The article tells about what a ram is, what types of it are, and in particular, air and sea rams are disassembled.
Start
In any living language that people use, there are words that have several meanings. Russian is no exception. Due to its richness and variety of such words, there are many in it. In this article we will consider what a battering ram is and how does it happen?
Definition
If we turn to the dictionary, then it contains many meanings of this word. This is both a special tool and a military operation, but they all share the same meaning. We will analyze the most commonly used.
Cars
A ram is a collision of two or more vehicles while driving. But he is distinguished from the accident by the fact that it is often random in nature and occurs due to someone's indiscretion, while ramming usually involves a deliberate collision with the aim of incapacitating someone else's vehicle or trying to stop it. For example, law enforcement agencies often do this in pursuit of criminals. So now we know what a ram is.
Gun
In the Middle Ages, tactics such as siege or siege wars were widespread. In those days, influential people and entire states erected well-fortified castles and other fortresses, in which there were garrisons of soldiers and supplies. And they served as a shelter or basing manpower to protect against enemies. And the ram as a tool in those days was a very large and massive log, mounted on moving chains. They rocked it and gradually destroyed it with a gate or a weak section of a stone wall.
He was also often protected from enemy arrows, stones and hot resin with a special canopy that was mounted on wheels. Now we know what a ram is like a weapon.
Sometimes soldiers had to carry or push it by hand. Such a structure belongs to the class of siege weapons, and its tip was often shackled with metal for greater strength and breakdown power. In addition to such a ram, they also used special catapults firing with stone cores or incendiary shells. But with the invention of artillery, the siege gradually lost its significance, since the guns, albeit gradually, but with guarantee, smashed any fortifications.
Air ram
Probably all people heard about such a ram. It was most often used during the Great Patriotic War and demanded from the pilot extraordinary endurance, courage and courage.
Such a battering ram is a deliberate infliction of damage to an enemy’s air equipment through collisions with its own. Naturally, there was practically no chance for both pilots to survive, and such an air ram was used in a hopeless situation, for example, when one of the pilots ran out of ammunition, or it was impossible to allow the flight or return of the enemy aircraft at all costs. Pilots making air rams are distinguished by outstanding courage and willpower.
The first in history to use such a ram was the Russian pilot Nesterov. During the First World War, he shot down an Austrian reconnaissance aircraft with his plane. Aerial rams were very often used during the Second World War, and even special techniques were developed that made it possible for those who made the ram to survive with a great chance.
One of them ordered to go into the tail of an enemy aircraft and damage its plane with its propeller, after which the aircraft became uncontrollable, and the attacking pilot, even having lost the propeller, could still plan it on the ground or jump with a parachute.
Another was to cut off the enemy wing with the landing gear, after which the plane went into an uncontrollable corkscrew. This was especially true in those years when aircraft were built from lightweight aluminum and other fragile materials.
Ram at sea
On the field of naval battles, a similar technique for combating the enemy was also used. A bow was a bow of a special vessel that pierced the sides of enemy navigational aids or reliably coupled them so that the crew could board. But this was rarely used, since even a fortified ship gradually collapsed from rams by enemies, and there was always a chance to sink to the bottom instead of victory. And later, when the ships began to build from metal, the need for such a tactical technique disappeared, as the sailors began to use long-range guns and missiles.
The most famous such a maneuver, which occurred recently, is called the Red Ram. It was in 1988 in the Black Sea. Against the two ships of the US Navy, which invaded the territorial waters of the USSR, it was decided to use a ram. But, to be more precise, a similar maneuver is called extrusion. It differs from a full-fledged ram in that it is intended not to violate the integrity of an enemy ship, but to "squeeze" it off course. As a result of the ram, the side of the American ship was broken and a missile launcher was destroyed, there were no victims among the sailors.
Hydraulics
A hydraulic ram has nothing to do with martial art. So mistakenly called a water pump of a special form, where the water rises above its level due to its own kinetic energy, and the general principle is called "water hammer". Such pumps do not require electricity, all they need is a small difference in height - a waterfall, threshold, dam, etc.
So now we know what a ram is.