"To have the United States at our side was to me the greatest joy. Now at this very moment I knew the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all! Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder. All the rest was merely the proper application of overwhelming force."
Winston Churchill (1950)
Welcome to The World Wars.net. This site is focused on the data and statistics behind the biggest conflicts of the 20th century: World War I, World War II and the Cold War. Many historians have referred to this period as the "Long War", a period of protracted geo-political confrontation that began with the clash of Europe's old empires in 1914-18, followed by the struggle between fascism and its rivals during the 1930s and 40s, and culminating in the post-World War II standoff between East and West that not too far ago threatened the world with nuclear annihilation. The site also covers modern conflict in the 21st century including the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ukraine.
The website is divided into four main sections: the statistics section is a compilation of military, economic and demographic information of period; the weapons section is a searchable database on all the major heavy weapons from World War I until today; the resource section is a knowledge base of assorted military-related information as well as links; and finally, Navbase is the internet's only free searchable database of all major warships since World War II. This site is in ongoing development, and an increasing volume of original research will be added over time. In the meantime, enjoy what I hope to be one the largest online repositories of information on modern conflict.
This site is also inspired in military reference books of the 1970s and 80s such as those published by Salamander Books in the UK and which were reprinted and translated in many countries around the world. Unlike today's reference books which prioritize style over substance, those classics were full of information filling every page and I hope this site manages to capture their look and feel for a modern online audience.
February 2024 Update:
Main changes:
The Navbase ship database has now been updated and is accurate to January 26th, 2024.
February 2023 Update:
Main changes:
The redesign of the site is mostly complete although some minor changes remain. I hope the more retro reference book-like feel to the site is an improvement to the previous designs.
The Navbase ship database has now been updated and is accurate to December 31st, 2022. Goodbye Moskva...
I lost a lot of entries for self-propelled guns afte the site went down in early 2022 as I forgot to back up the database. This resulted in a rather time-consuming two-week effort to re-write them which in turn means I will not have much time this year to add more entries to the land warfare section of the Weapons database (I only like to work on this site on January as otherwise would suck too much of my life and I don't get paid for this).
On the positive side, I have managed to add a number of new vehicles that were not in the database before including weapons that have seen combat in the war in Ukraine. These include Ukrainian vehicles (T-84, BTR-3, BTR-4) as well as foreign-supplied vehicles (AHS Krab, Archer).
I am re-writing the main Soviet/Russian land entries as I figure there will be some more demand for these as a result of the war. So far, all modern main battle tanks have been updated including the T-55, T-62, T-64, T-72, T-80, and T-90 as well as infantry fighting vehicles including the BMP-1, BMP-2, and BMP-3. These now include commentary over their performance in the war.
Since NATO tanks have also been pledged to Ukraine and will likely see action sometime in 2023, I have also updated some of the main entries including the Leopard 2, Leopard 1, M1 Abrams, Challenger 2, and Challenger 1.