Takeda Shingen, ally to Oda Nobunaga, was one of the greatest Samurai commanders of his day and an astute governor of his people. The armor is wearable (within a reasonable size range!) and is supplied in the traditional lacquered armor box, which, along with a a wooden frame, provides the support for the stunning display. Key Features: * Authentic replica * Wearable * Display stand included Specifications: Product height: 66� Weight: 65lb
Price: 1499.99
Discovered in 1938 at the Sutton Hoo excavation site in England, the Sutton Hoo Helmet was recovered from the site of an Anglo-Saxon ship burial. Dating from the early 7th century, the helmet is believed to have belonged to King Raedwald, who died in 624 C.E. and is of great archeological importance. This reconstruction illustrates admirably the skill and decorative talent of the armourers of the period.
Key Features:
Highly detailed
Great collector piece
Stand included Specifications: Weight: 7lb 5oz Thickness at Guard: 18gauge Specs will vary slightly from piece to piece.
The Gjermundbu Helm (AH2190N), is based on a classic Viking helm found in a Norwegian burial mound. Found in nine fragments, the helm has been re-constructed and is now housed in the Museum of National Antiquites in Oslo. It dates from around 970 CE and is considered to be the finest helm found of that era. The "spectacles" (offically "occularia"), provided excellent facial and nasal protection, while chain mail provided flexible protection to the back and sides of the neck. As with the original, our Gjermundbu helm is provided with a leather chin strap. KEY FEATURES: * Beautifully Ornate * Conversation Piece * Highly Detailed MEASUREMENTS: WEIGHT: 3lbs 8oz THICKNESS: 18 gauge
Price: 226.99
The Spangenhelm (AH2191N)is based on an 11th century piece. This style of conical helemt construction, whereby overlapping metal straps or "spangen" were riveted to dished metal plates to form a skull cap, is known to date back to the 6th century and was used as late as the 15th century. Our Spangenhelm, with its solid "nasal" and reinforced "eyebrows" is of an 11th-13th century style. Many can be seen on the famous Bayeaux Tapestry, which records scenes from the 1066 CE Battle of Hastings. As with the originals, our Spangenhelm is provided with a leather chin strap. KEY FEATURES:
The Barbuta Helm (AH2192N) replicates a 15th century helm that was popular throughout Europe. Bearing a strong resemblance to the helmets of the ancient Corinthians, the Barbuta (or Barbute) was found not only with the facial cutout shape shown in our model but with a T-shaped cutout (no nasal) and with an open-faced rectangular cutout. Designed as a helmet for regular infantry. KEY FEATURES:
Hanwei�s Dragon Armour, named for the helmet crest (mon), is made for the connoisseur of Japanese armours. It faithfully replicates a �Byotoji Do Gusoku� from the Edo period which, like many fine armours, incorporates an earlier helmet bowl from the Momoyama period. European influence on Samurai armour is discernible in the slight median ridge to the front section of the byotoji okegawa do (breastplate) which, by this period, was designed to deflect musket balls. The plates of the do, with waved edges, are fastened with elaborate shakudo rivets in the form of flowers with gilt centers. This feature illustrates the Japanese preference for a more flexible style of armour than the typical European one-piece breastplate construction. The carrying chest/display seat (hitsu) is black lacquered with the Dragon mon emblazoned in silver on the front panel. Overall, the antiqued patina of the gusoku gives a period appearance and provides a rich addition to any Japanese d�cor. Our full-sized suits of Samurai armour provide displays of outstanding quality for the den or the dojo. Crafted by the armourers of CAS Hanwei, the armour is authentically detailed and completely realistic. These very affordable pieces are made with traditional styling and materials and are wearable (within a reasonable size range!). They are supplied in the customary black lacquered box which, along with an included wooden frame, provides the support for the display. Key Features: Fully wearable Authentically constructed Magnificently detailed Specifications: Product height: 69 inches Weight: 65lb Specs will vary slightly from piece to piece.
Price: 2499.99
The combination of the sword and buckler (hand-cup shield) was extensively used during the Middle Ages. Typically, bucklers are small hand shields that are held by a fist-grip and are quit maneuverable. They can be used to deflect blows or deliver punches. The Buckler (AH2263 by CAS/Hanwei can also double as a shield boss. KEY FEATURES: * Steel construction * Historically accurate * Great for re-enactors MEASUREMENTS: PRODUCT WIDTH: 6 3/4 inches WEIGHT: 12oz
Price: 21.99
The original of the kabuto (helmet) of the Dragon Armour (AH2193) is interesting inasmuch as the bowl of the helmet came from the Momoyama period. The suji bachi style of bowl, with overlapped and riveted plates was typical of the finest helmet makers (katchu-shi) of this period, borne out by the signature of the Saotome smith �Ienao� on the back plate. The menpo (mask) is a typical ressei men of the type made in Nara. Mounted on a solid wood display stand, this helmet will be an outstanding addition to any collection and will complement any d�cor beautifully.
Order your Amtworks Habitat with the illuminator included! Educational and Fun! AntWorks is based on a 2003 NASA Space Shuttle experiment to study animal life in space and test how ants successfully tunnel in microgravity. The AntWorks Gel is complete with nutrients to promote healthy growth in the new colony. Watch ants live, work and tunnel in the nutritious and non-toxic gel as they create series upon series of intricate tunnels. Easy to care for - Ants need NO food or water PRODUCT INCLUDES: Magnifying Glass, Ant Catching / Tunnel Starter Tool, Instruction Booklet with Interesting Facts About Ants Includes Habitat and Illuminator. Recommended for Ages 8 and up, Accessory: Illuminator
Price: 29.99
See the wonderful world of lived ants magnified and brightened as intricate tunnels are created. Product includes: Satin Nickel Housing 5X power Lens (3.75") Battery Operation (requires 4 - AA batteries (not included). DC Power Adaptor (110v /220v)
Price: 29.99
See the wonderful world of lived ants magnified and brightened as intricate tunnels are created. Place this magnifier next to your AntWorks Habitat to get a close look at your busy ants busily working. Includes: Satin Nickel Housing 5X Power Lens (3.75" w) Adjustable, curved base DC Power Adaptor (110v / 220v) Dimensions: 46.0" L, x 5.25" W x 1.0" D
Price: 39.99
AntWorks Sculpture - the Apex of Ant-Artistry! Now you can create a permanent tribute to the intelligence and hard work shown by your ants! Once your ants have lived their lives in the Ant works gel habitat, what remains is a complex network of tunnels and chambers that serve as a testiment to their role as natures ultimate architects. Now yhou can turn the finished habitat into an illuminated work of art, with the AntWorks Sculpture kit. Simply pour the clear resin into your Antworks habitat and let harden. Rinse away the loose gel and you are left with a permanent work of art that resembles an ice sculpture. Add the AntWorks LED base (included) to illuminate your crystal-clear sculpture with a blue glow that is simply beautiful. Includes everything you need to create striking crystal caverns from your AntWorks habitat (not included) 6" long, 3.5" wide, 1" deep.
Price: 19.99
Expand your AntWorks habitat to include new worlds for your ants! Watch as your ants explore, discover, and develop new territory, incorporating it into their existing micro-colony, Unique AntDocks are located in the upper and lower portions of the gel habitat, enabling your ants to create a complex transportation system that is very impressive! AntWorks TunnelVision comes with the unbreakable translucent tubes - specially designed to provide a clear, 3-D view of your traveling ants. Just pop the TunnelVision tubes in the AntDocks and your six-legged friends are ready to start expanding their ant-empire! Dimensions: "multiples" of 6.5"L x 5.5"W x 1.25" D. Overall size depends upon the quantity of AntWorks and tubes used.
Price: 24.99
Airsoft Spring Pistol Gun with Laser. This airsoft BB gun is similar in size to the 92F. Quality is very good and will provide many hours of target practive. For 18 and up only, eye protection is recommended whenever using the weapon or in the area of use.
Features
Laser
Extra batteries for laser
Additional rail for laser
Service Screwdriver
Specifications
Weight: 12.5 oz.
Length: 9 inches
Height: 7 inches (with laser attached)
Velocity: 200 FPS
Color: Black rail, with simulated wood and checkered grips
War is the reciprocal and violent application
of force between hostile political entities aimed at
bringing about a desired political end-state via armed
conflict. In his seminal work,
On War,
Carl Von Clausewitz calls war the "continuation of
political intercourse, carried on with other means."[1]
War is an interaction in which two or more militaries
have a “struggle of wills”.[2]
When qualified as a
civil war, it is a dispute inherent to a given
society, and its nature is in the conflict over modes of
governance rather than
sovereignty. War is not considered to be the same as
mere
occupation,
murder or
genocide because of the reciprocal nature of the
violent struggle, and the
organized nature of the units involved.
War is also a cultural entity, and its practice is
not linked to any single type of political organisation
or society. Rather, as discussed by
John Keegan in his “History Of Warfare”, war is a
universal phenomenon whose form and scope is defined by
the society that wages it.
[3]
The conduct of war extends along a continuum, from the
almost universal
tribal warfare that began well before recorded human
history, to wars between
city states,
nations, or
empires. A group of combatants and their support is
called an
army on land, a
navy at sea, and
air force in the air. Wars may be prosecuted
simultaneously in one or more different
theatres. Within each theatre, there may be one or
more consecutive
military campaigns. A military campaign includes not
only fighting but also intelligence, troop movements,
supplies,
propaganda, and other components. Continuous
conflict is traditionally called a
battle, although this terminology is not always fed
to conflicts involving aircraft, missiles or bombs
alone, in the absence of ground troops or naval forces.
War is not limited to the
human species, as
ants engage in massive intra-species conflicts which
might be termed warfare. It is theorized that other
species also engage in similar behavior, although this
is not well documented.
[4][5][6]
Some believe war has always been with us; others
stress the lack of clear evidence that war is not in our
prehistoric past, and the fact that many peaceful,
non-military societies have and still do exist.
Originally, war likely consisted of small-scale raiding.
Since the rise of the state some 5000 years ago,
military activity has occurred over much of the globe.
The advent of gunpowder and the acceleration of
technological advances led to modern warfare.
Since the close of the
Vietnam War, the ideas expounded by the Prussian
military theorist Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) have
come to thoroughly permeate American military writing,
doctrinal, theoretical, and historical. His book
On War, first published (as
Vom Kriege) in 1832, was adopted as a key
text at the Naval War College in 1976, the Air War
College in 1978, the Army War College in 1981. It has
always been central at the U.S. Army's School for
Advanced Military Studies at Leavenworth (founded in
1983). The U.S. Marine Corps's brilliant little
philosophical field manual
FMFM 1: Warfighting (1989) is essentially a
distillation of On War, and the newer Marine
Corps Doctrinal Publications (MCDPs,
c.1997) are equally reflective of Clausewitz's basic
concepts.*1
This is not the first time Clausewitz has been in
fashion. Indeed, On War has been the bible of
many thoughtful soldiers ever since Field Marshal
Helmuth von Moltke attributed to its guidance his
stunning victories in the wars of German unification
(1864, 1866, 1870-71). Nor is it the first time that
individual American soldiers and military
thinkers have been attracted by his ideas: George
Patton, Albert Wedemeyer, and—especially—Dwight
Eisenhower were intensely interested in what he had to
say.
It is, however, the first time that the American
armed forces as institutions have turned to
Clausewitz. While the philosopher had insisted that war
was "simply the expression of politics by other means,"
the traditional attitude of American soldiers had been
that "politics and strategy are radically and
fundamentally things apart. Strategy begins where
politics end. All that soldiers ask is that once the
policy is settled, strategy and command shall be
regarded as being in a sphere apart from politics."*2
The sudden acceptability of Clausewitz in the wake of
Vietnam is not difficult to account for, for among the
major military theorists only Clausewitz seriously
struggled with the sort of dilemma that American
military leaders faced in the aftermath of their defeat.
Clearly, in what had come to be called in scathing terms
a "political war," the political and military components
of the American war effort had come unstuck. It ran
against the grain of America's military men to criticize
elected civilian leaders, but it was just as difficult
to take the blame upon themselves. Clausewitz's analysis
could not have been more relevant:
The more powerful and inspiring the motives for
war,... the more closely will the military aims and
the political objects of war coincide, and the more
military and less political will war appear to be.
On the other hand, the less intense the motives, the
less will the military element's natural tendency to
violence coincide with political directives. As a
result, war will be driven further from its natural
course, the political object will be more and more
at variance with the aim of ideal war, and the
conflict will seem increasingly political in
character.*3
When people talk, as they often do, about
harmful political influence on the management of
war, they are not really saying what they mean.
Their quarrel should be with the policy itself, not
with its influence.
Vom Kriege (IPA: [fɔm
ˈkʁiːgə]) is a book on
war and
military strategy by
Prussian general
Carl von Clausewitz, written mostly after the
Napoleonic wars, between 1816 and 1830, and
published posthumously by his wife in 1832. It has been
translated into
English several times as On War. On
War is actually an unfinished work; Clausewitz had
set about revising his accumulated manuscripts in 1827,
but did not live to finish the task. His wife eventually
compiled all the work and the final two chapters
Clausewitz never finished.
On War is one of the first books on modern
military strategy. This is mainly due to Clausewitz'
integration of politics and social and economic issues
as some of the most important factors in deciding the
outcomes of a war. It is one of the most important
treatises on strategy ever written, and is prescribed at
various
military academies to this day.
Carl von Clausewitz was a
Prussian officer among those baffled by how the
armies of the
French Revolution and
Napoleon had changed the nature of war through their
ability to motivate the populace and thus unleash war on
a greater scale than had previously been the case in
Europe. Clausewitz was well educated and had a strong
interest in art, science, and education, but he was a
professional soldier who spent a considerable part of
his life fighting against Napoleon. There is no doubt
that the insights he gained from his experiences,
combined with a solid grasp of European history,
provided much of the raw material for the book. On
War represents the compilation of his most cogent
observations.
Note: Clausewitz states that Napoleon's tactics were
not revolutionary at all and that Napoleonic Warfare did
not change anything greatly in military history. The
technology of weaponry for the most part remained
static, and new strategies weren't developed, but rather
Napoleon refurbished old ones, mixing them into one
grand strategy.
The book contains a wealth of historical examples
used to illustrate its various concepts.
Frederick II of Prussia (the Great) figures
prominently for having made very efficient use of the
limited forces at his disposal.
Napoleon also is a central figure.
Among many strands of thought, three stand out as
essential to Clausewitz' concept:
War must never be seen as a purpose to itself,
but as a means of physically forcing one's will on
an opponent ("War is not merely a political act, but
also a real political instrument, a continuation of
political commerce, a carrying out of the same by
other means."[1]).
The military objectives in war that support
one's political objectives fall into two broad
types: "war to achieve limited aims" and war to
"disarm” the enemy: “to render [him] politically
helpless or militarily impotent."
The course of war will tend to favor the party
employing more force and resources (a notion
extended by Germany's leaders in World War One into
"total war"—the pursuit of complete military victory
regardless of the political consequences).
Military strategy is a
national defence policy implemented by
military organisations to pursue desired
strategic goals.[1]
Derived from the
Greek
strategos, strategy when it appeared in use
during the 18th century[2],
was seen in its narrow sense as the "art of the
general"[3],
'the art of arrangement' of troops.[4]
Military strategy deals with the planning and conduct of
campaigns, the movement and disposition of forces, and
the
deception of the
enemy. The father of modern strategic study,
Carl von Clausewitz, defined military strategy as
"the employment of battles to gain the end of war."
Liddell Hart's definition put less emphasis on
battles, defining strategy as "the art of distributing
and applying military means to fulfil the ends of
policy" Hence, both gave the pre-eminence to political
aims over military goals, ensuring
civilian control of the military.
"You must not fight too often with one enemy,
or you will teach him all your art of war." –
Napoleon Bonaparte
Military strategy is the plan and execution of
the contest between very large groups of armed
adversaries. It involves each opponent's diplomatic,
informational, military, and economic resources wielded
against the other's resources to gain supremacy or
reduce the opponent's will to fight. It is a principle
tool to secure the
national interest. A contemporary military strategy
is developed via
military science.
[5]
It is as old as
society itself. It is a subdiscipline of
warfare and of
foreign policy. In comparison,
grand strategy is that strategy of the largest of
organizations which are currently the
nation state,
confederation, or international
alliances. Military strategy has its origins before
the
Battle of the Ten Kings and will endure through the
space age. It is larger in perspective than
military tactics which is the disposition and
maneuver of units on a particular sea or battlefield.[6]
Military strategy in the 19th century was still
viewed as one of a trivium of "arts" or "sciences" that
govern the conduct of warfare; the others being
tactics, the execution of plans and manœuvering of
forces in battle, and
logistics, the maintenance of an army. The view had
prevailed since the Roman times, and the borderline
between strategy and tactics at this time was blurred,
and sometimes categorization of a decision is a matter
of almost personal opinion.
Carnot, during the
French Revolutionary Wars thought it simply involved
concentration of troops.[7]
The Battle of Siffin, illustration from a
19th century manuscript by
Muhammad Rafi Bazil.
Strategy and
tactics are closely related and exist on the same
continuum.
