S T E M

TORPEDOES, MISSILES, AND PHYSICS GOES TO WAR

TIM RIPLEY THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK S T E M

TORPEDOES, MISSILES, AND CANNONS PHYSICS GOES TO WAR

Tim Ripley

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ripley, Tim, author. Title: Torpedoes, missiles, and cannons : physics goes to war / Tim Ripley. Other titles: Physics goes to war Description: Minneapolis, MN : Lerner Publications, [2018] | Series: STEM on the battlefi eld | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Audience: 9–12. | Audience: 4–6. Identifi ers: LCCN 2016058433 (print) | LCCN 2017004773 (ebook) | ISBN 9781512439267 (lb ; alk. paper) | ISBN 9781512449549 (eb pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Weapons—History—Juvenile literature. | Military art and science—History—Juvenile literature. Classifi cation: LCC U800 .R55 2018 (print) | LCC U800 (ebook) | DDC 623.4—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016058433

Manufactured in the United States of America 1-42139-25412-4/3/2017 Contents

physics at War ...... 4 Bows and Catapults ...... 6 Archimedes’ Claw ...... 10 The First ...... 12 Guns and Gun Barrels...... 14 The First ...... 16 Armor-piercing shells ...... 18 The First Torpedoes ...... 20 The ...... 22 Depth charges ...... 26 Launchers ...... 28 Flying Bombs and Missiles ...... 30 lasers ...... 34 the Atom Bomb ...... 36 Nuclear Deterrence ...... 40

TIMELINE ...... 44 Glossary ...... 46 Further Resources ...... 47 Index ...... 48 Physics at War

In January 1878 Russian speedboats raced toward an enemy warship in the Black Sea. The Russians and their allies were at war with the Ottoman of modern Turkey. The Russians wanted to gain territory on the Black Sea, which was under Ottoman control. The Russian speedboats traveled quickly. The guns of the Turkish warship Intibah could easily destroy them. The Russian crews used speed to get close enough to fire their weapons. A torpedo blast sinks the Turkish steamer The Russians used a new weapon called a Intibah as Russian Whitehead torpedo. The torpedoes sped speedboats wait nearby. This painting through the water powered by compressed was created by the air. They struck the Intibah below the Russian artist Lev waterline, and the ship sank. It was the first Lagorio Konstantin time small boats had destroyed a warship. in 1880.

4 SCIENCE SKILLS The Whitehead torpedo was invented by a British engineer named Robert Whitehead. Whitehead was a skilled physicist. Physics is the science concerned with the nature of matter and energy. Physics has influenced weapons design for centuries. Physicists invented new kinds of bullets and missiles. They learned how to use the explosive force of in weapons such as rockets. They developed new weapons such as the machine gun. Physicists have also studied how to use light, heat, and sound in warfare.

A fireball rises over a ENERGY OF THE ATOM huge explosion caused In the early twentieth century, physicists by an atom bomb. began to understand the structure of the A nuclear explosion creates a mushroom- atom. An atom is the smallest particle of a shaped cloud as the chemical element that can exist. Physicists force of the explosion figured out how to use atoms to create a pulls smoke and debris huge explosion. The first atom bomb high into the air. exploded in 1945. It helped to end World War II (1939–1945) and transformed warfare. It also changed the course of human history.

5 BOWS AND CATAPULTS

Bows and arrows were first used in the Stone Age. Native peoples in the Americas, Asia, and Africa continued to use bows as weapons until the nineteenth century.

he bow is a simple but efficient weapon. It consists of a bowstring tied tightly between English archers T (right) meet French two ends of a curved piece of wood. The ends of soldiers armed with the bow act as levers. The archer’s hand acts as crossbows (left) at the fulcrum. The archer draws the arrow back the of Crécy in 1346. in the bowstring to create tension.

6 BOWS AND CATAPULTS When the archer releases the string, SCIENCE it propels the arrow forward. Bows FILE create kinetic energy, so the arrow travels quickly and creates a powerful Arrow Flights force. In the Middle Ages, when In ancient times, soldiers began to wear armor, an people tried to arrow with a steel tip could penetrate design arrows that even thick metal armor. would fly straight. They learned to attach tail feathers to the ARROWS IN BATTLE arrow. These feathers, In ancient times, groups of archers or fletchings, caused on foot or on horseback fired hundreds the arrow to spin as it flew. That helped or thousands of arrows at the same to make the arrow’s time. The rain of arrows they created line of flight devastated enemy straighter. The study of objects that fly troop formations. through the air is a Then in the fifteenth branch of physics and sixteenth called aerodynamics. centuries in Europe, archers used a new weapon, the longbow.

The tail feathers at the back of an arrow help it to fly straighter.

7 SCIENCE FILE The longbow was a weapon about 6 feet (1.8 meters) long. Its additional length allowed it to produce even more force Catapults than normal bows. Longbows took more Like bows, catapults skill to fire than regular bows because use tension to fire projectiles. A catapult it was more difficult to pull back is like a long lever. the bowstring. Skilled archers could Soldiers pulled down on hit targets from more than 220 yards the back to create (200 m) away. Longbows killed many tension in ropes at the front. When the knights on horseback because the throwing arm was arrows pierced their armor. released, tension whipped the end of the catapult forward and The long arm of a catapult up. Catapults could was pulled down to create throw rocks or burning tension in the crosspiece at materials against or the front. When the tension over the walls of enemy was released, the missile was cities. launched into the air.

8 The crossbow was far easier to use than the longbow. Nearly anyone could go into battle and fire a crossbow toward the enemy without much training.

THE CROSSBOW Another common type of bow was the crossbow, which was invented in China in about 700 BCE. The crossbow consisted of a piece of wood with a short, curved metal crosspiece at the front. The crossbow had a mechanism to draw back the bowstring and to create tension in the ends of the crosspiece. The user fired the crossbow by pulling a . The crossbow fired a bolt, a short metal projectile with a pointed tip.

Unlike longbows, soldiers needed little training to use a crossbow. The weapon was also easier to fire while riding a horse. The crossbow made it possible for commanders to move large numbers of unskilled soldiers who fought in huge masses. By the thirteenth century, the rise of mass armies marked the end of the era of mounted knights.

9 TIMELINE

c. 700 BCE The crossbow is invented in China.

214 BCE The ancient Greek scientist Archimedes develops weapons to protect the port of Syracuse from attack by Roman ships.

c. 1200 The fi rst guns are invented in China.

c. 1200 The fi rst longbows appear in Wales. They are longer and more powerful than ordinary bows.

c. 1400 English armies use the longbow in against the French.

c. 1520 The German Augustus Kotter invents rifl ing, grooves inside a gun barrel that cause a bullet to spin, making it fl y straighter. Rifl ing becomes common in the 1800s.

1805 William Congreve invents the Congreve rocket, based on weapons used in India.

1861 Richard Gatling invents an early machine gun, the .

1866 Robert Whitehead invents a torpedo that is driven through the water by a small propeller turned by compressed air.

1879 Armor-piercing Palliser shot sinks an ironclad warship for the fi rst time in a battle between Chile and Peru.

1883 Hiram Maxim invents the , which can fi re up to 550 rounds per minute, and which automatically reloads as it ejects a used shell.

44 1916 British physicists invent the depth charge for use against German U-boats, or submarines, during World War I.

1941 Clarence Hickman invents the bazooka, a that can be carried and used by an individual infantry soldier.

1942 The Germans begin using the V-1 rocket in attacks on Britain, France, and Belgium.

1944 The Germans fi re V-2 rockets in long-distance attacks on London.

1945 On July 16, the fi rst atom bomb is tested in New Mexico. On August 6 a US bomber drops an atom bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, starting a new age of nuclear weaponry.

1949 The Soviet Union develops an atom bomb, beginning an arms race with the United States.

1960 US engineer Theodore H. Maiman builds the fi rst laser. Engineers use the laser to target missiles and as an alternative to radar.

1983 The United States announces the Strategic Defense Initiative, a program to put lasers on satellites in space. SDI is never built.

2008 An airborne laser weapon is fi red for the fi rst time from an aicraft in fl ight.

45 Glossary

armorers: people who make weapons fulcrum: a pivot point around which a or armor lever turns

artillery: large guns such as cannons kinetic energy: the energy of motion

ballistic missiles: missiles that travel matter: all physical substances in a high arc before falling onto their missiles: weapons that are propelled targets under gravity toward a target cartridge: a case containing a bullet : guns with long barrels and gunpowder to make it fi re propeller: a device with turning chain reaction: a chemical reaction in blades that propels ships or aircraft which each step of the process leads to further reactions radioactive: producing a dangerous form of energy called radiation communism: a political system in which everything is owned by the state siege: a military operation to capture a town or castle by surrounding it colonial: relating to colonies, or areas a country rules in other lands Soviet: from or having to do with the Soviet Union, a nation that existed cruise missile: a low-fl ying missile from 1922 to 1991, based in modern- steered by an onboard computer day Russia detonated: caused to explode volley: a number of bullets fi red at element: a chemical substance that the same time cannot be broken down into other warheads: the explosive heads of substances missiles fortifi cations: walls and barriers built waterline: the level reached by water to defend a place from attack on the side of a ship

46 Further Resources

Books Roesler, Jill. Eyewitness to the Rooney, Ann. The History of Physics. Dropping of the Atomic Bombs. New York: Rosen, 2013. Mankato, MN: Child’s World, 2016. Wyckoff, Edwin Brit. The Man Who Samuels, Charlie. Machines and Invented the Laser: The Genius of Weaponry of World War I. New York: Theodore H. Maiman. Berkeley Gareth Stevens, 2013. Heights, NJ: Enslow Elementary, 2014.

Websites Archery Facts What Is a Rocket? http://www.softschools.com https://www.nasa.gov/audience /facts/sports/archery_facts /forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa /787/ -knows/what-is-a-rocket-k4 .html Archimedes and his Discoveries http://easyscienceforkids.com World War II: The Atomic Bomb /all-about-archimedes/ http://www.ducksters.com /history/world_war_ii/ww2 The Machine Gun _atomic_bomb.php http://spartacus-educational .com/FWWmachinegun.htm

SDI (Star Wars) http://www.american-historama .org/1945-1989-cold-war-era /strategic-defense-initiative.htm

47 Index

archers, 6–8 Hiroshima, 39 sabot rounds, 19 Archimedes, 10–11 Hitler, Adolf, 30, 32, 36 sound navigation and armor, 7–8, 18–19, 29, ranging (sonar), 27 35 ironclads, 18–19 Strategic Defense arrows, 6–8 Initiative (SDI), 43 artillery, 12–13, 23, 28 Japan, 39 submarines, 21, 26–27, atom bomb, 5, 36–39, 42 40 lasers, 34–35, 43 longbow, 7–9 tanks, 19, 29 ballistic missiles, 29, 33, torpedo, 4–5, 20–21 41 machine guns, 5, 22–25 Manhattan Project, U-boats, 21, 26 cannons, 12–14, 28 37–38 uranium, 19, 38–39 catapults, 8, 10 Maxim gun, 23, 25 China, 9, 16 muskets, 14–15 V-weapons, 30–33 Cold War, 41 mutually assured crossbow, 9, 25 destruction (MAD), 41 World War I, 19, 21, 23, 25–27 da Vinci, Leonardo, 22 Nagasaki, 39 World War II, 5, 19, depth charges, 26–27 30–31, 37–40 Palliser shot, 19 Einstein, Albert, 36–37 Reagan, Ronald, 43 global positioning system rifl ing, 15, 18 (GPS), 29 rockets, 5, 16–17, 28– gunpowder, 5, 13–14, 31, 35 16–17, 24

48 THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK S T E M

PHYSICS GOES TO WAR

In 1878 tiny Russian speedboats raced toward a huge enemy warship in the Black Sea. The speedboats carried new weapons called torpedoes. The Russian torpedoes struck the Turkish warship, and it sank. It was the first time small boats had destroyed a warship.

Physics, or the science of forces, has always been an important part of war. In the late nineteenth century, inventors developed machine guns that could fire thousands of bullets a minute. During World War II, physicists took part in a top-secret project to create the most powerful weapon in the world: the atom bomb. From crossbows and cannons to rocket launchers and laser-guided missiles, discover how physicists have changed weapons and warfare! STEM on the Battlefield Codes, Ciphers, and Cartography Math Goes to War Dirty Bombs and Shell Shock Biology Goes to War Hovercrafts and Humvees Engineering Goes to War Robots, Drones, and Radar Electronics Go to War Smoke Screens and Gas Masks Chemistry Goes to War Torpedoes, Missiles, and Cannons Physics Goes to War

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