Wielded with untamed ferocity on many a Gaelic battlefield, the massive Lowlander sword vividly illustrates the might of the Scots of old. Known as Slaughter-Swords in the 16th century, these were the swords of choice for Scottish mercenaries of the period, and at close to six feet long the Lowlander (2065-GT) faithfully replicates a surviving museum piece. Though by far the largest sword ever offered by C.A.S., the Lowlander is beautifully proportioned and balanced. The typically Scottish quatrefoils in the ring guards attest to the heritage of this imposing piece and a wall mount is provided to allow the transplanted Gael to display his sword with pride. KEY FEATURES: Almost 6' long Fully functional Wall mount included MEASUREMENTS: Blade length: 48� Handle length: 21� Overall length: 68 1/2� Weight: 6lb 14oz Thickness: .270
Price: 299.99
Made by France-Lames, the worlds Largest supplier of fencing equipment, these weapons are used by fencers worldwide. Blades are superbly tempered high-carbon spring steel, forged under the strictest standards of quality control to meet international fencing regulations. The handles are molded rubber, available in both right and left hand models. The guards are aluminum and pommels are plated steel, weighted for exact balance.
Price: 79.99
These sport fencing practice foils feature blades of tempered high-carbon steel, with molded rubber grips, aluminum handguards and plated steel pommels, weighted for precise balance. Our fencing masks (ACDI09)are an essential accessory for fencing with the foil. KEY FEATURES: Tempered high-carbon replaceable blade Correct weight and balance Economical MEASUREMENTS: BLADE LENGTH: 35 OVERALL LENGTH: 42 3/8 WEIGHT: 8oz
Price: 69.99
The Main Gauche, or left hand dagger was often used with the rapier, providing and added dimension in both offense and defense, and the "school of fence" which proliferated in Europe during this period taught the use of the two weapons in combination. The Main Gauche would often match the Rapier in styling, while incorporating features whcih maximized the effectiveness of the piece. MEASUREMENTS: BLADE LENGTH: 14� OVERALL LENGTH: 19 3/4�
Price: 108.99
Made by France-Lames, the worlds Largest supplier of fencing equipment, these weapons are used by fencers worldwide. Blades are superbly tempered high-carbon spring steel, forged under the strictest standards of quality control to meet international fencing regulations. The handles are molded rubber, available in both right and left hand models. The guards are aluminum and pommels are plated steel, weighted for exact balance.
Price: 78.99
Swept Hilt Rapiers trace their origins to early 17th century Europe, where swordplay with the Rapier was considered an essential part of a gentlemans education and was often used in resolving gentlemanly disagreements. Blades typically originated in Toledo or Solingen and would be hilted by regional smiths, resulting in many hilt styles. Features a high-carbon steel blade and a very attractive solid steel (not plated) basket with a genuine bone grip. A rigid leather-covered scabbard is included. Either of our rapier belts (Model SH1039) is ideally suited to this rapier. KEY FEATURES: * High-carbon steel blade * Genuine bone grip * Rigid scabbard included MEASUREMENTS: BLADE LENGTH: 36 5/8 inches OVERALL LENGTH: 45 1/4 inches WEIGHT: 2lb 2oz Hanwei is the world leader in production of quality sword replicas. A sure-fire conversation piece, Hanwei provides pride of ownership. Collect quality from the leader!
Price: 212.99
Our Fencing Mask is designed for use with any of the sport fencing or rapier fencing weapons offered on this website. It meets international 12Kg punch-test standards and it has a bendable top guard, which can be fitted to the individual user, and an adju
Price: 99.99
Our Fencing Mask is designed for use with any of the sport fencing or rapier fencing weapons offered on this website. It meets international 12Kg punch-test standards and it has a bendable top guard, which can be fitted to the individual user, and an adju
Price: 99.99
Our Fencing Mask is designed for use with any of the sport fencing or rapier fencing weapons offered on this website. It meets international 12Kg punch-test standards and it has a bendable top guard, which can be fitted to the individual user, and an adju
Price: 99.99
This Ceremonial Tomahawk was used by the Chippewas. The largest and most important tribe north of Mexico, numbering some 30,000 souls, about equally divided between the United States and Canada. This 5.5" x 2.5" metal hatchet has a bowl head and 13.5" wood handle, and is a functional reproduction. Tomahawk/Peace Pipe Weight: 1.5 lbs
Price: 29.99
Indian Peacepipes were used in ceremonial smoking and highlighted many important activities. Uses dignified many occasions including but not limited to: Rallying forces for warfare, trading goods, ritual dancing, medicine ceremonies (healing), to discuss war or peace, to negotiate for a bride, and settling disputes over land. The pipes were smoked ceremonially whenever groups of Indians met. And used as a means of offering prayers. This functioning reproductions feature include 15" wood handle, 9" solid brass hatchet with classic engraved Indian designs. Weight: 2.5 lbs.
Price: 29.99
Tomahawks were one of the main weapons used by Native American Indians. However their arsenal included a variety of weapons used for hunting and fighting. Some of them were spears (they were long sticks with sharp points on them), bows and arrows,war clubs and daggers. Tomahawks were used for hunting and fights, and so was the bow and arrow. The war club was only used for war. The dagger was used for both also. The Way They Hunted The indians that lived onthe plains took weeks planning for a hunt. Everyone had to work together to have a sucessful hunt. The warriors dressed in buffalo or wolf skins and scare the buffalo toward the men that were waiting for the buffalo to run past and then shoot them with bows and arrows, hit them with tomahawks, stab them with daggers, throw spears at them or any thing else they could use to kill the buffalo. Then the women and children would drag all the meat back to the camp. Hand-forged, this replica Revolutionary War tomahawk carried by early American fighting men and features a hefty hickory wood handle. Tomahawk throwing is a popular sport among American historical re-enactment groups, and some martial arts enthusiasts are attempting to revive tomahawk fighting techniques used during the Colonial era. 3.5" carbon steel blade. Tomahawk Length: 18", Weight: 1.9 lbs.
Price: 25.99
Power and video on one cable. RCA connectors & DC plugs. Works with all of our wired video cameras. Makes installation a snap. Eliminates the need to run a separate power cable or find power near the camera. CA-25 - 25 Plug & Play cable - $21.00 CA-50 - 50 Plug & Play cable - $31.00 CA-100 - 100 Plu & Play cable - $41.00
Price: 31.00
Power and video on one cable. RCA connectors & DC plugs. Works with all of our wired video cameras. Makes installation a snap. Eliminates the need to run a separate power cable or find power near the camera. CA-25 - 25 Plug & Play cable - $21.00 CA-50 - 50 Plug & Play cable - $31.00 CA-100 - 100 Plu & Play cable - $41.00
Price: 21.00
Hi-Res, low-light, virtually undetectable dome camera. Goes with any decor. Comes With Plug & Play Connectors. Worlds smallest dome camera. MD-101 - B/W Camera wired for plug & play connection. MD-101C - Color Camera wired for plug & play connection. MD-101 MD-101C 420 Lines of Resolution 380 Lines of Resolution 0.05 LUX(super low light) 1 LUX 3.6mm Wide Angle Lens 3.6mm Wide Angle Lens 9.5-15 Volt 9.5-15 Volt Ultra Small 2" Dome Ultra Small 2" Dome
Price: 157.50
Hi-Res, low-light, virtually undetectable dome camera. Goes with any decor. Comes With Plug & Play Connectors. Worlds smallest dome camera. MD-101 - B/W Camera wired for plug & play connection. MD-101C - Color Camera wired for plug & play connection. MD-101 MD-101C 420 Lines of Resolution 380 Lines of Resolution 0.05 LUX(super low light) 1 LUX 3.6mm Wide Angle Lens 3.6mm Wide Angle Lens 9.5-15 Volt 9.5-15 Volt Ultra Small 2" Dome Ultra Small 2" Dome
Price: 262.50
Hi-Resolution Camera with Rugged Shrink Tube. Comes with Plug & Play Connectors. SPECIFICATIONS Black & White ? 1" x 1" ? 420 Lines of Resolution 3.6mm Wide Angle Pinhole Lens ? .5 Lux ? 9.5-12 Volt
Price: 207.99
The worlds smallest video camera. .5" x.5" Hi-Res CMOS camera. Finally CMOS technology that virtually matches CCD at half the size. Comes with bracket and plug & play connectors. SPECIFICATIONS Black & White ? 380 Lines of Resolution ? 3.7mm Wide Angle Pinhole Lens ? .7 LUX (lowest light level CMOS on the market)? 5-9 Volt
Price: 184.99
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.
