Since the beginning of the use of tools we met the use of weapons too. There was much more need to attach and less to defend. It started with weapons for hunting animals for food that made the human race to get the habit of eating meat. The existence of meat on our diet is still against our nature and is giving to us and to our animals - victims many problems but we insist on the mistake of eating meat ...
Unfortunately, we didn't even stop to the killing of other animals, where we have the relieving of food need. We turned to fights and wars against people not for food but for power... We turned the weapons against other humans, but because they could do the same sooner or later, we had to develop new defending weapons and new strategies of killing each other.
This situation forced people to have more organized defence with enclosing cities in big walls, with army to protect it and it became part of any organized community or city.
Everyone that had such power available, usually used it first for his own needs and for power with lows and organized army for attach and defence. It started as a need for the help of people but it became an authority that first of all care to keep its authority using the power of people...
Because the authority and weapons was always walking side by side it was easy to find the money and the force that would help the scientists to help the development of new weapons and the improvement of the old weapons.
On the most ancient cities we can see ruins of big walls around them to prevent them from the enemy attacks. The big wall in China is one of the bigger human buildings. Because the big walls were not always enough the people made also castles to hide inside trying to save their lives until convincing the enemies to do something else. This way the castles were spread all over the world.
We all now some things about bows, arrows, spears, swords, shields etc. but let see what else we used for mass killings.
The catapults were machines that could throw in big distances rocks, flaming materials, iron balls in order to ruin walls and kill people. They were designed almost as big bows but with help of a more complicated lever system.
Crossbows were used also in different sizes. They had better accuracy than the catapults and they were throwing one or more spears. There were also small spears used as bows with better accuracy.
The battering rams were devices designed to destroy walls or doors. They could be met as a simple trunk carried from soldiers, but we had also much more complex devises with special vehicles with animals and army carrying the battering ram to the target.
Battering towers were made of wood and carried as close as possible to the city defence walls in order to get a way to fight on the same level to the defence army on the walls of the city. The battering towers were designed with special openings for fighting and usually covered with leathers in order to be as resistive to fire as possible.
During the fights the vehicles used have to meet different needs than everyday civilian use. They were using vehicles for one or two passengers with one ore more horses pulling it. The leader had always to be able to travel with the maximum possible speed if something was going really bad on the battle... ;-)
Other vehicles had the shape of a small room and were carried from animals or from men close to the army field having coverage for as big distance as possible.
Other famous vehicles were the kind of using special swords attached to their wheels to destroy anyone next to its passing.
Some ships navigated especially for the needs of the weapons in the sea. Most of them were moving with the power of men using paddles during the battles and with the power of wind to the rest of movements. The trireme had in the front side a special made ram of a ship to beat the enemy ships. The Syracousian armada had made special catapults and also special made battering towers to attach to city walls close to the seaside.
Archimedes makes the first cannon that we met in history. It was a small one, could carried by one man, and with the power of steam could throw a metal ball to distance over 400 meters away.
Much later we meet cannons operating with gunpowder even more destructible.
The most famous ancient flamethrowers were operating with the famous 'liquid fire' at the ages of Byzantium but we have a lot of indications that this knowledge was much older. There were many different sizes of flamethrowers in the Byzantium. A single soldier could use some of them easy and other flamethrowers were used by a team working with pumps and tubes. The knowledge of the 'liquid fire' was kept so tight secret that finely it has been lost.
On the temple of Pergamus there were some glyphs showing Ekati and Foivi holding a weapon like a long tube with fire in the front side and firing against a Giant. Something like a modern bazookas! These sculptures are now in the archaeologicical museum of Berlin.
We met again another device with almost the same operation at 1600 in the Arabian peninsula. It was made by two parallel tubes and a pump. The lower tube had the flammable liquid and the upper was throwing it with a spring system through a flame in the front side. This could reach distance of 10 meters and could hit for almost 10 times.
Archimedes used centralized mirrors (or many simple mirrors according to others) to burn from a long distance the ships of the enemy armada. We met the same technique much later on a siege of Constantinople during the Byzantine period.
We can find in Indian scripts descriptions about nuclear disasters. Some areas in India they have very high nuclear radiation without any other special reason. It seems that the human race couldn't resist of destroying itself when they had the chance...
It is almost amazing how many human inventions have to do with destruction weapons. Imagine what could be done if all these people had work for good and not for destruction...
Even today, the easiest and bigger source of money support for an investor is the army...
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