Ever since man had formed civilizations, disputes arose due to differences in opinion, territory or resources. A never ending arms race ensued between rival civilizations and nations in order to have an upper hand in war. Therefore, war acted as a catalyst for the technological innovations and its modern day applications in military and commercial use. Here are 3 obscure wartime technologies that you probably have never heard off.
PYKRETE
During World War 2, an idea was proposed to build a warship made entirely out of a composite mixture of ice and wood shavings. This material was theorized to be bullet-proof and unsinkable. Unfortunately, this idea did not materialize but the concept lived on. Today, we use pykrete to build ice roads over lakes so that heavy good and materials can be transported over it. Pykrete is almost 3 times stronger than ice and can reliably be used to build ice structures and ice shells much thinner than normal ice.
BURNING GLASS
We all know what happens when we hold a magnifying glass against a piece of paper. Now, increase the scale of that magnifying glass to ten times its size and you have a weapon that was supposedly used by Archimedes to set fire to ships in 212 B.C. Although, the details of the weapon’s existence is still vague, modern day counterparts have applications in solar furnaces by using concave mirror to achieve very high temperatures without the need for electricity.
SCREW PROPELLED VEHICLES
The Cold War had led to the development of very interesting forms of transportation. Imagine a normal tank, but instead of wheels or tank tracks, there were 2 giant screws that rotated, propelling the vehicle across the ground. The idea behind this form of transport was to quickly deploy soldiers from Point A to point B in deep snow or any other difficult terrain that hindered the mobility of conventional vehicles. Modern day adaptation of this technology can be seen in civilian vehicles that are used to traverse remote and impassable terrain.
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