What is a ram? Meaning of the word

The article tells about what a ram is, what kinds of it are, and in particular deal with air and sea rams.

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In any living language that people use, there are words that have several semantic meanings. Russian is no exception. Because of its wealth and variety of similar words in it a lot. In this article, we will consider what a ram is and how it happens?

Definition

If you refer to the dictionary, then it contains a variety of meanings of the word. This is both a special tool and a military operation, but they all share the same meaning. We will analyze the most frequently used ones.

Automobiles

A car ram is a collision of two or more vehicles while driving. But from the accident, it is distinguished by the fact that it often has an accidental character and occurs due to someone's imprudence, while the battering ram usually involves a deliberate collision with the aim of disabling someone else's vehicle or trying to stop it. For example, law enforcement agencies so often do in pursuit of criminals. So now we know what a ram is.

Cannon

In the Middle Ages, such tactics as siege or siege wars became widespread. In those days, influential people and entire states erected well-fortified castles and other fortresses, in which garrisons of soldiers and supplies were located. And they served as a shelter or basing force for protection from enemies. And the ram as a tool in those days was a very large and massive log fixed to mobile chains. He was swinging and gradually destroying the gate or a weak part of the stone wall.

It 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 is often forged by metal for greater strength and breakdown strength. In addition to such a battering ram, special catapults were also used, shooting with stone cores or incendiary shells. But with the invention of artillery, the siege gradually lost its importance, since the cannons, although gradually, but guaranteed to break any fortifications.

Air ram

About such a ram, probably, all people heard. Most often it was used during the Great Patriotic War and demanded from the pilot an extraordinary endurance, courage and courage.

Such a ram is deliberately inflicting damage on the enemy's air equipment through collisions with one's own. Naturally, the chances of both pilots to survive was almost nonexistent, and such an air ram was used in a desperate situation, for example, when one of the pilots ran out of ammunition, or it was impossible to allow the flight or return of an enemy aircraft at all costs. Airmen who make air rams are distinguished by extraordinary bravery and willpower.

The first in history who used such a ram was the Russian pilot Nesterov. During the First World War, he shot down his Austrian reconnaissance aircraft. Air rams were very often used during the Great Patriotic War, and even special techniques were developed which allowed a battered ram to survive.

One of them ordered to enter the tail of an enemy aircraft and damage its planes with its propeller, after which the aircraft became uncontrollable, and the attacking pilot, even if deprived of the screw, could still plan it on the ground or jump out with a parachute.

The other was to cut the enemy wing with the released chassis, after which the aircraft went into an uncontrolled tailspin. This was especially true in those years when the aircraft were built from light aluminum and other unstable materials.

The ram on the sea

On the field of sea battles, a similar method of fighting the enemy was also used. The ram was the nose of a sea-going ship of a special form, which pierced the sides of enemy swimming means, or reliably linked them so that the crew could commit boarding. But this was rarely used, since even a fortified ship was gradually destroyed by rams by enemies, and there was always a chance to go to the bottom instead of winning. And later, when the ships began to build from metal, the need for such tactical reception disappeared, as the sailors began to use long-range missiles and missiles.

The most famous such maneuver, which occurred just recently, bears the name "Red ram". It was in 1988 in the Black Sea. Against 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. From a full-fledged ram, it differs in that it is designed not to disrupt the integrity of the enemy ship, but "squeeze" it off course. As a result of the ram, the American ship's ship was pierced and the missile launcher was destroyed, among the sailors there were no victims.

Hydraulics

The hydraulic ram has nothing to do with the art of war. 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 "hydraulic shock". Such pumps do not require electricity, all they need is a small height difference, - a waterfall, a threshold, a dam, etc.

So now we know what a ram is.