant: Don't 'ave 'un sir. Don't need 'un sir.
• How about the ridiculously commonplace 12 gauge pump action shotgun? Reliable, accurate, relatively lightweight and conserves ammo while still being rather fast-shooting. Most models are the build-a-bear workshop of guns — you can pick any type of stock, any capacity(through extenders), any barrel length, and any sighting arrangement. Not to mention the fact that the ammo comes in dozens and dozens of variations, from Jack of All Stats buckshot to more specialized ammunition like slugs, flechettes, and even crazy things like Dragon's Breath. All of this is for less than a quality handgun.
  • The 12 gauge pump action shotgun is the most powerful shotgun available currently, fires fairly fast by shotgun standards being pump action, and requires very little aim. Sounds cool/interesting/awesome to me. A smaller cartridge shotgun would be almost as effective at fending off humans, fire faster, be cheaper, have cheaper ammo, be easier to fire and safer to fire.
  • No real point in stepping down to a 20 gauge, the next down of the three common sizes (12, 20, and .410 bore), unless you are a smaller shooter who physically has difficulty controlling a 12 gauge. The guns are almost always the same price and 12 gauge shells are the same or cheaper price, with more variety, and are more widely available. Rate of fire is as close as makes no difference. The smallest, a .410 bore, is too underpowered (though just like a .22 rimfire, this can be deceptive), and nowhere near as common as its two bigger brothers. Unless weight is a huge issue (e.g. a survival rifle), or you are just learning, the .410 is a no go as well. Even if you have difficulty with the recoil of a 12 gauge, you can simply use "lighter" loads.
  • Shotguns in general were particularly devastating in WWI, where trench warfare made them very useful once you got past the enemy's wall of dakka and needed to clear his trench. The Americans knew this well, and used the tactic so effectively that the Germans sought to have shotguns banned as a violation of the laws of war. (The complaining didn't last long, since the Germans were already collapsing by the time US forces arrived in Europe).
  • Allegedly, American soldiers, who were mostly made up of rural boys with lots of hunting experience^note  2 factors at work here: in 1917 the US as a whole was just barely at 50/50 urban/rural, and the American South was then and is now heavily overrepresented in the US armed forces., could shoot incoming grenades out of the air with their shotguns. MythBusters proved that this was plausible, but not nearly as effective as effective cover; Boring, but Practical strikes again!
• Note, small arms for infantry in general are preferred to be this. Guns which are Shur Fine Guns or Awesome, but Impractical are pain in the ass whether to clean or fix it every time before and after action. Special forces on the other hands could handle their guns better and could tolerate some temperamental guns, like the AN-94 assault rifle.
• The Browning M2HB Machine Gun: developed toward the end of World War I, it has remained one of the most reliable machine guns (still in use today) for its sheer simplicity to maintain in the field due to such basic design and few parts. ^note There's even a saying among the USMC and the Army that the last M2 gunner hasn't been born yet.
• As of the mid-2010s, a significant number of law enforcement agencies (including the FBI), military units (including the Navy SEAL Teams), and armed civilians are showing a renewed interest in the conventional 9x19mm Parabellum caliber for pistols. This is despite decades of experimentation from the 1980s on with an array of exotic alternatives (e.g. 10mm Auto, .40 Smith & Wesson, .357 SIG, .45 GAP), some of which were adopted only because of perceived shortcomings with the 9mm. Even though the caliber is over 115 years old –- making it the oldest service-grade semiautomatic pistol caliber in widespread use –- it's proven very fertile for experimentation and improvement with new powders and bullet designs that have breathed new effectiveness into it compared to its competitors, and it has the advantage of still being the most common and cheapest pistol round in the world, and one that allows maximum ammunition capacity compared to alternatives.
• Before the 9x19mm, for many years & nations the standard pistol ammunition was the John Browning-designed .380 ACP. It may be less powerful than any 9mm round, but its still very effective and was popular as a police cartridge in much of Europe in the 20th Century, only being replaced by 9mm ammunition starting in the 70s. ^note  This was largely because of Technology Marching On. Firearms, particularly smaller pistols, evolved to the point where they could handle the higher power of the 9mm round more effectively. And during both World Wars along with their immediate aftermaths, many nations' militaries used it as the basis for their own handgun cartridges, such as the 9x18mm Makarov ubiquitous to Soviet pistols (see above). It's compact & light, which reduces its recoil when fired making it pretty accurate compared to other pistol cartridges, and it makes it ideal for smaller handguns. Many firearm experts view the .380 ACP as the bare minimum round for self-defense... which is a pretty high bar considering it is powerful & effective enough to take down its target reliably and anything less would not do the job.
• Pick a handgun made by Hi-Point Firearms. Any of them. At first glance, they have a utilitarian, almost ugly, design^note  Depending on how you look at things, they make Glocks, which also favor a no-frills utilitarian design, look futuristic in comparison, and have a noticeable rattle if shaken. Not only are they cheap^note  The CF-380, for example, goes for about $146 on www.impactguns.com. Definitely on the lower-end, they can take a beating. The JCP, in particular can take a bullet to the chamber and keep firing with only minor feeding issues. They're not particularly loved by many gun owners and aren't built to last for tens of thousands of rounds without facing serious wear & tear (a point often overlooked by proponents), but if a Hi-Point is all someone can afford for protection, even the haters will grudgingly cede that at least the pistols can be counted on to go "bang" when they're supposed to.

Tanks

• Another WW2 example is tank warfare on the Eastern Front. Had the Nazis simply improved their existing Panzer IV's and III's and mass-produced them like the Soviets did with the T-34, instead of coming up with impractical heavily-armed-and-armored behemoths that broke down often and drinks fuel like beer, they would have been able to stall the Soviets for far longer.
  • Funniest fact with the T-34 is the poor quality control due to parts being produced at hundreds of factories with varying standards, which exacerbated the fair share of problems the unpolished design had as is. As a result, Soviet tank corps had to deal with steering and braking levers which stuck and could only be released with a hammer, rubberless treads, poor transmission design derived from an abandoned American project (Which still, however, proved to be more reliable than elaborate layered disk treads of Panthers and Tigers). Most T-34s lacked radios. Compared to any Pz-IV or Panther it was a mule against a thoroughbred. But it could still pack the same firepower or even greater, hold its ground with thick sloped armor and most importantly, it could be churned out in the thousands. Individually the German Tigers and Panthers were stronger, but that doesn't mean much if they are hopelessly outnumbered by T-34s.
  • It also came as standard with a 76 mm main gun (later upgraded to 85mm), an aluminium engine block, and tracks that didn't bog down so badly in rough Russian terrain.
  • Point of order, there was only so far you could push the Panzer IV chassis before you started overloading it (the J model got to that point, in fact), and that limit was well before the ceiling of the T-34 and Sherman. Which in turn led to...
  • The Germans eventually DID make their own knock-off of the T-34 in the form of the Panther Tank. Unfortunately, the Panther got off to a bad start with the early production units suffering from mechanical breakdown due to the rush to get them out on the eastern front. But as soon as the problems were ironed out, the Panther proved itself on the battlefield, much to the detriment of the Allies and Soviets.
• The M4 Sherman was one of the best medium tanks of the war, with a very good transmission, a high top speed, and a modular design with highly standardized parts that made it fast and easy to produce. Its problem was that it had been intended to be a medium tank, and in that role it was questionable; while more than capable of taking on a Panzer III and IV, it could easily be destroyed by a single shot from a Panther or Tiger and thus needed a numerical advantage. Fortunately, US alone had four times Germany's manufacturing capacity, and could drown the Germans in tanks at the same time it provided vast quantities of trucks and aircraft to the Soviet Union whilst also flooding the Pacific Theater with ships and planes. (At the Battle of the Coral Sea, the US had more surface ships than the Japanese had aircraft.)
  • Upgraded versions of the Sherman were better than the original; the Jumbo Sherman was as well-armored as a Tiger but not as well-armed, while the British Firefly was as well-armed as a Tiger but not as well-armored, and the M4A3E8, a Sherman with a late-war 76mm gun, was capable of knocking out a T-34 at about the range at which a T-34 could knock out a Sherman. ^note  Emphasis on "knock out" rather than "destroy". Shermans were easy to hole, which would lead to the crew immediately bailing but surviving, which is good for preserving crews and their morale. While roughly 1 in 5 Shermans were knocked out in the European campaign, fewer than 1 in 15 of their crewmen were KIA or WIA. Furthermore, the Sherman is more versatile than many German tanks as it can be easily modified with attachments like mine flails, 105 mm howitzers, flamethrowers, and even rocket artillery. Some Shermans remained in use in the Korean War, where another advantage was discovered: Shermans had superior gunsights compared to T-34s, which doomed many a Korean and Soviet tank on the peninsula. Israel acquired a substantial number of them, and upgraded them to the point where they could defeat T-55s and IS-3s.
• The French Renault FT of World War I. Yes it lack the durability and firepower of other tanks of the period. But what is lack in raw strength it more than compensates with simplicity and ease of use. It has needs only two crew members (a gunner and driver) compared to other tanks that need anywhere from 8 to 18 crew members. Its fast speed and light weight allowed it easily outrun and outmaneuver other heavy tanks. Yet most importantly, its design layout of a tracked chassis, driver in hull, engine in rear, and 360 rotating gun turret in middle became the standard for all subsequent tanks. Every tank from the Shermans, Tigers, Leopards, Abrams and Chieftains owe their core design to this French tank.
• Many modellers and wargamers — and military historians — are obsessed with the glamour of the Panther, Tiger and King Tiger, but the most numerous tanks in the German inventory — even in 1944 and 1945 — were the Panzer IV (8853 built, plus a little over 3000 Sturmpanzer IV and StuG IV assault guns) and the StuG III assault gun (12,000 built, based on the Panzer III). 6,000 Panthers, 1,300 Tigers, and just 500 Tiger IIs were built.
• The Challenger 2 Main Battle Tank is quite simply one of, if not the best tank on the face of the earth. But deep inside its Chopham Armor, and somewhere behind its 120mm gun is the humble Boiling Vessel that's been a feature of British Tanks since the Centurion. For all intents and purposes, it's just an ordinary Tea Maker, something that British Tank crews have been mocked about by their NATO allies for a long time. The mocking usually stops however when the temperatures outside the tanks drop, and the rain comes. Soon, other tank crews start heading over to the British Tanks to get some hot meals or at least some hot drinks. The design is so useful, other NATO members have license produced the thing for their tanks and IFVs.

Military Vehicles

• General Dwight D. Eisenhower once said that the "equipment ... most vital to our success in Africa and Europe were the bulldozer, the jeep, the 2½ ton truck, and the C-47 airplane. Curiously enough, none of these is designed for combat." The point being that the preparations prior to battle are just as important as actually fighting them. Even though the Germans' best weapons were technologically far better than that of the Americans, Brits, and arguably the Soviets, they 1) couldn't get enough of them to the front, and 2) couldn't keep them fueled and maintained for long enough for them to be useful.
  • The exact quote, for those who care, as Eisenhower has been widely misquoted:
    ... [Miltary planners were more optimistic about a proposed landing than they were a few months previously]:
    "This change resulted from the unforeseen availability of a considerable number of LSTs and the quantity production of the "duck," an amphibious vehicle that proved to be one of the most valuable pieces of equipment produced by the United States during the war. Incidentally, four other pieces of equipment that most senior officers came to regard as among the most vital to our success in Africa and Europe were the bulldozer, the jeep, the two-and-a-half-ton truck, and the C-47 airplane. Curiously enough, none of these is designed for combat." — Crusade In Europe, pg 163^note That's six vehicles, for those counting.
  • The C-47 was such a good design, it was flown by both sides. The Japanese had a variety of locally-produced copies of the Douglas DC-3 which the C-47 was based on (originally built under license before the war). This caused no shortage of confusion for fighter pilots on both sides.
  • One German officer in World War II stated that he knew, for sure, the war was lost when they captured an American position and discovered that their supplies included chocolate cake... from a bakery in New York. He didn't fear American guns, cannons, and bombers, but the fact that the US could afford to fly luxury items across the Atlantic into a war zone meant that their logistics were impossible to compete with.
• While the U.S. provided the Soviet Union with a number of tanks, bazookas and planes as part of the lend-lease act, many Soviet commanders were most grateful for the thousands of Jeeps that came with the deal since the Soviet union's main method of having its infantry keep up with the tanks was riding them (and you can only fit so many guys on top of a T-34 before the first AT shell blows them to pieces). Tens of thousands local copies of the Jeep would be made during and after the war and were much beloved by their owners. The other most important things the U.S. shipped to Russia were railroad track, telegraph lines, radio sets, and spam (seriously, most of Russia's food-producing regions had been overrun).
  • It was a similar story in Britain, although they opted for an adapted design rather than a copy. The result? The Land Rover.
• Also, another vehicle that proved vital to Allied victory were the thousands of trucks the US possessed, giving them and their allies a serious logistical advantage over Germany, which still heavily relied on horse drawn carts to carry supplies. To put things in perspective, the Soviets received more trucks from Lend-Lease than all of the rest of Europe had at the time. At the start of the Battle of the Bulge, Eisenhower had enough trucks at his disposal to carry two entire divisions of infantry from France to Belgium in a single day, allowing them to quickly reinforce the front lines and hold off the Germans. No army before or since has ever managed such a strategic redeployment so quickly.
• The Volkswagen Type 82 "Kübelwagen"^note Kübelwagen translates to "tub car", referring to the design. Sure, the Allies called it "inferior" to the Jeep, some people still call it ugly, and it sure didn't win the war for the Germans, but the Kübel was built in such a way that its engine was highly weather tolerant and less vulnerable to bullets, its body was light-weight and could easily be modified for special purposes, the bottom of the vehicle was basically flat, letting it "slide" over surfaces like a sled, its ground clearance was 11 inches (compared to the Willys MB, which had 9 inches), and, according to an American report, it was quite comfortable. While the Jeep ended up outlasting it in terms of military life, the Kübelwagen's civilian cousin, the VW Beetle, carries on their legacy.
• Post-WWII: the British Universal Carrier, a small armored vehicle that was so ubiquitous that it could be used as an IFV, a field tractor, an artillery platform, a reconnaissance vehicle, a flame tank, a tank destroyer, and a minesweeper/layer. It was also incredibly simple to make and operate, easy to repair, and able to carry a squad of British Tommies into action at high speed. In fact, it was so practical that the British built 113,000 of them, which makes it a serious contender for the title of "Most Produced Armored Vehicle in History", depending on just how many T55s have been built^note Soviet book-keeping was rather worse than the British, so no-one knows, though the highest end estimates are "over 100,000", which might edge out the UC depending on how much "over" 100,000 the true number is. True to the "boring" aspect, it is almost unknown.
• The Rolls-Royce Armoured Car. In 1914 the British military took every Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost chassis available and turned them into Armoured Cars with 12mm armour and a .303" Vickers machine gun. In 1914 tanks did not exist yet, and wouldn't be available for a few more years. When WWII started they had 76 of the 120 built and the British finally retired them in 1944 when they could no longer provide fresh tyres for them. The 45mph top speed of a Rolls-Royce Armoured Car was much faster than a WWII-era tank and not all that much slower than modern ones. Lawrence of Arabia himself called them "more valuable than rubies" and credited them with helping carry out hit-and-run strikes against the Ottomans.
• The "technical" is about as minimalist as a military vehicle can be; it's nothing more than a four-wheel pickup truck with a large gun mounted to it. Its armor is essentially the prayers of the driver, and it stands very little chance in a straight fight with any other vehicle designed for war. Yet it's one of the most widely-used and successful military vehicles in the world, because it fills its role while also being probably the easiest military vehicle in the world; it requires no more training or fuel than a regular truck, spare parts are plentiful, it's quite speedy and maneuverable, it can carry troops and supplies, it can move capably in most environments, and even a dozen of it are cheaper than any tank.
• The IVECO B1 Centauro is an armored car with a tank turret and 105 gun on it (the same as the Leopard 1 then standard for the Italian Army), developed to replace obsolete M47 tanks in the Italian Army. Being wheeled and not tracked, it has to be lightly armored. It's also much cheaper than a main battle tank, fast enough to work as a reconnaisance vehicle (this being the primary use), can navigate Italy's mix of plains, hilly and mountain terrain, and numerous roads much better than a tracked vehicle tank, and the protection was more than adequate for the post Cold War combat scenarios Italy ended up facing.
  • The replacement for the B1 Centauro is the... B2 Centauro II. Basically the same vehicle with a more powerful engine, modernized electronics, and improved suspensions that allow to support slightly heavier armor and a stronger 120mm tank gun (sharing ammunitions with newer NATO main battle tanks in general and the Ariete in particular, that replaced the Leopard 1 in the Italian Army) without losing any speed — in fact it's slightly faster.

Aircraft

World War II

• The Hawker Hurricane. Tube-steel body and wooden wings, with the whole thing covered in canvas. A bit slow and unmaneuverable for the bad, but it'd take hundreds of rounds easily, and often survived because the canvas wasn't tough enough to trigger explosive rounds. Ideally during the Battle of Britain, that made it the preferred fighter to attack bombers while the more glamorous Spitfires kept their fighter escorts busy. As a result, it was adapted as a night-fighter, a ground-attack vehicle, and even for some naval combat in the Sea Hurricane.
• Also, the Fairey Swordfish torpedo bomber, underpowered, underarmed, and wouldn't look out of place in WW1, yet 20 of these claimed 1 battleship sunk and 2 damaged at Taranto. Essentially a vehicular version of the Stone Wall trope. Also, the mighty Bismarck, one of the most powerful battleships ever produced by a European nation, was brought down by a torpedo launched from a Swordfish, which wrecked her steering gear and slowed the battleship enough that the British fleet could catch up and pound her into submission.
  • Swordfishes were later fitted with radar and used for anti-submarine warfare. Once that happened, the North Atlantic wasn't safe for any German ship or submarine. (Although the Swordfish's range was rather limited, leaving a big gap in the middle of the North Atlantic.)
  • It was realized the Swordfish's obsolescence gave it two strengths in aerial combat: it was so slow that a modern combat fighter could only keep it within firing range for a fraction of a second, before the relative speeds of the two aircraft forced the faster one to overshoot. The far greater wing area of a biplane makes it more maneuverable; the Swordfish could perform prodigies of aerobatics that made the job of a combat monoplane fighter that much more difficult. In one air combat in the Aegean during the Balkan campaign, a single Swordfish caused three Italian fighters to overshoot at high speed and crash into the sea. Three kills without firing a shot.
• The Soviet Polikarpov Po-2 (U-2). Born as a wooden training biplane it was slow and as basic as a plane could be made, but its low cost, reliability and ease of maintenance made it a valuable aircraft for the Soviet army in WW2. It couldn't tackle direct combat with other aircraft, of course, but it was useful in a variety of support roles: light freighter, recon spotter, liaison transport, even as a night bomber. Its ability to take off and land in fields and unpaved roads increased its versatility and helped make it the second most-produced aircraft in history, a record it maintains to this day.
• The Grumman F4F Wildcat and Brewster F2A Buffalo also deserve honorable mention. The Wildcat couldn't beat a Mitsubishi A6M Zero in a dogfight, but with proper tactics was tough enough to fight them to a standstill. Unlike the Allied fighters that outclassed their Japanese counterparts, an F4F could operate from an escort carrier. The F2A was less capable the the F4F and, the 44 that the Finns got their hands on were the backbone of the Finnish Air Force until they got Messerschmidt Bf109s. The Finnish Buffalos shot down roughly twice as many Soviet aircraft than the Finns lost during the entire war.
• The P51 Mustang. Though a wonderful plane design in many other ways, its most important feature was this trope all the way — its incredible range (achieved through a combination of a large internal fuel space, an efficient engine, and drop tanks). No fighter had been able to travel as far as the P51 could before, and bombers could now be escorted all the way to their target and back. Before, German fighters would wait at the point that the fighter escort would have to turn around, and jump the bombers. The P51 was so effective that some air forces still contained them as late as the early 1980s.
  • More to the point, while the initial design pushed it into Awesome, but Impractical territory owing to difficulties above 15,000 feet, this was solved by swapping in the famous Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, giving the already formidable P51 the operational ceiling of a Spitfire to add to its extraordinary range.
• The Axis side has the Messerschmidt Bf-109, otherwise (wrongly) known as the Me-109. Compared to later German aircraft, like the Fw-190 (The Dreaded among the Allies because it was able to outmatch a Spitfire in all but turn radius.) and the Me-262 (among the world's very first jet aircraft to operate) it was nothing fancy. Yet it is a versatile, rapidly-produced aircraft (in fact, it's the most built fighter aircraft in history, having 33,984 airframes built across all variants) that can take on a variety of roles — in fact, it was the plane Erich Hartmann (the highest scoring fighter ace of all time) and Hans-Joachim Marseilles (highest scoring fighter ace in the North African campaign) flew. It also has design features that weren't flashy but damn useful, like its fuel-injection engine that allowed it to endure negative-G forces (Spitfires and Hurricanes have engines that would cut-out in the same situation, leaving the pilot helpless in a dive) and two water radiators with a cut-off system, meaning that if one goes out for whatever reason you could fly on the second or cut off both and still fly for 5 minutes.
• Britain's De Havilland Mosquito bomber. It wasn't as glamorous or well armed as the all-metal Spitfire and couldn't carry as many bombs as the Lancaster (4,000lb vs. 22,000lb), but it was both cheap (being made almost entirely from laminated plywood) and easy to build (since its airframes could be put together in a short space of time and didn't need specialised machinery). This translated into it being extremely fast with a low radar profile, making it perfect for hit and run tactics (it could essentially fly in, drop its payload and disappear into the clouds before enemy fighters had a chance to scramble — including a precision strike which knocked German radio broadcasts off the air in the middle of a speech by Hermann Göring celebrating the Nazi party's 10th anniversary since coming to power), 4 times more efficient (based on the cost-to-damage-done ratio) than a Lancaster bomber and despite being one of the most numerous aircraft produced it ended up with the lowest loss rates of any aircraft in WWII.
  • Goering was well known to be green with envy at the fact that they could be churned out at a fast pace and that any place could repair it without a problem and yet being one of the fastest and most capable planes in the British airfields. Making matters even worse was the fact that it was essentially the apogee of the German Schnellbomber concept, without even trying.
• Late in WWII the US stopped painting their aircraft. Why? Several reasons: The Americans were building aircraft faster than they could be shot down; The Axis couldn't keep up with the losses the Allies were inflicting; radar made camouflage useless; and the Americans didn't care if they were intercepted, since their goal late in the war was the outright destruction of the Luftwaffe in the skies or on the ground.
  • Also, paint added a lot of extra weight to an aircraft, so getting rid of it would increase its speed and fuel efficiency.
  • The D-day stripes painted on aircraft? It's also this trope because it reduced the likelihood of being shot down by friendly ground fire. The Allies had such an overwhelming superiority in airpower that they had to find a way to make their planes easier to identify in enemy airspace.
• The V-1 flying bomb. Crude, simple and ugly as a devil torn off a toilet wall, but astonishingly cheap, easy to manufacture, cheap, could use anything as fuel from old socks to waste fuel, had decent payload, cheap, easy to transport and launch, cheap and reasonably fast. Oh, and did I say it was cheap? It could be manufactured at 5000 Reichsmarks when the price of a G7a torpedo or Panzer IV tank was 50,000 Reichsmarks and Bf 109 cost 40,000. Some 80% of the V-1 bombs got intercepted before they hit anything, but the rest 20% (one in five) did, and unlike the V-2, it did not require exotic materials to manufacture nor skilled work force — just pressed steel, aluminium and plywood. It neither did require 20 tonnes of potatoes of the already starving nation to produce fuel, nor did it have a tendency to go haywire once launched nor explode on the launch pad as the V-2 did.

Post-WWII

• The Chinook transport helicopter, in production since the 1960s, is easily discernible by a unique shape with two large rotors and no tail, but is otherwise not much to look at. It has, however, a very large cargo area and can even lift field artillery right to their employment location, while also being able to operate at altitudes where most other helicopters can no longer generate enough lift to keep rising. This is due to the double-rotor system, as the rotors spin in opposite directions to each other, eliminating the need for a tail rotor to cancel the torque of a single rotor, so all the engine power goes into lift. In addition, Chinook is one of the fastest operational helicopters, so when escorted by Apache gunships, Chinooks have to slow down to let the Apaches keep up.
• The Mi-8. It's an ugly thing to be sure, with a rail-thin tail and a huge bulbous body. But it is also nearly endlessly customizable, carries twenty fully-armed combat troops and can take a beating. It's been in service with the Russian military for over fifty years, and while the Ka-60 was intended to replace it, it's looking like the "Hip" is going to be around for quite a while longer.
• The B-52 has been the US Air Force's frontline heavy bomber since the 1950's, despite the fact that it's not nearly as fast as the supersonic B-1B or as stealthy as the B-2 bombers. What it does have is a robust airframe and a really REALLY big bomb bay (Can carry up to 70,000 pounds of bombs) with the capability of carrying literally every bomb or missile the USAF has. It regularly outperforms its more advanced cousins with the added bonus of being much cheaper to maintain. The design is so good that while the USAF plans to retire the B-1B and B-2 bombers by 2036, the B-52 will still be in service into the 2050s, which would make the B-52 airframe over 100 years old by the time it's retired, a feat unmatched by any other aircraft.
  • Except the Soviet/Russian Tu-95 (NATO reporting name "Bear"). Came into service a year after the B-52, and expected to serve until the same time as the B-52. Even better, the thing is still propeller-driven!
    • Unfortunately, those propellers also makes the Tu-95 so loud it will deafen anyone who dares try to fly it. The damned piece of junk is so loud that it can fly at ten kilometers above sea level and still get picked up by submerged submarines. Forget radar, you'll hear the Tu-95 long before it gets in range with Mark 1 Ears. To say nothing of the fact that it flies lower, and has a much smaller bomb bay (A Tu-95 carrying half a B-52's normal bomb load wouldn't even get off the ground) and it's slower too.
• The B-1 Lancer, while visibly quite cool, it's B-1B re-configuration is this. Rather than relying on the same high-speed, high-altitude, high-capacity approach that was originally intended for the B-1, the new model is designed for a reduced radar cross-section and most importantly, flying low to the ground to avoid enemy radar, making it much more effective in an age of advanced anti-aircraft weaponry than it's unadapted Soviet counterpart, the Tu-160. And despite being smaller, and much less of a screamingly obvious target, the B-1B carries a full twelve thousand pounds more in payload than it's Russian counterpart. That's American Engineering for you.
• A-10 Thunderbolt AKA "The Warthog". The Air Force is constantly saying they want to retire the plane and bring in something new but they haven't found anything close to it's capabilities in close air support. The plane itself has a fairly simple design: take the largest machine gun ever created and build an ugly flying tank around it. It has an enormous cannon, excellent maneuverability, can carry missiles for air-to-air, carries rockets and bombs for air-to-ground, and the sound of it's gun is psychologically terrifying.
  • The US Army has basically flat out said that the A-10 is irreplaceable and if the Air Force retires it, they want it.
    • Unfortunately, that's just the issue. The A-10 is irreplacable. It's long outlived any production lines or even blueprints for many of it's parts. Sooner or later, the A-10's just going to run out of parts because it's been in service for that long.
• Lift jets. When the Soviets were designing a successor to the generally horrible Yak-38 VTOL fighter, the intended replacement, Yak-41, was originally to use the setup similar to its later successor, Lockheed-Martin F-35B,^note Yakovlev briefly collaborated with Lockheed in the early Nineties, selling them all docs about then recently cancelled Yak-41, some of which ended in F-35 project. with a single vectored-thrust engine, which also drives the large lift fan through a geared shaft. The development of the engine had a lot of technical problems, though, so designers simply stuck a pair of a dedicated small turbojets in the fan's place as an interim solution. And then it turned out that these jets were not only lighter than a large and complex fan, but also were much more compact, consumed less fuel and provided better lift, so the fan project was swiftly dropped and never resurfaced afterwards.
• Attack Drones. As the Spiritual Successors of WW2-era biplanes, UAVs are affordable and expendable aircraft that are ideal for conducting reconnaissance and precision strikes. While a typical drone like the MQ-9 Reaper may seem as dull and ungainly compared to the high-tech manned F-35A, it has a per-unit price tag of $19 million compared to the $98 million for each F-35A. As drones lack pilots, they aren't weighed down by the bulky life-support systems and won't leave behind a pilot to be rescued. The lack of pilots and life-support systems also makes drones physically smaller than conventional planes, giving them natural radar-evasion abilities without expensive and difficult-to-maintain stealth technology. With the increasing costs of manufacturing aircraft and greater availability of cheap anti-air missiles, many nations are relying more on low-risk, inexpensive attack drones for combat operations.
  • The US Navy is testing the stealth-equipped UAVs for use on aircraft carriers. In a surprise twist, they've decided the first things these drones should do is not combat, but rather mid-air refueling... which actually makes a lot of sense. Programming a drone to fly in a straight line long enough for a friendly jet to refuel, and then return to base is much simpler than programming a drone to fly in combat and fire weapons at enemies. Fuel tankers are a boring yet incredibly important component of war, which makes them priority targets, and using a stealthy airframe will contribute to their survival rates. On June 4, 2021, the first successful test was done of a drone refueling a fighter jet in mid-air.
  • It also saves money. Currently, the US Navy doesn't have any dedicated tankers, instead relying on the Super Hornet's buddy tanking ability. Unfortunately, this buddy tanking ability means the planes are logging more flight hours, and is a major contribution to the Super Hornet fleet wearing out faster than expected.
  • On the other hand, when the U.S Border Patrol purchased Reaper drones someone fitted a Cessna airplane with an infrared sensor and achieved better results for a fraction of the cost (5103 aliens and smugglers captured for $7054 per person, versus 6500 captured at only $230 per person). Those drones may not need pilots, but they do require extensive support staff and costly maintenance.
• One would probably think that the best way to combat insurgent groups would be to bomb the crap outta them with tactical bomber aircraft or use hi-tech fighter jets to rain down a hell of missiles on some scared terrorists. In reality, though, most militaries deal with those pesky terrorists by utilizing...propeller-driven planes! Said planes, while not as cool as fifth-generation fighters or stealth bombers, are cheap, easy to fly, less wasteful of fuel, and are just as capable of dealing with insurgents as their more hi-tech cousins (in fact, their low speed allows their pilots to have an easier time to attack ground targets).
• Many small Air Forces don't have the money to buy high-tech fighter aircraft, or are mostly focused on either short-ranged territorial defense and counter-insurgency operations. To fill in the role that would normally filled by the likes of F-16's, MiG-29's, or Rafales, these air-forces convert supersonic fighter-trainers such as the FA-50 Golden Eagle and the SA-346 into cheap light fighter aircraft. While those planes are still outfoxed by F-16's and MiGs, they at least provide some passable air-to-air combat capabilities and some ability to rain hell on ground troops. Their greatest role, though, would be to provide skills that these Air Forces' pilots will need when new-fangled fighter aircraft can be purchased and used.

Navy

• Liberty Ships. Spacious, cheap enough a single delivery had already paid for their cost, and produced in such large numbers Germany and Japan literally could not sink enough to actually slow down the supply train. They were so practical that several went on to have prolonged post-war careers in both private and military service, with one managing to remain with the U.S. Navy as late as 1981.
• One of the biggest hurdles the US navy faced in the Pacific War wasn't a lack of warships, but a lack of oilers that could keep up with said warships; the loss of Neosho during the Battle of Coral Sea was almost as much of a blow to the USN as the aircraft carrier Lexington blowing up in the same engagement.
• World War 2 had various escort vessels, such as destroyer escorts and escort carriers. Hilariously useless in a pitched battle (unless you happened to be part of Taffy 3), but very cheap to build and run, excellent for convoy escort (which has its own section higher up on this very page), and could see off submarines and aircraft that might turn your shiny expensive battle fleet into so much exploding scrap metal with lucky shots.
• One more non-combat vehicle that proved instrumental was the Higgins Boat, cheap (most of it was made of wood) and effective, in the region of 20,000 were eventually produced.
• In an era where naval warfare is more or less showcased by the aircraft carrier and the submarine, the bulk of any navy remains the surface ship. Carriers may hold those nifty fighter planes you'd see in Top Gun or Independence Day, and submarines are renowned terrors of the deep, but neither are as versatile as the modern day destroyer or frigate, which can do anything from shoot missiles, aircraft and satellites out of the sky to hunt submarines and other ships to, in some cases, bombard inland targets. And that's before one gets into amphibious operations...
  • Amongst that number, the Arleigh Burke destroyer is becoming this, at least compared to newer, post-millennium ships. Whereas most modern day ships are designed for at least one area of specialization (usually air defense), the Burke was meant to be a venerable Jack of All Trades, covering almost every conceivable mission profile the US Navy was expected to face with extreme prejudice. Sure, it doesn't excel at anti-air warfare as much as Britain's Type 45 destroyer, nor can it perform shore bombardments the way the Zumwalt can, but it normally outperforms such ships in everything else while going about the aforementioned roles adequately enough. And to top it off, the US Navy has more Burkes in its inventory (with many more soon to follow) than most countries have ships period, making it the modern, war-oriented equivalent of Star Trek's Constitution-class starship. It's telling that the Navy has cancelled development of the Awesome, but Impractical (and overly expensive) Zumwalt in favor of building more tried-and-true Arleigh Burkes.
• On a related note, the Vertical Launch System, especially strike-length versions. They're basically just boxes with missiles in them stuck in the deck, and look boring compared to old-school arm launchers, but they allow the Arleigh Burke class to be the Jack of All Trades they are. Every ship-launched missile in the American inventory except Harpoon can be fired from their VLS system, and there's a new missile coming online to rectify that deficiency, allowing the Burkes to conduct air defense, ballistic missile defense, land attack, ASW, and soon ant-shipping, all with the same armament loadout.
  • Though hot-launch systems do have some cool factor, due to spewing massive gouts of flame during launching.
• Italy in World War I fielded the MAS boat, little more than small commercial motorboats with two torpedoes strapped on the sides. They sunk the Austro-Hungarian flagship without anyone understanding what had just happened 'till the Italian radio started boasting, and could infiltrate all harbors but the incredibly well-defended Pula and fire torpedoes at the ships inside.
• The torpedo net is just that, a net to put in the water around a moored ship to prevent them from being hit by torpedoes. During both World Wars, the nets saved more than one ship from raiders that had managed to sneak past the harbor surveillance. A good example is the Bakar mockery: when three MAS penetrated the almost impenetrable harbor of Bakar and fired their six torpedoes, one missed but the rest was entangled in the nets that had been put in place against the captains' protests, saving their ships when the surveillance they expected would keep the MAS out failed.
• In the years leading up to World War I, Britain and Germany both became infatuated with the potential of the "battlecruiser", a surface ship almost as large and well-armed as the dreadnought-style battleship, but much less heavily armored. Both navies built fleets of 9-12 battlecruisers, believing that they could perform the same reconnaissance mission as normal light cruisers, while having sufficient firepower to at least bloody the nose of enemy dreadnoughts and relying on their superior speed and maneuverability (instead of armor) to evade return fire. For the same cost, either navy could have built several dozen conventional cruisers that would have performed the reconnaissance mission just as well, and — as demonstrated at the Battle of Jutland — the battlecruiser fleets were wholly inadequate for engaging enemy dreadnoughts in combat, even fleetingly.

Artillery and Other Weapons

• The oh-so-humble Hand Grenade. Grenades are designed to explode after a few seconds, and send metal fragments flying in all directions at bullet speed. They are (generally) inexpensive to make and mass produce, and like with firearms any soldier can be taught how to use them effectively. Grenades have a lethal radius of about 10 meters, and a potential injury/concussion radius of about 30 meters, making them effective at incapacitating the enemy. And even when they don’t hurt their target, they can still force the enemy who sees them coming to duck and get to cover, giving you a short opening that can save your life.
  • During WWII, the most commonly used & issued grenade of the Germans was not the Stick Grenade that the British referred to as the “Potato Masher”, but rather it was the Model 39 "Eierhandgranate".^note  German for "Egg Hand Grenade" because of its oval shape and small size It doesn't have the recognizability of the stick grenade, but it was smaller, more cost-effective to produce, easy to transport & carry, lightweight, and was often preferred by the soldiers when holding multiple grenades, especially since the stick grenades were heavier and more cumbersome & uncomfortable to carry.
• In WWI, particularly the early part of the war, the British 18-pounder field gun with shrapnel shells. This was the infantry killer. British artillery officers were trained to accurately judge range by eye, and compute the shots quickly in their heads. The shells were 23 pounds total (the 18-pounder name comes from the weight of the projectile portion of the shell), meaning any man in good condition could easily and quickly handle them. The gun was small and light for its caliber, making it quick and easy to maneuver for its relatively small crew, and it fired quickly. The combined effect was a small battery of these could lay a deadly blanket of shrapnel on top of an advancing infantry attack, then pack up and be gone before the more powerful but slower to act German guns could retaliate.
• Strangely, the ICBM plays this trope pretty hard. While it is still a nuclear equipped rocket, that concept isn't really impressive compared to making a submarine, surface vessel, or supersonic airplane that fires nukes. Plus the job of an ICBM isn't really to destroy the enemy, it's to intimidate the enemy into not attacking. They have essentially completely eliminated the idea of large scale wars, especially World Wars. ICBMs have in many regards made the world a safer, but far more boring place. Of course, that only works as long as all people who have access to ICBMs are at least somewhat rational and care about their own survival.
• Ground-based Anti-Aircraft systems are pretty boring compared to sleek and sophisticated jet fighters going missile-to-missile, but planes are expensive to manufacture and pilots are expensive to train and difficult to replace, especially the best ones. A well-utilized Surface-To-Air missile network and anti-aircraft artillery is a very cost-effective way to establish air dominance, as both the Vietnam war and the Yom Kippur War proved. This is primarily the reason why stealth aircraft are becoming popular, because many nations are shrinking their Air Forces and widening the use of their ground-to-air systems.
• During World War II, statistically, very few German tanks were destroyed by other tanks or air support. Most were destroyed by three or four men sitting in the bushes with an anti-tank BFG, waiting for some lumbering behemoth to come into view and nailing it. Certainly practical, but people don't really find that stuff very interesting, instead tending to be more enamored by vivid images of the massive tank-on-tank battles of the Eastern front, or USAF Thunderbolts and RAF Typhoons raining fire down on German tanks.
• What stopped the most German tanks was the disruption of their logistics: attacks on their supply lines by the aforementioned aircraft effectively blunted many German offensives. Sure, it was possible for them to attain initial successes, but once their tanks ran out of fuel, they could no longer take new ground, turning their tanks into nothing more than highly vulnerable pillboxes; once they ran out of ammunition or fuel, they would then be forced to surrender, or abandon everything and retreat.
• In modern combat, rocket launchers have taken over the modern role that anti-tank guns occupied in World War II. The likes of the Bazooka, RPG-7 and Panzerfaust are easy to use and are much cheaper than tanks or other vehicles. A modern tank can cost as much as $10 million while an RPG-7 costs only $500. Even the most expensive man-portable missile launchers like the Javelin and TOW can easily destroy a tank that costs 500 times as much as a single launcher. Tanks have evolved to the point of being Awesome, but Impractical as their costs are ridiculous to give them enough armor to survive any rocket shots. Even a vehicle that is capable of surviving a shot can easily be shot by many more or put out of action for repairs.
  • More expensive guided weapons like the Stinger or MILAN are still practical, shooting down expensive planes, helicopters, or tanks.
• Sea warfare mines can be described as this. Hell, all mines can be described like this. They're easy and cheap to make, need no maintenance once deployed, will last for decades, don't depend on either computers or humans aiming them, and can terrify whole countries into inaction. Their main problems are that they don't identify friend from foe, and that they're too good — retaining all their lethality after the war is over. Sure enough, getting rid of them is a complex and expensive proposition.
• The artillery powder bag. It's a simple bag of cloth containing gunpowder, and needs to be loaded separatedly from the shell and the primer. A full cartridge shell with the brass casing containing firing charge and primer, similar to normal small arms rounds, is simpler and faster to load... But the powder bag is better in everything else: cloth is much cheaper and less resource-intensive than brass (hence why the French started replacing their cartridge-firing artillery with guns that could use powder bags during World War I: they were having a brass shortage), reducing or increasing the number of powder bags changes shell velocity and thus the range as needed, and they're much lighter, the latter also resulting in bags replacing brass cartridge for heavy naval artillery because cartridges for a battleship's main battery were simply too heavy to be moved manually. And with a good crew and modern improvements to the powder bag systems, even the rate of fire is quite respectable.
  • The ability to increase shell velocity by changing the number of powder bags veers into Simple, yet Awesome territory with the addition of math: by changing the firing charge and the elevation, the gunners can hit a single target with multiple shells in approximately the same instant, something very few things can survive.

Miscellaneous — Equipment

• The tents used by the German scouting movement. Designed in the waning years of the Weimar Republic by one Eberhard Köbel (AKA tusk) on the basis of Scandinavian and Mongol tents, they can basically all be constructed from simple triangular or rectangular pieces of black cloth. The standard issue Kohte takes no more than four identical pieces which can be carried easily by the people sleeping in that tent when on the road. Even a single piece can serve as an impromptu shelter◊ in a pinch. Add a bit of dedication and architecture and you get into decidedly Awesome, but Impractical territory like this◊ or this version.
• Soviet/Russian military clothing is an example. This was especially apparent in World War II where the rougher-looking, more utilitarian gear of the Soviets was contrasted with the snazzy Hugo Boss-made uniforms of the Nazis. Soviet winter clothing was considerably warmer during winter than German clothing, even their winter gear, and it was common for German troops to loot such clothing from slain or captured Soviets or to tailor their own copies◊. This even extends to today as attempts to phase out the old greatcoat in the military with newer more body-fitting modern winter gear was stymied by the fact that the new gear just wasn't that good during the really cold spots, resulting in cases of hypothermia and frostbite. Viktor Suvorov confirmed in his book about the Soviet Army that yes, everyone really did get taught how to sleep in their greatcoat and that everyone did it at least once not only to build toughness, but also to teach the men how to do it.
  • They were also so thick, they could be considered a form of low-grade body armor. The WW2-era Commando knife's seal of quality was its capability to pierce a Soviet-issue greatcoat, which is even thicker and heavier than some of the later army coats to follow.
  • Soviet and post-Soviet boots fit the bill, too. Heavy, rough, and rugged. Many models still use actual hobnails to this day. The boots fit loose, so there are no problems concern foot width or height. The interiors can be most charitably described as functional. Used to padding, fitting, insoles? Tough luck! These boots take some adaptation to wear well, because your foot has to adjust to the boot instead of picking out a shoe that fits you. Better get used to using footwraps (portyanki) or if not, better wear double socks to avoid getting blisters like mad. The good news is once you're adapted, you can now comfortably wear some of the best, toughest marching boots for long walks over long stretches of time. And you'll even get stronger legs and become a faster walker just from having to compensate for them. In fact, you'll have to readjust to more conventional western footwear, which has all kinds of fit problems and rubs like crazy.
• Speaking of boots, there are the black boots issued to soldiers in the Canadian Armed Forces. They're described by soldiers as "about as comfortable as strapping hockey pucks to your feet", but damned if they work: they're reliably waterproof (especially if polished), very resilient to damage, and will last years before needing to be replaced. Recently they attempted to go with the Awesome, but Impractical brown boot that is more comfortable and doesn't require polishing, but they're now going back to the black boot as the new ones aren't as warm or waterproof, and are very delicate with some soldiers complaining of rips in them as early as a month after receiving them. More hilariously were the CADPAT^note CAnadian Disruptive PATtern Boot, which was a boot with camouflage print: these boots had all the problems of the brown boot, and the CADPAT paint would begin crumbling off within a couple of weeks.
• The British Army's oft-mocked obsession with stopping for a spot of tea at any opportunity, as touched upon above in the entry for Boiling Vessels. But it serves several practical purposes: A hot drink is a simple and effective treatment for hypothermia, it ensures that the water is safe to drink because it's been boiled, and the caffeine in it helps keep soldiers awake and alert. It's also good for morale to grab a hot drink, some food and perhaps most importantly a few minutes to sit down and relax, which is why British soldiers will seize any opportunity to get a brew on with both hands; in war, you never know when the next chance might come up.
• The humble, ubiquitous-in-modern-times jerrycan. Now found in every neighborhood hardware store, the jerrycan was considered such a Game-Breaker when invented in the 1930s that at the beginning of World War II German soldiers had orders to destroy them when threatened with capture. Though copies would be found and reverse engineered by Allied nations, it wouldn't be until 1944 that new designs began to emerge that were equal to the German style. It is built with ribs and ridges along the body to prevent easy or accidental puncture, where other fuel cans at the time were made of flimsy and flat sheet metal. It can be opened and closed easily by hand, rather than needing spanners or other equipment. It has three incorporated handles, aligned so that one man can carry multiple empty jerrycans; one man can use two handles to carry a full can, or two men can each take one handle of a single full can; or that a can can be passed easily from one man to another in a relay chain. It has an incorporated dispensing spout, so that separate funnels and spouts are unnecessary. The handles were hollow and raised above the spout opening to allow room for expansion, preventing gas rupture from intense heat. A wire or chain fitted into the removable lid prevented the lid from being dropped or lost. The flat rectangular design made it easily stackable in large numbers. It is painted with a single dip paint coat to prevent corrosion. And its half-body welded style meant that variants could be made with an enamel lining to carry water, kerosene and other liquids. Its invention alone, when compared to other previous designs, is estimated to have reduced fuel consumption during the war by other 25%.
• In all world armed forces, there is a single piece of equipment which is universally shared by all, and, while often overlooked, is vital to any war effort, from the largest battles to the smallest skirmishes. Despite being around since the first organized military in the world was conceived, it is still in use today, having never been successfully replaced by anything in its own class. It has many uses, from spotting, to target tracking, to aim assistance, and, if kept in good condition, can see up to several miles away with the right vantage point and weather conditions, and is able to track a wide spectrum and even work at night. It goes by many names, both official and unofficial, but one of the most popular designations is the good ol' Mark.I Eyeball.
  • And right next to that (literally) with similar capabilities for detecting threats is the Mark.I Ear. Put together, they can provide more than 360-dedgree coverage for the user.
• The Bailey Bridge. It is basically a full-size construction kit on how to build a bridge, consisting of standard size elements, and which can be joined together using only hand tools. An engineer platoon can easily bridge a small river in one night, allowing troops and vehicles to cross otherwise unfordable obstacles. A Bailey bridge is so versatile it can be built into a beam bridge, truss bridge, cantilever bridge or even into a suspension bridge. After 80 years, they are still used by militaries and civilian authorities all around the world, and new parts are readily manufactured and available.

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