top 10 weps that made the 21st cen

[Theryman]

You people are all nuts. If civ 4 teaches us anything, its that history is shaped mostly by whichever country made the most axemen back in 2000 BC.

Roffle!

I think that the bomb made the biggest difference. Airplane delivered bomb, I mean. It saw a whole lot of use and greatly changed the way war was fought. If you did not control the skys, then you would get bombed to hell. Simple as that. It may not have been as accurate as nearby artillery, but dropping a poopload of bombs over an enemy city is going to kill some people, limit their production of weapons, and most importantly break their morale.

 

[manlyboy]

The gay bomb
ACME rocket propelled roller skates
The judo chop
The nipple cripple
The cone of silence
The five point palm exploding heart technique
Mr. Miyagi's crane kick
Sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads
The Vulcan nerve pinch
Boobies

 

[onejayhawk]

In all seriousness, the kenetic energy weapon is the true bomb. All you need is a big slingshot and a pile of rocks.

J

 

[Clausewitzian]

I'd say the rise of air and space power projection. Those are completely new forms of weapon systems with nothing to compare in preceding history.

Also revolutions in command and control, caused by telephone, radio, computer networking are things that have no precedent in history, they are changing the way commanders can operate ('n troops, by the way), and the speed in which they can do it. This is, in a way, a weapon all of its own.

And yeah, nukes have to be up there somewhere. MAD created a whole new ball game for all nations that could participate in it, while leaving those outside the MAD lines of power open to conventional destruction.

A strange trend is that certain types of next generational weapons are getting increasingly expensive and complicated to make. Many countries that for instance in ww2 had many aircraft industries, now have difficulty getting a single multi-national aircraft out. Even america's JSF is in fact a muti-nation effort.

Oh the joys of the simple, cheap, effective AK-47 that we can hand out to criminals and children to shoot each other up and terrorize civilians with. They are indeed a weapon that is changing the face of warfare in the under-developed nations of the world. The wild west, with machine guns this time and all the chaos and destabilization that comes with it. Waging war was never easier.

 

[sabo]

Actually, that is a tactic used, certainly by the US.

I remember there was a case of some dictator holing himself up in his palace, and US troops parking outside and blasting various versions of "I fought the law (and the law won)" until he surrendered.

US troops were also fond of blasting the Clash's "Rock the Casbah" from Humvees in the first gulf war.

That was in Panama, against the corrupt, drug dealing, two faced, Manuel Noriega

 

[mr_lewington]

helicopter i think should be on a list of revolutionary weps 2, they save a lot of lives.

 

[Junzi Nicuzn]

I don't know if I would include things such as tanks, submarines, airplanes, etc, when trying to discuss the top weapons that made the previous century. While they certainly had a huge effect, they're more weapon platforms then actual weapons. The actual weapons on them are mostly modern forms of old weapons. The innovation is in how they're delivered. The weapons I would include, in no particular order, are:

AK-47
Gas
Nuclear (probably the only weapon more useful merely existing than it is in actual use)
Machine Gun
Missiles
Bazooka/RPG (forgot about this one until I reread carmen's post)

Maybe land mines, I'm not to sure on that one yet.

Other than those, I don't think I would add anything.

helicopter i think should be on a list of revolutionary weps 2, they save a lot of lives.

I wouldn't include the helicopter since I consider it a weapon platform and not a weapon (much like I said above about tanks and such). But isn't saving lives the exact opposite of what a weapon is supposed to do? If you want to praise the helicopter for saving lives, praise it as a transport vehicle and not a weapon. I would want my top weapons to kill a lot of lives.

 

[Italian Celtic]

A strange trend is that certain types of next generational weapons are getting increasingly expensive and complicated to make. Many countries that for instance in ww2 had many aircraft industries, now have difficulty getting a single multi-national aircraft out. Even america's JSF is in fact a muti-nation effort.

Stealth weapons are the best but they are expensive so NATO want to use co-operation between several countries to cut costs. It's better for all

 

[Virote_Considon]

I'd say Land Mines were pretty important. They needed international treaties to ban them.

Nukes are obviously the most important, due to their use both on and off the battlefield.

 

[Italian Celtic]

I'd say Land Mines were pretty important. They needed international treaties to ban them.

Nukes are obviously the most important, due to their use both on and off the battlefield.

We have to ban only plastic land-mines because metal-detector can't find them. Metal land-mines can be used