This trail follows wheeled armored cars, half-tracks and tracked troop carriers in the order of the service-entry year each page records, from 1941 to 1966. It shows how the job of carrying soldiers and scouting ahead...
9 stops
These missiles are ordered by the year each page records as its introduction, so the path runs from the first American cruise missile of 1952 to a ballistic missile first used in combat in 2024. Along the way it passes...
11 stops
Not every weapon in this atlas began with an army order. This path follows thirteen firearms and one air gun made by commercial gun companies and sold to shooters, police or soldiers, set in the order of the year each...
14 stops
This path follows ten weapons first fielded between 1965 and 2024, from an American anti-radar missile to the rifle that replaced the M4. It moves through a French tank, rifles from South Africa, Russia, Israel, Turkey...
10 stops
This path follows twelve edged and pointed weapons, ordered roughly by when each appears in the record, from a straight Japanese sword of antiquity to an Okinawan prong weapon that reached the wider world in the...
12 stops
This path follows the weapons a foot soldier or a small crew could carry into a fight, from a light machine gun of 1909 to the belt-fed gun that began fielding in 2024. Each stop is a weapon from a maker or army outside...
10 stops
Eight guns that fire pistol cartridges show how the submachine gun changed over eighty years. The path opens with four wartime designs built in 1941 and 1942 for speed and low cost, then moves to three compact peacetime...
8 stops
A gun is only as useful as the round it fires, and several of the most important weapons in the atlas are cartridges rather than firearms. This path follows nine of them from the 9x19mm of 1901 to the heavy Russian...
9 stops
Long arms changed their loading, their ammunition and their makers over almost two centuries. This path follows nine rifles in the order they appeared, from the first breech-loader adopted in large numbers to a modern...
9 stops
These eight weapons are all held and swung by hand, and most began as something other than a weapon of war. They run from a harvesting tool pressed into service as an improvised weapon, through Indian and Chinese...
8 stops
These ten weapons share one problem: how to put destructive force on a target from a distance. They run from the first modern jet of flame in 1915, through guided and deep-penetrating bombs of the Second World War and...
10 stops
This path follows long-range and guided weapons, and the systems built to launch or stop them, in the order they entered service, from the German retaliation weapons of 1944 to a Chinese ballistic missile fielded around...
9 stops
Ten handguns follow the pistol and revolver from the 1870s to the 2000s, among them service weapons, a target-shooter's curiosity and arms that became known through crime. Each was built for a different buyer, and the...
10 stops
This path follows the Kalashnikov design from its first Soviet service rifle through licensed copies, shortened carbines, export models and offshoots chambered for other roles. Each stop shows how one gas-operated...
11 stops
This path follows eight weapons from the Roman Empire through the medieval centuries, ending with the great bombard that marks the arrival of gunpowder artillery. It moves from sword and dart to siege engine, then from...
8 stops
This path follows eleven big guns that fought at sea, on the coast and against aircraft, from the muzzle-loading broadside guns of the age of sail to the heavy anti-aircraft gun that served until missiles replaced it...
11 stops
Air defence is built in layers, and this path climbs them: shoulder-fired missiles that protect a single squad, short-range vehicles that cover a column, medium-range systems that screen an army or a fleet, and...
16 stops
A rocket or a recoilless gun throws a warhead without the heavy barrel and carriage of a conventional cannon. This path follows that idea from Soviet aircraft rockets of the 1930s, through the crew-served recoilless...
10 stops
Japan fought with its own weapons for nearly two thousand years: straight swords from before the ninth century, matchlocks copied in the 1500s, bolt-action rifles of the Imperial era, and rifles that only the...
10 stops
This path follows tracked armored vehicles across four decades, from the heavy tanks and half-tracks of the Second World War through the first and second generation main battle tanks of the Cold War. Along the way it...
13 stops
Armies have always needed something fast to find the enemy and something light to exploit a gap. This trail follows the armoured scout car and the light or cruiser tank through fourteen vehicles, from the cavalry-minded...
14 stops
Most stories of guided weapons stop at the two superpowers. This path follows missiles and rockets as they spread: American rockets and ballistic missiles of the 1950s, then Soviet, Israeli, Italian, South Korean...
14 stops
Before rifled barrels and breech-loaders took over, armies and navies fought with smoothbore guns, flintlock muskets and edged weapons, and this path follows ten of them in order of introduction. It runs from an Ottoman...
10 stops
This path follows weapons designed or built by German firms across more than eighty years, from a flamethrower fielded in 1935 to a rifle introduced in 2017. It runs from Second World War experiments in the self-loading...
10 stops
Since the 1960s the United States has tried to hit defended targets without sending a pilot over them. These eight air-launched guided weapons follow that effort in the order they entered service, from a...
8 stops
This path follows the heavy end of the infantry and vehicle arsenal, from the Soviet 14.5 millimetre machine gun of 1949 to the anti-materiel rifles and remote weapon stations of the twenty-first century. It moves from...
12 stops
Some of the most influential infantry weapons of the twentieth century came from small industrial states rather than great powers. This path follows eleven of them from the Belgian pistols of 1900 to the Finnish assault...
11 stops
Many of the weapons in this atlas were designed for war, but a good number began as something else: a trowel, a farm implement, a herder's whip, a pocket knife, even an umbrella. This path follows twelve of them, from...
12 stops
This path follows the handgun as a military and police weapon across a century, through service pistols, pocket pistols, revolvers and one burst-fire machine pistol that are less often named than the Colt 1911 or the...
10 stops
This path follows the infantry rifle through a century of change, from single-shot breechloaders to bolt-action magazine rifles and then to the semi-automatic and intermediate-cartridge designs that replaced them. Each...
14 stops
Twelve assault rifles show how a few designs became families. The path starts with the American AR-15 line and its piston-driven descendants, turns to the Kalashnikov line and the rifles that borrowed from it, and ends...
12 stops
This path follows the vehicles that moved soldiers and eyes to the fight, from the amphibious Soviet carriers of the 1950s to the Swedish CV90 of the 1990s. Each stop is a vehicle that carried troops or scouted for...
11 stops
These twelve machine guns trace how sustained automatic fire was fed, cooled and carried, in order of introduction from 1895 to 1977. The path moves from the gas-operated potato digger and the German Maxim derivative...
12 stops
These eight weapons share one job: putting an explosive charge on a target that a rifle bullet cannot reach, using only what a small infantry team can carry. The path runs in order of introduction, from a German stick...
8 stops
This path follows rifles built to hit one target at long range, from a Soviet single-shot anti-tank rifle of 1941 to the Army sniper rifle fielded in 2011. Along the way the stops show three answers to the same problem...
10 stops
These ten firearms each tried something that mainstream rifles and pistols did not: compressed air instead of powder, rockets instead of bullets, flechettes for underwater use, suppressors built into the barrel, a...
10 stops
This path follows weapons that stepped outside the familiar categories of gun, shell and bomb. It begins with the German nerve agents and VX, moves to the railgun and the first laser weapons, and ends with loitering...
12 stops
The shotgun began as a sporting gun and became a close-range military tool, and these eight weapons follow that change in the order they appeared. The path runs from the pump-action Winchester Model 1897 and the first...
8 stops
Eleven weapons outside the standard arsenal share one idea: force applied by whoever had little, or by a device left to wait. The path starts with farm tools and bamboo turned into weapons by people who lacked firearms...
11 stops
Most famous weapons are remembered as all-rounders, but many military machines were designed to solve one narrow problem. These nine, in order of introduction, run from a tank built only to walk beside infantry to a...
9 stops
This path follows medium powers that chose to design or localize their own weapons rather than simply buy them. Rifles from Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Israel and China come first, then main battle tanks from South...
10 stops
This trail follows the submachine gun across a century, from an Italian carbine built out of half an aircraft gun in 1918, through the wartime designs of Finland, Italy, Japan and the Soviet Union, to the police and...
13 stops
Long after firearms decided most battles, armies kept issuing blades, and each one answered a particular need of its time. This path follows ten of them in rough order of appearance, from rifle-mounted sword bayonets of...
10 stops
This trail follows weapons of pre-modern China in roughly the order they mattered, from the dagger-axe of the Longshan culture and the Han spear and saber, through the Song dynasty polearms, maces and clubs recorded in...
9 stops
This path follows field artillery from the Soviet and Western towed guns of the 1960s and 1970s through the self-propelled guns that replaced them. Each stop shows a different answer to the same problem of moving heavy...
10 stops
This path follows weapons that reached their targets from the air, from the rigid airships of 1915 to the glide-bomb kits of the 2020s. It runs in the order they entered use, so you can see air power move from slow...
9 stops
Some weapons win by being somewhere, not by being fired at someone. This path follows devices built to deny ground: spring guns and mantraps, wire and steel barriers, demolition schemes, and the directional and...
14 stops
This path follows ground-based and ship-launched defenses against aircraft, rockets and ballistic missiles, arranged by reported engagement range from short-range systems that guard a battlefield to interceptors that...
8 stops
A self-propelled howitzer carries its gun on its own chassis instead of behind a tractor. This path follows nine of them in order of entry into service, from the Soviet 2S1 Gvozdika of 1972 to the Russian 2S35...
9 stops
A torpedo is a ship-killer that travels under its own power beneath the surface, and these ten weapons trace how it grew from a compressed-air curiosity into a guided, homing and sometimes supercavitating machine. The...
10 stops
This path follows the long contest between aircraft and those who tried to stop them or protect them. It starts with the anti-aircraft guns and the radar of the 1930s, moves to the gun turrets that bomber crews relied...
9 stops
This path follows long-range ballistic missiles built to carry nuclear warheads across continents and oceans, taken in the order they entered service or were first shown. It moves between submarine-launched and...
12 stops
This path follows a run of weapons that tried something new about how much fire one soldier or one crew could deliver, from the sixteenth-century cavalry firearm to the shoulder-fired rocket of 1943. Each stop was...
8 stops
Most weapons trails follow a gun or a missile. This one follows the platforms that carry a force and its weapons into battle: a tracked infantry vehicle, an attack helicopter, escort frigates, assault ships, aircraft...
10 stops
This path follows nuclear delivery from the first full-scale thermonuclear test in 1952 to the long-range missiles of the twenty-first century. It moves from the bomb itself to the bombers, submarine missiles...
10 stops
Aircraft are built for jobs, and the jobs differ more than the silhouettes suggest. This path starts with a cargo hauler and follows the roles its family and its rivals took on, from high-speed reconnaissance and the...
8 stops
This path follows sixteen small arms from a century of service, taken from French, Italian, American, German, Soviet, Czech, Austrian, Belgian, Swiss, British and Israeli-American makers. It runs in order of...
16 stops
This path follows artillery from the Second World War field gun and rocket launcher through the self-propelled howitzers that now keep pace with armored forces. Each stop shows a different answer to the same problem...
8 stops
Weapons that hit what they aim at, and the ways their makers got there. This path begins with a spring-fired infantry weapon of 1943 and moves through wire-guided, laser-guided, radar-homing, satellite-guided and cruise...
9 stops
This trail follows named warship classes in the order their lead ships entered service, from a Japanese battlecruiser commissioned in 1913 to a British carrier commissioned in 2017. Each stop is a whole class rather...
13 stops
This path follows the weapons that do not shoot at an enemy but wait for him: pits, spikes, wire, mines and booby traps. It runs from the buried stakes of the Roman era to the roadside bombs and cluster munitions of...
14 stops
These eleven weapons each belong to one culture, one battlefield tradition or one inventor rather than to a common arsenal. The path runs roughly in time order, from a Warring States siege ladder to an...
11 stops
This path follows nine aircraft of the Second World War that carried much of the air fighting without always getting the fame of the Spitfire or the Flying Fortress. It begins with the German and Allied bombers and...
9 stops
This path follows the postwar tank from the last American tank of the Second World War to the newest South Korean design. It runs in order of service entry and crosses the Soviet, American, British, German, Japanese...
12 stops
This path follows nine weapons built outside the United States and Western Europe, in the order they entered service, from a Soviet helicopter gunship of 1972 to an Iranian drone first filmed in 2021. Together they show...
9 stops
This trail follows the weapon a soldier carries on the shoulder, from a flintlock rifle of the Napoleonic Wars to the carbine of the present day. It moves in order of adoption through seven rifles and carbines and one...
8 stops
The Second World War is remembered through a few famous tanks, but most of the fighting was done by the vehicles around them. This path follows nine of these, from the Czech-built and German medium tanks of 1939 to the...
9 stops
This path follows the warship hull rather than the gun or the missile it carries, from oared galleys that fought by ramming and boarding to nuclear submarines and carriers. Each stop is a ship type or class that defined...
10 stops
Each weapon on this path was built to solve one specific problem: reaching farther than an arm can throw, climbing a wall, turning a sea fight into a land fight, cracking plate armor, breaching a gate, or fighting on a...
10 stops
This path follows the Second World War through the weapons that carried its everyday work: the standard rifles and pistol of three armies, then the aircraft, landing craft, carrier fighter and ships that moved and...
9 stops
The First World War forced armies to invent weapons for trenches, forts and open sky within a few years. These eight weapons run from the siege howitzers of 1914 to the submachine gun and the Paris Gun of 1918, and each...
8 stops
A pistol is the weapon an officer, a cavalryman or a crew member carries when the main weapon is out of reach. This path follows that personal weapon across three centuries, from the small breech-loading flintlock of...
12 stops
These eight weapons systems entered American service between 1956 and 2005 and are still in use today. Taken in the order they were fielded, they show how a Cold War arsenal of missiles, helicopters, ships, a submarine...
8 stops
Most of the atlas's blade stories are told from Europe and the Mediterranean. This trail follows ten edged weapons from China, India, Nepal, Japan, Southeast Asia and Africa, roughly from the oldest to the newest, to...
10 stops
This trail follows the single-seat fighter across more than a century of air war, from the Fokker Triplane of 1917 to the Su-57 of the 2020s. Each stop shows how a different air force answered the same question of how...
8 stops
A recurring pattern in modern war is a simple, inexpensive weapon threatening something far larger and costlier. This path follows it from the torpedo and the naval mine at sea, through the depth charge, to the...
8 stops
Mounted warriors dominated many battlefields, and foot soldiers kept inventing ways to stop them. This path follows long-shafted and heavy bladed weapons from the spear of the early Roman line, through the lance of the...
8 stops
Long before the cannon, armies learned to put more force behind a thrown or shot missile than a bare arm could give. This path follows that effort from a cord and a pouch, through war vehicles, traction engines...
8 stops
Three thousand years of hand-to-hand weapons, followed in rough order of date, show how shape followed enemy and armor: hooked and curved blades for shields, long spears for massed ranks, heavy heads and axe-and-hammer...
8 stops
This path follows the weapons an infantryman carried or threw, from the first self-igniting firearm of about 1500 to the assault rifle of the Cold War. Each stop marks a change in how a soldier loaded, fired or threw a...
9 stops
The tank began as a machine to cross the trenches of the Western Front and became the central vehicle of land war. This path follows fourteen tanks in order of introduction, from the Mark I of 1916 to the T-14 Armata of...
14 stops
These eight forces were built around the people who filled them and the purpose they served, rather than around a single model of the modern army. The path runs from a trading empire's fleet and a crusader kingdom's...
8 stops
This path follows the long-range delivery systems of the late twentieth century and the weapons built to stop them or to replace them, from a bomber designed for the Cold War to a cheap drone that became a symbol in a...
10 stops
This path follows the national armies and services that carried Europe and America through the century and a half after 1804, from Napoleon's Grande Armee through the armies that fought it, the reforming empires of the...
12 stops
This path follows the separate branches of four large Eurasian military establishments, taking each country in turn. Russia and China show how a state divides its forces by element and then adds a missile arm of its...
9 stops
This path follows one idea across a century and a half: how soldiers were given sustained automatic fire, first on a hand crank, then in heavy crew-served guns, then in light machine guns, submachine guns and assault...
10 stops
A national armed force is more than an army: it is a way a state chooses to join land, sea and air power under civilian command. These ten forces run from the French and Spanish royal armies of the fifteenth century...
10 stops
Follow combat aircraft and helicopters across seven decades, from a First World War biplane to a Cold War air superiority fighter. Each stop shows what a new airframe was built to do, from fighting other aircraft to...
9 stops
This path follows the hand weapons of the pre-gunpowder and early gunpowder world from ancient Greece through medieval Europe and Japan to the last lancers of 1914, showing how swords, polearms and impact weapons were...
11 stops
This path follows the warship as the weapon that decided who controlled the sea, from the armed sailing carriers of the sixteenth century through the line of battle, the all-big-gun battleship and the submarine, to the...
9 stops
This path follows national armed forces in the order they were founded, from the Imperial Japanese Army of 1871 to the Russian Armed Forces of 1992. Along the way it moves through the dominion armies of the British...
13 stops
This path follows the weapons an ordinary foot soldier carried, from the long spear that held back cavalry in the Late Middle Ages to the battle rifles of the Cold War. Each stop shows one change in how infantry fought...
8 stops
From the founding of Safavid Iran in 1501 to the Asante wars of the eighteenth century, this path follows eight armies that met the age of gunpowder in different ways: tribal horsemen, lancers, pike and shot, standing...
8 stops
This path follows the weapons that defined armed forces from 1949 onward, from the rifles and fighters of the early Cold War through the tanks, missiles and stealth and unmanned aircraft that followed. Each stop is a...
14 stops
This path follows fourteen armies from Asia and Africa across more than two thousand years, in rough order of their rise. It shows how very different recruiting systems, from conscripted infantry and camel-mounted...
14 stops
This path follows thirteen weapons from the Second World War, from the fighters and tanks that opened the war to the rocket and the atomic bomb that closed it. Each stop is a system fielded in numbers, so the path shows...
13 stops
Armies fought on land for most of history, but a second line of armed forces grew up to fight at sea, from the air and finally in space. This trail follows that line from the Royal Navy of 1546 to the United States...
8 stops
This path follows the long contest between fortification and attacker, from the oldest wall-breaking tools of antiquity through torsion engines, incendiary fire and counterweight throwers to the gunpowder guns that...
10 stops
Rulers have always kept a corps they trusted more than their ordinary army: a royal guard, a sworn brotherhood, or soldiers raised to serve one master alone. This path follows ten such forces from the Persian Immortals...
10 stops
This path follows the organized fighting forces of the ancient and medieval world in roughly chronological order, from the first professional armies of Egypt and Assyria through the Greek, Macedonian, Carthaginian...
14 stops
This path follows sixteen weapons from the age of siege rams and oared warships to the first gunpowder tubes, in roughly the order each came into use. It shows how pike, sword, javelin, missile weapon and siege engine...
16 stops
Six named doctrines this wave added to the atlas, walked in roughly chronological order: the Roman legion's own tactical evolution, the general pincer movement across every era, the general craft of the siege...
6 stops
From the Macedonian hammer-and-anvil to Cold War deterrence, six named ideas about how to fight, in the order they first appeared.
6 stops
From the Continental Army's ragged volunteers at Yorktown to the Union Army's might at Gettysburg, this trail follows the commanders, forces and weapons of the American Revolutionary War and the American Civil War.
10 stops
One signature battle from each of this wave's five founding commanders, in chronological order, from Alexander's Macedon to Napoleon's France.
5 stops
Six wars in chronological order, from medieval England and France through Vietnam, tracing how wars grew from regional dynastic conflicts into globe-spanning and eventually total wars.
6 stops
Two operational lessons, two thousand years apart: Caesar's double-walled siege at Alesia in 52 BC and the Red Army's deep encirclements at Stalingrad and Berlin both trapped a dangerous enemy between two lines the...
3 stops