Science and warfare are intrinsically linked. Throughout history, many scientific innovations and discoveries have changed the battlefield in fundamental ways – from antibiotics that massively reduced the number of soldiers dying to disease, to drones that have entirely changed how modern wars are fought.

10. Barbed Wire

Barbed wire was originally invented in the 1870s by an American farmer, Joseph Glidden, as a way to discourage livestock animals from escaping confinement. It was a revolutionary invention for farming, bringing an end to the ‘open range’ style of cattle herding prevalent in the west and giving rise to enclosed pastures. 

Its impact on warfare, though, was much more widespread. By late 1800s, armies around the world were producing massive amounts of barbed wire due to its use in creating perimeters and fences. It was used to great effect in wars like the Boer War, Russo-Japanese War and the Spanish-American War. In World War One, barbed wire was excessively used to fortify the heavily-entrenched lines across the western front – a defining feature of that war. According to eyewitness accounts, in some places, the walls of wire were thick enough to block daylight, and even artillery barrages. 

9. DDT

Before the Second World War, it wasn’t uncommon for a fighting army to lose more of its soldiers to diseases like typhus and malaria than bullets. It was the first major war where diseases accounted for fewer deaths than combat-related reasons, and one of the reasons was the recently-discovered pesticide known as DDT.

Discovered by a Swiss scientist, Paul Müller, who later won a Nobel Prize for it, DDT was so effective at killing disease-carrying fleas and other insects that it was often called the ‘miracle drug’ by commanders and soldiers on the field. First deployed on the Pacific front – where disease-related casualties were the highest – the pesticide would soon become a regular part of an Allied soldier’s kit. DDT was particularly effective in curbing a typhus outbreak spreading throughout Naples, Italy in 1943-44.

8. The Haber-Bosch Process

The Haber-Bosch process is sometimes called one of the most important inventions in chemistry. Named after the German scientists that invented it in 1909-1910, it’s now a widely used industrial process that combines nitrogen and hydrogen to make ammonia, which is then used to make things like fertilizers. The process caused a proliferation of different types of fertilizers around the world, resulting in a sharp boom in global population ever since it was invented. 

The Haber-Bosch process played an instrumental role in the German war effort during the First World War, as nitrates were also an essential ingredient in the production of munitions. As Germany had no access to the global nitrate reserves due to a British blockade, the process provided them with a unique, homegrown source of both food and arms to sustain the war for more than four years. 

7. Morse Code

Morse code was invented by Samuel Morse as a method of communication in the 1830s. The original iteration used a set of dots, dashes and blank spaces to represent the alphabet and numbers, though it was later replaced by the International Morse Code, a simpler version that also worked with non-English languages. Until the invention of the telephone, Morse Code – and the telegraph system built with it – was the only way to instantly transmit information over really long distances.

Morse Code had a profound impact on warfare. For the first time, commands could be carried over to units hundreds of miles away in a matter of seconds. It was the beginning of a new type and scale of war, where front lines could be stretched further than any other time in history. Morse code and the telegraph were particularly useful during the Second World War, when allied units extensively used it to share encoded information.  

6. Penicillin

There was a time when even minor cuts and bruises on the battlefield could turn into life-threatening situations. Before antibiotics, infection from diseases like cholera and pneumonia killed as many – if not more – soldiers as the enemy. By one estimate, nearly one third of all military deaths during WW1 could be attributed to disease. 

All that changed some time during the Second World War. Where pesticides like DDT helped keep battlefields free of harmful carriers, antibiotic agents like penicillin kept outbreaks and wound-related complications in check. While it was first discovered by a Scottish microbiologist, Alexander Fleming, in 1928, the technology to mass produce it was only developed in the U.S. after the beginning of the war. It was a game-changing invention that saved countless lives throughout the war – by one estimate, the discovery of penicillin reduced the number of wartime deaths from bacterial pneumonia from 18% to 1%. 

5. Social Media

Social media has had a huge impact on almost every aspect of our daily lives. The ability to quickly generate and disseminate information anywhere around the world has changed how we communicate, for better or worse. Unsurprisingly, it has transformed the modern battlefield, too, as wars are now live-streamed way before any reporters or analysts could reach the conflict zone.

While it’s too early to tell if social media can play a decisive role in the outcome of battles, a few conflicts – such as the Arab Spring, or even the ongoing war in Ukraine – prove that it’d be a major factor in the conflicts to come. There’s also a chance that social media itself could be turned into a tool of waging war in the future, like ISIS did during its global recruitment drives carried out almost entirely on channels like Twitter. 

4. Domestication Of The Horse

It’s difficult to establish exactly when the horse was domesticated. Some studies place it around 6,000 years ago across a geographical region known as the Eurasian steppes – a vast stretch of grasslands ranging from Hungary and Romania to Mongolia. It was a pivotal moment in human history, as it allowed us to travel and transport over much larger distances. 

The horse had a lasting impact on the battlefield, too, though only by 900 BC or so, when the first mounted groups of nomad warriors from the steppes learned how to use weapons like the swords and bows on horseback. The ancient Greeks were one of the first people to encounter the horse in combat, which may have inspired all their stories about centaurs.

For close to 3,000 years until the advent of tanks and artillery, the horse absolutely dominated the battlefield, as shock cavalry replaced heavy infantry as the most dreaded units on the battlefield. From Mongolia to Egypt to Europe, mounted cavalry and tactics around it became the decisive factor in most wars, as kingdoms or empires that relied on their infantry were quickly overrun by the horses. Advances in equipment like the saddle, stirrup, and bridle further improved their effectiveness in combat.

3. Drones

While drones have been used in wartime since at least the First World War, the modern, deadly version of the drone is a far newer invention. The first lethal drone strike was made in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, and since then, they’ve proven to be an effective weapon in an ever-changing kind of battlefield, as insurgencies and irregular fighting replaced the more traditional forms of warfare.

In terms of weapon type, the killer drone could be classified as a kind of sniper, as most modern types can stay in the air without being detected for days and execute their kills with precision. They’ve changed how wars are fought, primarily because they don’t require actual boots on the ground for combat operations. Drones are also much more precise than artillery shells or bombers, though there has been some controversy regarding their overall accuracy.

2. Radar

While Radar – short for Radio Detection and Ranging – was independently invented much earlier, its first military variants were developed in MIT’s Radiation Laboratory during the Second World War. It was a game-changing technology that could detect almost any type of object with the help of radio waves, and may even have played an instrumental role in the eventual Allied victory. While Germany had their own RADAR program before the beginning of the war, its development was halted by the end of 1940.

Throughout the war, Radar was used in many ways to thwart the Axis war effort. Land bases could now precisely direct their air defenses against oncoming Luftwaffe bombing runs, and it was particularly effective against attacks by German rockets like the V-1. More advanced Radar systems were used to provide fighter jets and bombers with a map-like view of the ground miles before they arrived, which was useful during the coordinated aerial bombardment campaigns of German and Japanese bases later in the war.

Radar is still an important part of warfare, and modern systems are much more advanced than the ones we had during WW2. It’s also now widely used in many civilian areas, like flight tracking, weather prediction, and navigation.

1. Photography

Photography has been a part of war since the mid 1800s. During conflicts like the Crimean War, American Civil War and the Mexican-American war of 1947, photographs were used to give the audience back home a real view of the war. However, at this time, the technology was still in its nascent stages. Slower shutter speeds and bulky equipment kept war photography limited to photographs taken a long time before or after combat operations. While great for media coverage, it had little use on the battlefield itself. 

That changed by the turn of the century, as cameras started to become smaller and faster. Photography was extensively used for reconnaissance and intelligence missions during the First World War. Combined with improvements in other fields like communications and aviation, it provided the commanders with a full view of the battlefield for the first time in history. 

Since then, photography has only gotten more embedded in modern warfare. Other than changing how wars are fought, it has also brought a permanent shift in how wars are viewed.