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Speaker 1: Yeah, welcome to stuff from the Science Lab from how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey, this is Alice Madam Milk

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Speaker 1: the science edit how staff works dot com. And this

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb, Science Rider at how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: Today we're wandering into the world of weapons, and we're

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Speaker 1: talking about weapons that change the world. Yeah, and uh,

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Speaker 1: we're actually we're talking about this earlier. Um. The first

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Speaker 1: thing that springs to mind is the Simpsons, right, of course,

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Speaker 1: the Simpsons the tree House of Horror episode where King

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Speaker 1: and Kodos take over the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: the one where they got to Morocco and the Simpsons

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Speaker 1: going to Morocco and they buy that severed monkey hand. Yes,

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Speaker 1: some monkey paw. That sounds much nicer than severed hand.

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Speaker 1: And then they'll make a wish, right, and Lisa wishes

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Speaker 1: for world peace, and poor Lisa backfires on her as

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Speaker 1: as most of Lisa's plans seem to do. They burn

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Speaker 1: and all the guns they you know, they other think

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Speaker 1: they launched weapons into the sun or something, you know. Uh,

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Speaker 1: So everybody's at peace, and that just makes us right

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Speaker 1: for the picking for the aliens who might end and

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Speaker 1: what enslave humanity with with what weapons, um, A slingshot

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Speaker 1: and a club I believe for the weapons of King

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Speaker 1: and Kotos. And then eventually the bar keep Mo manages

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Speaker 1: to drive them away with I believe a board with

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Speaker 1: a rusty nail in it. So these are examples of

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Speaker 1: game changing military technologies. Each one just drastically changes the

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Speaker 1: face of human or human slash alien conflict on the planet. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: in real life outside of the Simpsons, we've had a

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Speaker 1: few too, and uh they've shaped the way wars waged

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Speaker 1: and and one or or lost, as the case may be.

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Speaker 1: And when you look at these technologies, and when Robert

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Speaker 1: and I were talking about them before, they you kind

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Speaker 1: of see that they start to fall into um three categories. Right.

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Speaker 1: So you have the weapons that expand the battlefield, the

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Speaker 1: ones that you know make it bigger, you know, make

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Speaker 1: the theater of war much larger, spanning continents and seas

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Speaker 1: and all that. And you also these same weapons can

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Speaker 1: increase the speed of war. And then there are weapons

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Speaker 1: or technologies, as the case maybe that increase communication abilities

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Speaker 1: between and among troops and soldiers or their ability to

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Speaker 1: spa on enemy troops and movements and stuff like that.

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Speaker 1: And then of course there's firepower, good old fashioned firepower.

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Speaker 1: Now you might be thinking, well, why stuff in the

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Speaker 1: science lab talking about military and and uh and warfare. Well,

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Speaker 1: that's because basically the story of science is also the

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Speaker 1: story of war, because heaven forbid humans invent anything, um

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Speaker 1: that we can't turn around and kill the next guy with.

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Speaker 1: All right, Gid Robert, all right, thinking that, note, let's

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Speaker 1: let's head straight to I mean, what seems to me

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Speaker 1: the and what historians and to agree is like one

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Speaker 1: of the big game changing military technologies of all up

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Speaker 1: all time, talking of course about the horse. The horse

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Speaker 1: isn't necessarily something I would think about the technology, but

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Speaker 1: a technology indeed for our purposes. Yes, And nobody's nobody's

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Speaker 1: sure exactly when when when this this all began, But

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Speaker 1: they say that initial domestication of the horse uh was

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Speaker 1: probably um looked into just for food, just you know,

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Speaker 1: taming the animal so that you could butcher it and

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Speaker 1: need it. And at some point they started realizing, hey,

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Speaker 1: I need a haul this from point A to point

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Speaker 1: b um, so why don't I hook something up to

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Speaker 1: the horse. They started using them as draft animals, and

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Speaker 1: then at some point they're like, hey, I can uh,

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Speaker 1: I can you know, ride this into war? And they

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Speaker 1: started developing ways of using the horse in warfare, and

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Speaker 1: they think the earliest example of this is five thousand

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Speaker 1: years ago. Um. And there's evidence of of horse warfare

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Speaker 1: of popping up in Eurasia between four thousand and three

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Speaker 1: thousand BC. Are you able to ride a horse by

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Speaker 1: the way, no, my uh, my, my wife is uh

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Speaker 1: there's an accomplished writer and and love's horses. I have

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Speaker 1: not actually gotten on one yet. She keeps threatening to

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Speaker 1: make it happen or I think I would probably like

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Speaker 1: ride maybe a pony or like a or a cart

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Speaker 1: behind once with a camel. Yeah, like you set between

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Speaker 1: the humps. It was kind of like the saddle set

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Speaker 1: on top of the humps, some sort of zoo place.

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Speaker 1: I wrote an elephant. I did write an elephant, excellent,

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Speaker 1: but not a horse that I remember. So I have

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Speaker 1: elephants been used in ballot? Probably not? Yes, yes, yes, Hannibal,

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Speaker 1: oh yes yes, yes, okay, oh yeah, Lord of the Well,

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Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings. Didn't actually happen, but still um yeah.

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Speaker 1: Elephants in warfare are also pretty big, and in Thailand

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Speaker 1: they were used. Elephants have have helped helped humans out

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Speaker 1: in their in their warring. But anyway back to the horse.

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Speaker 1: Another important factor in what they call the equine revolution

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Speaker 1: is availability of food. And this is the trad transition

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Speaker 1: from hunter gathering to um to actual agriculture. All right,

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Speaker 1: before your hunting, gut hunter gatherers, you're gonna wage war

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Speaker 1: for what just you know, oh, you're picking berries and

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Speaker 1: from my shrubs. Right, But with the development of agriculture, um,

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Speaker 1: suddenly there's the ability to have a true surplus of food,

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Speaker 1: so you could actually attack the other guy and you'd

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Speaker 1: have something, you know, really tangible to steal. And the

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Speaker 1: horse about allows you to to not only get the drop,

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Speaker 1: but to run away with the food. All right, um,

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Speaker 1: because basically anybody can, in theory surprise another armed force.

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Speaker 1: You know, you can creep up there on your feet.

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Speaker 1: But then once you've surprised them, you're gonna have to

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Speaker 1: make your getaway. And you can only run so fast,

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Speaker 1: and the other guy I can run too, But the

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Speaker 1: horse allows you to make us us steady escape. And

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Speaker 1: from there this just kicks off a horse based arms race,

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Speaker 1: all right. They start attaching clumsy wheeled vehicles to the horses,

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Speaker 1: and these these evolved into chariots, which which were in

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Speaker 1: a way another game changing technology because these were the

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Speaker 1: basically the super weapons of the time. Um. Then you

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Speaker 1: had other advancements such as stirrups and saddles. The stirrup

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Speaker 1: was really important because you could actually set down in

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Speaker 1: the saddle, put your feet back into the stirrups and uh,

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Speaker 1: and put a lance under your arm and drive it

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Speaker 1: directly into the enemies. You have the force of the

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Speaker 1: horse behind the weapon. Um. Yeah, so the horse was

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Speaker 1: a major contributor to our ability to destroy one another unwittingly.

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Speaker 1: You can't blame it on the horses, definitely not. Mr

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Speaker 1: d is not to blame. From there, it kind of

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Speaker 1: goes along some more lines. Eventually we're able to develop

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Speaker 1: steam technology and eventually eventually becombustion engine. All right, And

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Speaker 1: this uh basically just picks up where the horse left off.

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Speaker 1: And it alters the speed and range of war all right.

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Speaker 1: We can travel um farther and we can travel faster

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Speaker 1: and uh. And it also changes you know, it also

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Speaker 1: changes what kind of supplies you're gonna need. It's no more,

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Speaker 1: no longer do you have to worry about feeding the

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Speaker 1: horses as well. You just have to keep the tank's

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Speaker 1: gased up. Well don't they even use internal combustion engines

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Speaker 1: on ballistic missiles. I think they do, so it's powering. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean yeah, combustion engines you know, lead to pretty

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Speaker 1: much any kind of motorized weapon you can think of,

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Speaker 1: from airplanes in the sky you know, to uh uh

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Speaker 1: two submarines under the sea. Um, it's it just totally changes.

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Speaker 1: And speaking of which, that's the other major transportation based

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Speaker 1: game changing weapon technology, air power. And you know this

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Speaker 1: is this is pretty obvious. It just opens an entirely

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Speaker 1: different theater of warfare. All right. You suddenly you're able

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Speaker 1: to to to fly over the battlefield provide air support

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Speaker 1: for your troops. Therefore you need you don't. Therefore you

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Speaker 1: don't need as many troops on the ground. Right. No,

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Speaker 1: land is impenetrable now now, I mean we don't have

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Speaker 1: to have Omaha beaches and stuff like that with troops

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Speaker 1: washing up and these great waves on the shore. I

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Speaker 1: mean we have air power, so I mean anything is game, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they all they offered in an alternative to uh two

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Speaker 1: typical land and sea invasion. You know, it's just another

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Speaker 1: way into enemy territory. And at the time people thought

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Speaker 1: that bombarding civilian populations would be the kind of thing

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Speaker 1: that would just instantly bring about peace, that the nations

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Speaker 1: would just crumble up far faster with that kind of

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Speaker 1: threat over their heads. The horse, the combustion engine, and

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Speaker 1: in power flight. All three of these have have changed

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Speaker 1: how far we can we can travel, how we travel,

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Speaker 1: and the speed with which we can get there. Um.

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Speaker 1: So these are all basically weapon delivery systems, and they've

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Speaker 1: changed the way we wage war. Right, so if you

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Speaker 1: have all these delivery systems, you have to have a

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Speaker 1: means of controlling them and communicating with them, and you know,

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Speaker 1: changing the game plan if if the troops are on

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Speaker 1: the move. And so communication is a major theme within

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Speaker 1: military technology. So before recent times, commanders could still reach

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Speaker 1: their troops, but they just had to rely on stuff

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Speaker 1: like you know, a guy running, or a guy on

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Speaker 1: a horse, or flags or maybe and some guy standing

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Speaker 1: on a hill watching everything, or the pigeon, you know,

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Speaker 1: the messenger pigeon. But this is a problematic system, as

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Speaker 1: Napoleon could attest you back in the day. Um, there's

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Speaker 1: a story of Napoleon forgetting about a few thousand troops

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Speaker 1: during the Battle of Jenna. So Napoleon surely would have

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Speaker 1: appreciated the advances in communication that I've come about, like

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Speaker 1: the advent of radio and it's subsequent introduction into the

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Speaker 1: theater of war. So, first we had the wireless telegraph,

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Speaker 1: and this led to lots of cracking codes and stuff

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Speaker 1: like that, which I kind of love Enigma code so

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Speaker 1: forth right, So you're communicating your message over wireless telegraph

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Speaker 1: and granted it's getting the message are faster, but it's

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Speaker 1: open to enemies and spies and stuff like that. By

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Speaker 1: World War Two, though, you have shortwave radios and this

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Speaker 1: was a huge thing for the Germans actually, because the Germans,

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Speaker 1: as you guys might remember, did these coordinated blitzkrieg movements

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Speaker 1: in which pilots and soldiers are all talking by radio

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Speaker 1: and so you have one airplane who's providing cover and

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Speaker 1: tanks are moving in and it's this kind of lightning war.

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Speaker 1: That's the literal translation. Yeah, right. In addition to short

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Speaker 1: ray radio, you have radar, and this is the first

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Speaker 1: automated way to really see the enemy and be seen yourself.

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Speaker 1: So goodbye to that guy in the bluff. Who's looking

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Speaker 1: out for approaching troops or ships. Radar let us bounce

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Speaker 1: radio waves or microwaves off solid objects and then alert

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Speaker 1: us if say, an enemy plane is flying into our

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Speaker 1: particular neck of the woods. Then this is actually another

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Speaker 1: favorite because I love all spy stuff. You have the

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Speaker 1: spy satellite, and this is as far back as the

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Speaker 1: Cold War. Essentially countries have been sending up recon satellites

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Speaker 1: to see what the other side is up to. Modern

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Speaker 1: spy satellites can do more than just take photos. They

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Speaker 1: can collect telephone, own radio, and internet signals. The problem

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Speaker 1: seems to be is that sometimes these images or information

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Speaker 1: that it captures seems to be a little blurry. Have

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Speaker 1: you ever looked at some of these photos? Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I'm thinking of the rest of Development episode with

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Speaker 1: the w m d s. But that's that's different because

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Speaker 1: let's turn out not to be w m ds. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: they there's you can only get so clear an image,

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Speaker 1: and then you sort of have to decide exactly what

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Speaker 1: you're looking at. Yeah. Yeah. And then beyond spy satellites,

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Speaker 1: we have of course GPS, and this basically turns the

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Speaker 1: world into a giant, instantly accessible map. And that's pretty

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Speaker 1: handy if you're a soldier with no earthly idea where

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Speaker 1: you are suddenly landed in foreign territory. So that kind

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Speaker 1: of covers the major advancements and communications. But we saved

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Speaker 1: the best for last, which of course is firepower. Well

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Speaker 1: the best but also kind of the worst. Yeah. I

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Speaker 1: guess the most impressive one, the most explosive one. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and yeah definitely has the most bag. Yeah. So let's

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Speaker 1: move on to the big guns. First, we have gunpowder,

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Speaker 1: and we have the Chinese basically to thank for this.

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Speaker 1: They came up with it while they are trying to

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Speaker 1: mix immortality elixers. Really they created the exact opposite of that.

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Speaker 1: So the Chinese made early versions of gunpowder weapons um,

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Speaker 1: including like bombs and guns, and even a type of

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Speaker 1: cannon called get this, the flying cloud, thunder clap eruptor

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Speaker 1: wow that I can just imagine the instructions for that,

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Speaker 1: somehow being very hard to follow. So gunpowder of course

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Speaker 1: changed China, and once it made its way across trade

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Speaker 1: roots had also changed Europe and Asia, and it gave

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Speaker 1: those people the abilities dominate over the barbarians. And it

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Speaker 1: was also eventually said to have crumpled the Byzantine Empire.

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Speaker 1: So gunpowder is a pretty game changing technology. But in

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Speaker 1: addition to gunpowder, you have to have the ability to

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Speaker 1: focus it right, you know, you have to be able

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Speaker 1: to hit your enemy if that's what you're aiming to do.

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Speaker 1: And so this is where proved gun barrels actually came

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Speaker 1: into effect. So you want to take the big ones. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, what are you firing and what are you

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Speaker 1: blowing up? You know, we've been talking about gunpowder, which

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Speaker 1: is is pretty effective, but we also developed some pretty

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Speaker 1: terrifying armaments on top of this. Um. First of all,

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Speaker 1: there's biological and chemical weapons to consider. And by chemical,

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Speaker 1: I mean technically gunpowder is a chemical weapon, but we're

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Speaker 1: referring to everything that's not gunpowder or an explosive um,

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Speaker 1: stuff like mustard gas, mustard gas um as far as

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Speaker 1: chemical goes. And then for biological things like anthrax or vasualism, toxin,

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Speaker 1: and these are pretty terrifying. And that with with all

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Speaker 1: these is just in it allows you to kill more people. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and not just people. I mean, chemical and biological weapons

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Speaker 1: can be used against armies, but they can we live,

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Speaker 1: you know, civilian populations where they can be used against plant,

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Speaker 1: live crops, animal life. Um. And they've they've proven pretty

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Speaker 1: tricky too that you can't you can't make a chemical

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Speaker 1: weapon or biological weapon that only kills your enemies. You

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Speaker 1: know it's gonna be dangerous to your troops as well. Um.

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Speaker 1: And they're very difficult to control. The effects are are

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Speaker 1: are unpredictable and uh I really you don't have to

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Speaker 1: look at uh any further back in time than World

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Speaker 1: War One to see just how like psychologically terrifying they were. Um.

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Speaker 1: You know they were used to us a great effect

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Speaker 1: into great terror during the First World War and m

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Speaker 1: and as a result, you didn't see as as much

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Speaker 1: use in the Second World War because all the major

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Speaker 1: leaders in the Second World War had been troops in

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Speaker 1: the First World War and they've seen the effects firsthand. Um.

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Speaker 1: This will probably get cut, but there's a there's a

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Speaker 1: great poem by Wilfred Owen dulcay at decloromst World War

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Speaker 1: two poem. You've probably heard this right, gas gas quick boys,

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Speaker 1: and ecstasy of fumbling fitting the clumsy helmets just in time.

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Speaker 1: But someone's it was yelling out and stumbling and floundering

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Speaker 1: like a man in fire or lime dim through the

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Speaker 1: misty pains and thick green light as under a green sea.

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Speaker 1: I saw him drowning, you know. So that's that has

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Speaker 1: always kind of give given me the chills before. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so I mean terrifying weaponry, uh and you know, and

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Speaker 1: and very effective. An ounce of bostilism toxin can kill

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Speaker 1: an estimated sixty million people. So that's something to think about.

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Speaker 1: As a result, they've been uh I think twenty two

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Speaker 1: UH participating countries UM agreed to ban biological weapons in

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Speaker 1: the nineteen two and there are a lot of similar

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Speaker 1: bands on the table for UM and in place for

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Speaker 1: chemical weapons as well. And then the big one, of

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Speaker 1: course is nuclear armaments, the ability to split the atom

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Speaker 1: and UM create a nuclear explosion. This particular weapon has

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Speaker 1: UH fortunately only been used twice in warfare UM, once

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Speaker 1: int Hiroshima where it killed ninety thod people and once

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Speaker 1: at Nagasaki where it killed thirty five thousand people. And

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Speaker 1: I think the the true terror this uh, this weapon

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Speaker 1: is evident in how little it's been used. You don't

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Speaker 1: have to look any any any further than the Cold

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Speaker 1: War to see just how it can really just chill

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Speaker 1: out UM military aggression at least overt military aggression um.

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Speaker 1: And we're continuing to live in an age where military

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Speaker 1: um a conquest defense is defined by the fear and

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Speaker 1: the threat of nuclear weapons. Yeah, and then you have

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Speaker 1: smaller robots like stuff they can search for booby traps

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Speaker 1: like the pac bot, or you have bigger remote controlled

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Speaker 1: trucks or tanks, you know, with computers inside them. And

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Speaker 1: then you know, doing stuff like clearing minds, and then

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Speaker 1: the drones like you said, doing recon in the air.

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Speaker 1: And then eventually the robots take over and turn all

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Speaker 1: the weapons on us, right right, And also we have

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Speaker 1: clone armies. No, we don't have clone armies. That could

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Speaker 1: be the way that that article didn't happen. Well, it

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Speaker 1: wasn't for lack of trying. It was pitched right. We'll

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Speaker 1: clone armies change the world or what we'll clone will

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Speaker 1: clone armies take over? And okay, Roberts. So if you

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Speaker 1: think we missed a military technology, send us an email.

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Speaker 1: It's science stuff at howstuff works dot com. Or brush

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Speaker 1: up on bots of the military kind of the top

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Speaker 1: ten game changing military strategies over on the site. And

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Speaker 1: you can check out the blogs where we talk about

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Speaker 1: everything from what the latest podcasts are about to uh

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Speaker 1: megastructures again. You can always send us an email and

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Speaker 1: uh we'll see you next time. Thanks for listening, Guys

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Speaker 1: for moralness and thousands of other topics because at how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check

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Speaker 1: out our blogs on the house stuff works dot com

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Speaker 1: home page s