Weapons
Second Industrial Revolution (1917–45) – Warfare
“LITTLE BOY” AND “FAT MAN” First Atomic Bombs LAND WARFARE: The most obvious change was the introduction of tanks and other motor vehicles, which helped to restore mobility to a battle-field that had turned increasingly static in the period between the Crimean War and World War I. Armored vehicles were most effective when closely coordinated via radio with ground-attack aircraft,…
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Weapons in space
“The space program of today has its roots deep in the strategy of world domination through global terror pursued by the Nazis in World War II,” Jack Manno, a professor at the State University of New York, Environmental Sciences and Forestry College, pointed out in his seminal 1984 book Arming…
Wallis and Whittle
Grand Slam combat operations Barnes Wallis and Frank Whittle, probably the best-known British inventors of the twentieth century, worked in the air-industrial complex. Both were supported very strongly by it because they came up with new ideas which were felt to be worth trying; their revolutionary inventions were supported because…
POSEIDON SLBMS/SSBNS
SLBM family: UGM-27A, UGM-27A, UGM-27C, UGM-73A, UGM-96A, UGM-133A The Poseidon submarine-launched ballistic missile, the follow-on system to the Polaris program, was a two-stage, solid-propellant missile designed to be launched from a submerged fleet ballistic missile (FBM) submarine. It was 2 feet longer than the 32- foot Polaris A3 missile but…
POLARIS SLBMS/SSBNS
Polaris, named after the North Star, was a two-stage ballistic missile powered by solid-fuel rocket motors and controlled by a self-contained inertial guidance system. It was designed to be launched from a submerged submarine. On July 20, 1960, Polaris became the first ballistic missile to be launched from a submarine…
German Early Warning Radar Systems
German WĂĽrzburg Radar The conviction that Germany did not possess radar as an early warning technology had stemmed partly from the absence of anything resembling the high radio towers so prominent on Britain’s coastlines. Watson-Watt, in fact, had spent his vacation in the summer of 1937 looking for tell-tale aerials…
RISE OF THEÂ ROBOTS
ARV-AL XM1219 Armed Robotic Vehicle The falling size and cost of electronics has made it possible to decrease the number of people needed to operate major weapons systems or, in some instances, eliminated the need for human operators altogether. Maintaining the engines aboard a ship used to require dozens of…