Technological escalationTechnological escalation describes the fact that whenever two parties are in competition, each side tends to employ continuing technological improvements to defeat the other. Technology is defined here as a creative invention, be it an object or a method of using an object...
during World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
was more profound than any other period in human history. More new inventions, certainly as measured by such means as
patentA patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for a public disclosure of an invention....
applications for
dual-use technologyDual-use is a term often used in politics and diplomacy to refer to technology which can be used for both peaceful and military aims. It often refers to the proliferation of nuclear weapons, but that of bioweapons is a major issue as well....
and
weaponA weapon is a tool used to apply force for the purpose of hunting, attack, self-defense, or defense in combat.Weapons can be as simple as a club, or as complex as an intercontinental ballistic missile, and include those that damage individual or group morale.-Prehistoric weapons:Very simple weapon...
contracts issued to private contractors, were deployed to the task of killing humans more effectively, and to a much lesser degree, avoiding being killed. Unlike
technological escalation during World War ITechnology during World War I reflected a trend toward industrialism and the application of mass production methods to weapons and to the technology of warfare in general. This trend began fifty years earlier during the U.S...
, it was generally believed that speed and firepower, not defenses or entrenchments, would bring the war to a quicker end.
This was perhaps the first war where military operations were aimed at the research efforts of the enemy e.g.
1.
Technological escalationTechnological escalation describes the fact that whenever two parties are in competition, each side tends to employ continuing technological improvements to defeat the other. Technology is defined here as a creative invention, be it an object or a method of using an object...
during World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
was more profound than any other period in human history. More new inventions, certainly as measured by such means as
patentA patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for a public disclosure of an invention....
applications for
dual-use technologyDual-use is a term often used in politics and diplomacy to refer to technology which can be used for both peaceful and military aims. It often refers to the proliferation of nuclear weapons, but that of bioweapons is a major issue as well....
and
weaponA weapon is a tool used to apply force for the purpose of hunting, attack, self-defense, or defense in combat.Weapons can be as simple as a club, or as complex as an intercontinental ballistic missile, and include those that damage individual or group morale.-Prehistoric weapons:Very simple weapon...
contracts issued to private contractors, were deployed to the task of killing humans more effectively, and to a much lesser degree, avoiding being killed. Unlike
technological escalation during World War ITechnology during World War I reflected a trend toward industrialism and the application of mass production methods to weapons and to the technology of warfare in general. This trend began fifty years earlier during the U.S...
, it was generally believed that speed and firepower, not defenses or entrenchments, would bring the war to a quicker end.
The impact on the psychology and conduct of the war
This was perhaps the first war where military operations were aimed at the research efforts of the enemy e.g.
1. The exfiltration of
Niels BohrNiels Henrik David Bohr was a Danish physicist who made fundamental contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. Bohr mentored and collaborated with many of the top physicists of the century at his institute in...
from German-occupied Denmark to Britain in 1943
2. The sabotage of
Norwegian heavy water productionThe Norwegian heavy water sabotage was a series of actions undertaken by Norwegian saboteurs during World War II to prevent the German nuclear energy project from acquiring heavy water , which could be used to produce nuclear weapons...
3. The bombing of
PeenemundeRoyal Air Force Operation Hydra attacked the Peenemünde Army Research Center after midnight of 17 August/18 August 1943 and began the strategic bombing counter to the German long-range weapons programme.-Cabinet Defence Committee :...
Military operations were also conducted in order to obtain intelligence on the enemy's technology e.g. the Bruneval Raid for German radar and
Operation Most IIIOperation Most III or Operation Wildhorn III was a World War II operation in which Poland's Armia Krajowa provided the Allies with crucial intelligence on the German V-2 rocket....
for the German V-2.
The introduction of new weapons was so much a feature of the war that German propaganda featured
wonder weaponsWunderwaffe is German for "wonder weapon" and was a term assigned during World War II by the German propaganda ministry to a few revolutionary "superweapons". Most of these weapons reached the combat theatre too late, and in too insignificant numbers to have a military effect...
in the pipeline as a reason why Germany would eventually win the war. In that sense, technological advance prolonged the war.
General Considerations on Wartime Innovations
Short history tends to simplify to the point of distortion. To correct this let us summarise some factors that inhibited technological innovation in WWII.
- Any innovation tended to interrupt production. In war, numbers count. It was always difficult to innovate if the war might be won or lost before the innovation bore fruit. For example, the cavity magnetron
The cavity magnetron is a high-powered vacuum tube that generates and transmits non-coherent microwaves. One variant of the magnetron, the 'resonant' cavity magnetron invented by Randall and Boot in 1940, was used in radars allowing them to detect much smaller objects and drastically reduced the...
was hugely important to the allies but the Germans were so committed to the Lichtenstein radarLichtenstein radar was a German airborne radar in use during World War II. It was available in at least four major revisions, the FuG 202 Lichtenstein B/C, FuG 212 Lichtenstein C-1, FuG 220 Lichtenstein SN-2 and FuG 228 Lichtenstein SN-3.- FuG 202 Lichtenstein B/C :Early FuG 202 Lichtenstein B/C...
that they seem never to have deployed their own cavity magnetrons.
- Successful innovations are remembered much more than the wasted effort on unsuccessful ones e.g. the Me 262 has a bigger and better press than the Me 163. Who remembers Pykrete
Pykrete is a composite material made of approximately 14 percent sawdust or some other form of wood pulp and 86 percent ice by weight. Its use was proposed during World War II by Geoffrey Pyke to the British Royal Navy as a candidate material for making a huge, unsinkable aircraft carrier...
, or Fire balloonA fire balloon, balloon bomb , or Fu-Go was an experimental weapon launched by Japan during World War II...
s?
- In war, it was often remarkably difficult to know whether a new weapon was good, or bad; the first US magnetic torpedoes usually failed to explode
USS Tinosa , a , was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the tinosa, a poisonous, black, tropical fish.The first Tinosa was laid down on 21 February 1942 at Vallejo, California, by the Mare Island Navy Yard; launched on 7 October 1942; sponsored by Mrs. William E. Molloy; and...
even if they hit the enemy ship.
- Even a sophisticated technology might be answered by a crude and simple device e.g.The Germans had an acoustic homing torpedo
The G7es or Zaunkönig T-5 was a torpedo employed by German U-boats during World War II. It was known as the GNAT to the British.- Description :...
, which was easily countered by an acoustic mechanism towed behind allied warships.
- Innovations might be held back from use because of the fear of what the enemy might do. The Germans had a technological lead on poison gas, which they did not realise. Had they known the war might have ended differently. As it was, they were deterred by the fear of allied reprisals. Both sides held back from using chaff
Chaff, originally called Window by the British, and Düppel by the World War II era German Luftwaffe, is a radar countermeasure in which aircraft or other targets spread a cloud of small, thin pieces of aluminium, metallised glass fibre or plastic, which either appears as a cluster of secondary...
for some time before the British used it.
- A very great amount of the innovation on the allied side was necessitated by the needs of amphibious warfare, a need which hardly existed for the Germans.
- A lot on innovation was of the stop-gap variety. This especially true in armoured warfare as there was an escalation between gun and armour resulting in large production facilities for producing obsolete tanks. These were used by placing large guns on the chassis of obsolete tanks to produce a weapon variously known as self-propelled artillery
A self-propelled gun is a gun, whether it be an artillery piece, anti-tank gun, or anti-aircraft gun, mounted on a motorized wheeled or tracked chassis...
, an assault gunAn assault gun is a gun or howitzer mounted on a motor vehicle or armored chassis, designed for use in the direct fire role in support of infantry when attacking other infantry or fortified positions....
or a tank destroyerA self-propelled anti-tank gun, or tank destroyer, is a type of armored fighting vehicle designed specifically to engage enemy armored vehicles. Many have been produced as a tank-like vehicle, but with light armor and capable of higher speed, with a gun or missile launcher. Many lack turrets...
. Stop-gap solutions could be rather desperate such as the single use fighterA CAM ship was a World War II-era British merchant ship used in convoys as a quick emergency solution to the shortage of escort carriers. "CAM" was an acronym for "Catapult Aircraft Merchantman" and a CAM ship was equipped with a rocket-propelled catapult launching a single Hawker Sea Hurricane,...
aircraft.
- There was remarkably little direct copying of weapons by one side from the other. Even where such copying existed, as with the bazooka
Panzerschreck was the popular name for the Raketenpanzerbüchse , an 88 mm calibre reusable anti-tank rocket launcher developed by the Germans in World War II. Another popular nickname was Ofenrohr .It was given to infantry to bolster their anti-tank capability...
, the calibre was increased because each side had a differing military requirement.
Between the wars
After the
Treaty of VersaillesThe Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
the Western democracies were satiated powers and expected a general peace. Their political environment was one where the aim was disarmament. (In Britain there was the
Ten Year RuleThe Ten Year Rule was a British government guideline, first adopted in August 1919, that the armed forces should draft their estimates "on the assumption that the British Empire would not be engaged in any great war during the next ten years"....
.) Consequently they conducted very little military R & D. On the hand Germany and the Soviet Union were dissatisfied powers that for different reasons cooperated with each other on military R & D. The Soviets offered Weimar Germany facilities deep inside the USSR for building and testing arms and for military training, well away from Treaty inspectors' eyes. In return, the Soviets asked for access to German technical developments, and for assistance in creating a Red Army General Staff.
The first German officers went to the Soviet state for these purposes in March, 1922. One month later, Junkers began building aircraft at Fili, outside Moscow, in violation of Versailles. The great artillery manufacturer Krupp was soon active in the south of the USSR, near Rostov-on-Don. In 1925, a flying school was established at Vivupal, near Lipetsk, to train the first pilots for the future Luftwaffe. Since 1926, the Reichswehr had been able to use a tank school at Kazan (codenamed Kama) and a chemical weapons facility in Samara Oblast (codenamed Tomka). In turn, the Red Army gained access to these training facilities, as well as military technology and theory from Weimar Germany.
In the late 1920s, Germany helped Soviet industry begin to modernize, and to assist in the establishment of tank production facilities at the Leningrad Bolshevik Factory and the Kharkov Locomotive Factory. This cooperation would break down when Hitler rose to power in 1933. The failure of the
World Disarmament ConferenceThe Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments of 1932-34 was an effort by member states of the League of Nations, together with the U.S. and the Soviet Union, to actualize the ideology of disarmament...
marked the beginnings of the arms race leading to war.
In
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
the lesson of World War I was translated into the
Maginot LineThe Maginot Line , named after French Minister of Defense André Maginot, was a line of concrete fortifications, tank obstacles, artillery casemates, machine gun posts, and other defenses, which France constructed along its borders with Germany and Italy, in the light of experience from World War I,...
which was supposed to hold a line at the border with
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
. The Maginot Line did achieve its political objective of ensuring that any German invasion had to go through Belgium ensuring that France would have Britain as a military ally. France had more, and much better,
tankA tank is a tracked, armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat which combines operational mobility and tactical offensive and defensive capabilities...
s than Germany as of the outbreak of their hostilities in 1940. As in World War I, the French generals expected that armour would mostly serve to help
infantryInfantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of the Combat Arms they are the backbone of armies...
break the static trench lines and storm
machine gunA machine gun is a fully automatic mounted or portable firearm, usually designed to fire rifle bullets in quick succession from an ammunition belt or large-capacity magazine, typically at a rate of several hundred rounds per minute...
nests. They thus spread the armour among their infantry divisions, ignoring the new German doctrine of
blitzkriegBlitzkrieg is "a headline word applied retrospectively to describe a military doctrine of an all-mechanized force concentrating its attack on a small section of the enemy front then, once the latter is broken, proceeding without regard to its flank."During the interwar period, aircraft and tank...
based on the fast movement using concentrated armour attacks, against which there was no effective defense but mobile anti-tank guns - infantry Antitank rifles not being effective against medium and heavy tanks.
Air power was a major concern of Germany and Britain between the wars. Trade in aircraft engines continued, with Britain selling hundreds of its best to German firms - which used them in a first generation of aircraft, and then improved on them much for use in German aircraft.
The beginnings
Depending on one's frame of reference, one can reasonably assert that
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
began with the Japanese invasion of
ManchuriaManchuria is a historical name given to a vast geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria either falls entirely within China, or is divided between China and Russia...
in 1931, or as late as the last declarations of war between the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
in December 1941. Quite a bit occurred during this time to escalate technological conflict, most notably the upgrading and deployment of
aircraft carrierAn aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power great distances without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...
s by the U.S. and Japan in the Pacific, and invention of carrier-type aircraft such as the Mitsubishi Zero, largely considered the best plane of its time.
more on aircraft carriers and 1930s innovations in military technologies
Command and control
(Radio,
radarRadar is an object detection system that uses electromagnetic waves to identify the range, altitude, direction, or speed of both moving and fixed objects such as aircraft, ships, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The term RADAR was coined in 1941 as an acronym for RAdio Detection And...
,
aerial photographyAerial photography is the taking of photographs of the ground from an elevated position. The term usually refers to images in which the camera is not supported by a ground-based structure. Cameras may be hand held or mounted, and photographs may be taken by a photographer, triggered remotely or...
, advanced use of
cryptographyCryptography is the practice and study of hiding information. Modern cryptography intersects the disciplines of mathematics, computer science, and engineering...
and
cryptanalysisCryptanalysis is the study of methods for obtaining the meaning of encrypted information, without access to the secret information which is normally required to do so. Typically, this involves knowing how the system works and finding a secret key...
)
The extraordinary increase in the use of electronic valves in warfare is exemplified in that they now began to be put into artillery shells for the first time. Vannevar Bush, head of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) during the war, credited the
proximity fuzeA proximity fuze is a fuze that is designed to detonate an explosive device automatically when the distance to target becomes smaller than a predetermined value or when the target passes through a given plane....
with three significant effects. It was important in defense from Japanese
KamikazeThe were suicide attacks by military aviators from the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, designed to destroy as many warships as possible....
attacks in the Pacific. It was an important part of the radar-controlled anti-aircraft batteries that finally neutralized the German
V-1 flying bombThe Fieseler Fi 103, better known as V-1 , colloquially know in Britain as the 'Doodlebug', was an early cruise missile used during World War II. The V-1 was developed at Peenemünde by the German Luftwaffe during the Second World War. Between 13 June 1944 and 29 March 1945, it was fired at...
attacks on England. Third, it was released for use in land warfare for use in the Battle of the Bulge, where it decimated German divisions caught in the open. The Germans felt safe from timed fire because the weather prevented accurate observation. Bush cites an estimated seven times increase in the effect of artillery with this innovation.
War of attrition
(Shipping,
submarineA submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has only limited underwater capability...
s, bombing, the draft, civilian labour in Germany vs. USA)
Beaches
(Island hopping, seaborne invasions Dieppe,
SicilySicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is an autonomous region of Italy. Several much smaller islands surrounding it are considered to be part of Sicily....
and
NormandyNormandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is situated along the English Channel coast of Northern France between Brittany and Picardy and comprises territory in northern France and the Channel Islands.Normandy is divided between French and British...
)
Urban warfare
Horrifying city battles (
StalingradThe Battle of Stalingrad was a battle of World War II between Nazi Germany and its allies and the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in southwestern Russia. The battle took place between 17 July 1942 and 2 February 1943....
,
BerlinThe Battle of Berlin was the final major offensive of the European Theatre of World War II and was designated the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union.
[The last offensive of the European war was the Prague Offensive on 6–11 May 1945, when the Red Army, with the help...]
) and
siegeA siege is a military blockade of a city or fortress with the intent of conquering by attrition or assault. The term derives from sedere, Latin for "to sit"....
s (
LeningradThe Siege of Leningrad, also known as The Leningrad Blockade was an unsuccessful military operation by the Axis powers to capture Leningrad during World War II. The siege started at 8 September 1941, when the last land connection to the city was severed...
,
LondonThe Blitz was the sustained bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, in World War II. While the Blitz hit many towns and cities across the country, it began with the bombing of London for 57 consecutive nights...
) from ground and air.
See also
- Technology during World War II
Technology during World War II played a crucial role in determining the outcome of the war. Much of it had begun development during the interwar years of the 1920s and 1930s, some was developed in response to lessons learned during the war, and yet more was only beginning to be developed as the war...
- a comprehensive overview
- List of jet aircraft of World War II
- Ultra
Ultra was the name used by the British for intelligence resulting from decryption of encrypted German radio communications in World War II. The term eventually became the standard designation in both Britain and the United States for all intelligence from high-level cryptanalytic sources...
- Battle of the beams
The Battle of the Beams refers to a period early in the Second World War when bombers of the German Air Force started using radio navigation for night bombing...
- List of World War II electronic warfare equipment
- History of computers
- History of radar
The history of radar began in the early 1900s when German engineer Christian Hülsmeyer invented a simple omni-directional detecting device . However, it implied the prior knowledge of electromagnetism given by the 19 century's discoveries of Maxwell and Hertz...
and the Cavity magnetronThe cavity magnetron is a high-powered vacuum tube that generates and transmits non-coherent microwaves. One variant of the magnetron, the 'resonant' cavity magnetron invented by Randall and Boot in 1940, was used in radars allowing them to detect much smaller objects and drastically reduced the...
- Military funding of science
The military funding of science has had a powerful transformative effect on the practice and products of scientific research since the early 20th century...
- Penicillin
Penicillin is a group of antibiotics derived from Penicillium fungi. Penicillin antibiotics are historically significant because they are the first drugs that were effective against many previously serious diseases such as syphilis and Staphylococcus infections...
, advances in medicine and the pharmaceutical industry
- Nylon
Nylon is a generic designation for a family of synthetic polymers known generically as polyamides and first produced on February 28, 1935 by Wallace Carothers at DuPont...
and the petrochemical industry
- Liberty ship
Liberty ships were cargo ships built in the United States during World War II. Though British in conception, they were adapted by the U.S. as they were cheap and quick to build, and came to symbolize U.S. wartime industrial output. Based on vessels ordered by Britain to replace ships torpedoed by...
s
- Operational research