The technology of killing : a military and political history of antipersonnel weapons

Author(s)

    • Prokosch, Eric

Bibliographic Information

The technology of killing : a military and political history of antipersonnel weapons

Eric Prokosch

Zed Books, 1995

  • : hbk
  • : pbk

Available at  / 4 libraries

Search this Book/Journal

Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. 202-209) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

More soldiers and civilians have died in contemporary wars and their aftermath as a result of the indiscriminate use of land-mines and other anti-personnel weapons than from any other type of modern armament. Some 85 million anti-personnel weapons now lie scattered around the world, yet little has been published about them outside defence circles. The story of their development and proliferation since World War 11 makes clear why an entire UN Treaty, the 1980s Conventional Weapons Convention, is now devoted to the subject.

Table of Contents

  • Part 1 The science of wound ballistics: early research - the study of the "explosive wound"
  • World War II - research in Great Britain
  • the Princeton Group - origins and experimental set-up
  • the Princeton findings - temporary cavity, permanent cavity and the effects on different parts of the body
  • the mathematics of wounding
  • battle casualty surveys
  • the study of accidents
  • wound ballistics at the end of World War II. Part 2 Korea - the redesign of anti-personnel weapons: fragmentation, source of "kill mechanisms"
  • World War II - criteria for "rapid incapacitation"
  • controlled fragmentation - the M26 grenade
  • pre-fragmentation - the claymore mine
  • natural fragmentation - cast iron shells
  • rifle fire - the Oro study
  • Mr Barr's deadly dart
  • Part 3 Vietnam - weapons for counter-insurgency: controlled fragmentation - the 40mm grenade
  • natural fragmentation - the 2.75 inch rocket
  • lighter bullets - the M16 rifle
  • artillery in Vietnam - firing on a village
  • new directions in natural fragmentation - the development of high fragmentation shells
  • canisters and beehives - the story of a "nasty thing"
  • fuzes, the brains of munitions. Part 4 Vietnam - clusters of Guavas: cluster bombs against North Vietnam - early reports
  • "Guava" bombs as seen from the other side - allegations and denials
  • a war against civilians?
  • a profusion of clusters
  • Rockeye, an antitank bomb with an anti-personnel "fringe-benefit"
  • combined-effect bomblets
  • fuzes for enhanced effectiveness
  • different combinations of bomblets and dispensers
  • "improved conventional munitions" for artillery
  • aerial mines
  • the munitions of Vietnam - implications for future wars. Part 5 Tackling the merchants of death: notes from a napalm scrapbook
  • the corporate image
  • a company with human feelings. Part 6 Banning anti-personnel weapons through international law: Lucerne 1974 - taming the rash Swedes
  • Lugano 1976 - an emerging consensus
  • the 1980 Conventional Weapons Convention
  • grounds for weapons bans
  • the role of the public conscience. The future of anti-personnel weapons - control or chaos?
  • the proliferation of anti-personnel technologies
  • new weapons used in new wars
  • a new humanitarian response - the landmine campaign
  • new moves for international bans - the 1995 Review Conference of the Conventional Weapons Convention
  • laser weapons - warfare by blinding
  • fuel-air explosives and other wide-area blast weapons
  • cluster weapons
  • "future weapons"
  • strengthening the convention
  • bringing the 1899 dum-dum ban up to date
  • the future of anti-personnel weapons.

by "Nielsen BookData"

Details

Page Top