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291st Engineer Combat Battalion (United States)
The 291st Engineer Combat Battalion was one of the most decorated engineer combat battalions of the United States Army during World War II, playing notable roles both in the Battle of Bulge and the Rhine river crossing at Remagen. Commanded by Colonel David E. Pergrin, it earned a Presidential Citation for its performance in the Ardennes, blowing up bridges and fighting as infantry in helping stunt the German advance towards Antwerp. Scouting parties of 291st discovered 17 survivors of the Malmedy massacre on 17 December 1944. After nearly a month of grueling counter measures against the initial Panzer forces led by Joachim Peiper, the battalion's C Company returned to Malmedy to discover the bodies of 86 murdered US GIs frozen under a thick blanket of snow on 14 January 1945. The battalion led the construction of the first pontoon bridge across the Rhine at Remagen to take traffic pressure off the severely damaged Ludendorff Bridge before its tragic collapse. The span mad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pontoon Bridge
A pontoon bridge (or ponton bridge), also known as a floating bridge, uses floats or shallow- draft boats to support a continuous deck for pedestrian and vehicle travel. The buoyancy of the supports limits the maximum load that they can carry. Most pontoon bridges are temporary and used in wartime and civil emergencies. There are permanent pontoon bridges in civilian use that can carry highway traffic. Permanent floating bridges are useful for sheltered water crossings if it is not considered economically feasible to suspend a bridge from anchored piers. Such bridges can require a section that is elevated or can be raised or removed to allow waterborne traffic to pass. Pontoon bridges have been in use since ancient times and have been used to great advantage in many battles throughout history, such as the Battle of Garigliano, the Battle of Oudenarde, the crossing of the Rhine during World War II, the Iran–Iraq War's Operation Dawn 8, and most recently, in the 2022 Ru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Camp Swift, Texas
Camp Swift is a census-designated place (CDP) in Bastrop County, Texas, United States. The population was 7,943 at the 2020 census. Camp Swift began as a United States Army training base built in 1942. It is named after Major General Eben Swift. History The Army signed a $25 million contract in January 1942 to build a training camp on 56,000 acres north of Bastrop, Texas. The contract stipulated the project was to be completed in 108 working days. 2700 buildings were built during World War II, but none of those remain on the site today. At the end of the war, they were sold or donated and relocated. The gymnasium was relocated to Whitney Texas. It is still in use today by the school district. During World War II, German prisoners of war began arriving and at peak numbered 10,000. At the same time, the camp held 90,000 GIs, making it "one of the largest army training and transshipment camps in Texas" according to Krammer. In December 1942, Sgt Walter Springs was gunned down by a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pontoon Bridge
A pontoon bridge (or ponton bridge), also known as a floating bridge, uses floats or shallow- draft boats to support a continuous deck for pedestrian and vehicle travel. The buoyancy of the supports limits the maximum load that they can carry. Most pontoon bridges are temporary and used in wartime and civil emergencies. There are permanent pontoon bridges in civilian use that can carry highway traffic. Permanent floating bridges are useful for sheltered water crossings if it is not considered economically feasible to suspend a bridge from anchored piers. Such bridges can require a section that is elevated or can be raised or removed to allow waterborne traffic to pass. Pontoon bridges have been in use since ancient times and have been used to great advantage in many battles throughout history, such as the Battle of Garigliano, the Battle of Oudenarde, the crossing of the Rhine during World War II, the Iran–Iraq War's Operation Dawn 8, and most recently, in the 2022 Ru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Assault Boat
An assault boat is a boat used for landing in combat, meant for inland waters. Assault boats are light enough to be carried by multiple men and paddled, or fitted with an outboard motor for high-speed operation, manually portable or not. Some assault boats are able to be fitted with small firearms such as automatic rifles. Larger assault boats are used in riverine and littoral water where the boat is easy enough to berth in tight spaces and shallow water. The length of assault boats is usually 5 to 20 meters and are made either from rubber, fiberglass, aluminum, or steel. WWII U.S. military Assault boats in the U.S. military during World War II were typically the property of Combat Engineer Battalions, whose combat engineers also deployed and crewed them. The Americans deployed two types of assault boat: The "storm boat" was an 8-man (6+2 crew) high-speed assault boat with a 55 horsepower outboard motor, designed to breach at speed, thus allowing the soldiers on board to "storm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Demolition
Demolition (also known as razing, cartage, and wrecking) is the science and engineering in safely and efficiently tearing down of buildings and other artificial structures. Demolition contrasts with deconstruction, which involves taking a building apart while carefully preserving valuable elements for reuse purposes. For small buildings, such as houses, that are only two or three stories high, demolition is a rather simple process. The building is pulled down either manually or mechanically using large hydraulic equipment: elevated work platforms, cranes, excavators or bulldozers. Larger buildings may require the use of a wrecking ball, a heavy weight on a cable that is swung by a crane into the side of the buildings. Wrecking balls are especially effective against masonry, but are less easily controlled and often less efficient than other methods. Newer methods may use rotational hydraulic shears and silenced rock-breakers attached to excavators to cut or break through ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Infantry
Infantry is a military specialization which engages in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry & mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and marine infantry. Although disused in modern times, heavy infantry also commonly made up the bulk of many historic armies. Infantry, cavalry, and artillery have traditionally made up the core of the combat arms professions of various armies, with the infantry almost always comprising the largest portion of these forces. Etymology and terminology In English, use of the term ''infantry'' began about the 1570s, describing soldiers who march and fight on foot. The word derives from Middle French ''infanterie'', from older Italian (also Spanish) ''infanteria'' (foot soldiers too inexperienced for cavalry), from Latin '' īnfāns'' (without speech, newborn, foolish), from which English also gets ''infant''. The individual-soldier te ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anti-tank Grenade
An anti-tank grenade is a specialized hand-thrown grenade used to defeat armored targets. Although their inherently short range limits the usefulness of grenades, troops can lie in ambush or maneuver under cover to exploit the limited outward visibility of the crew in a target vehicle. Hand launched anti-tank grenades became redundant with the introduction of standoff rocket propelled grenades. Grenades were first used against armored vehicles during World War I, but it wasn't until World War II when more effective shaped charge anti-tank grenades were produced. AT grenades are unable to penetrate the armor of modern tanks, but may still damage lighter vehicles. History The first anti-tank grenades were improvised devices. During World War I the Germans were the first to come up with an improvised anti-tank grenade by taking their regular "potato masher" stick grenade and taping two or three more high explosive heads to create one larger grenade. In combat, after arming, the gren ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bazooka
Bazooka () is the common name for a man-portable recoilless anti-tank rocket launcher weapon, widely deployed by the United States Army, especially during World War II. Also referred to as the "stovepipe", the innovative bazooka was among the first generation of rocket-propelled anti-tank weapons used in infantry combat. Featuring a solid-propellant rocket for propulsion, it allowed for high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) warheads to be delivered against armored vehicles, machine gun nests, and fortified bunkers at ranges beyond that of a standard thrown grenade or mine. The universally applied nickname arose from the M1 variant's vague resemblance to the musical instrument called a " bazooka" invented and popularized by 1930s American comedian Bob Burns. During World War II, the German armed forces captured several bazookas in early North African and Eastern Front encounters and soon reverse engineered their own version, increasing the warhead diameter to 8.8 cm ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anti-tank
Anti-tank warfare originated from the need to develop technology and tactics to destroy tanks during World War I. Since the Triple Entente deployed the first tanks in 1916, the German Empire developed the first anti-tank weapons. The first developed anti-tank weapon was a scaled-up bolt-action rifle, the Mauser 1918 T-Gewehr, that fired a 13mm cartridge with a solid bullet that could penetrate the thin armor of tanks of the time and destroy the engine or ricochet inside, killing occupants. Because tanks represent an enemy's strong force projection on land, military strategists have incorporated anti-tank warfare into the doctrine of nearly every combat service since. The most predominant anti-tank weapons at the start of World War II in 1939 included the tank-mounted gun, anti-tank guns and anti-tank grenades used by the infantry, and ground-attack aircraft. Anti-tank warfare evolved rapidly during World War II, leading to the inclusion of infantry-portable weapons such ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
M2 Browning
The M2 machine gun or Browning .50 caliber machine gun (informally, "Ma Deuce") is a heavy machine gun that was designed towards the end of World War I by John Browning. Its design is similar to Browning's earlier M1919 Browning machine gun, which was chambered for the .30-06 cartridge. The M2 uses Browning's larger and more powerful .50 BMG (12.7 mm) cartridge. The design has had many designations; the official U.S. military designation for the current infantry type is Browning Machine Gun, Cal. .50, M2, HB, Flexible. It is effective against infantry, unarmored or lightly armored vehicles and boats, light fortifications, and low-flying aircraft. The gun has been used extensively as a vehicle weapon and for aircraft armament by the United States since the 1930s. It was heavily used during World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Falklands War, the Soviet–Afghan War, the Gulf War, the Iraq War, and the War in Afghanistan. It is the primary heavy machine gun of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
M1919 Browning
The M1919 Browning is a .30 caliber medium machine gun that was widely used during the 20th century, especially during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. The M1919 saw service as a light infantry, coaxial, mounted, aircraft, and anti-aircraft machine gun by the U.S. and many other countries. The M1919 was an air-cooled development of the standard US machine gun of World War I, the John M. Browning-designed water-cooled M1917. The emergence of general-purpose machine guns in the 1950s pushed the M1919 into secondary roles in many cases, especially after the arrival of the M60 in US Army service. The United States Navy also converted many to 7.62 mm NATO, and designated them Mk 21 Mod 0; they were commonly used on riverine craft in the 1960s and 1970s in Vietnam. Many NATO countries also converted their examples to 7.62 mm caliber, and these remained in service well into the 1990s, as well as up to the present day in some countries. Operation Loading The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Combat Support
In the United States Army, the term combat support refers to units that provide fire support and operational assistance to combat elements. Combat support units provide specialized support functions to combat units in the following areas * Chemical Warfare * Combat Engineering * Military Intelligence * Security * Communications Combat support should not be confused with combat service support, which are units which primarily provide logistical support by providing supply, maintenance, transportation, health services, and other services required by the soldiers of combat units to continue their missions in combat. Expressed another way, Combat Support units are focused on providing operational support to combat units, while Combat Service Support units are focused on providing logistical support to combat units. Actual combat units are collectively referred to as combat arms units; hence, all army units fall into the category of either combat arms, combat support, or combat s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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