Our World War II Artillery Page

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Jonathan Shida & Steve McMahon

The Atomic Bomb
The fear that Germany might build an atomic bomb pushed British and American governments into commiting research for atomic develpoment. The Atomic research produced the largest scientific-engineering in history: the Manhattan Project in the United States that built the atomic bomb. The atomic bomb was considered to be the major scientific breakthrough of World War II. And in August 1945 the final product was dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.The knowledge for atomic research existed in 1939. Many european refugee atomic scientists were in the United States by 1940. Once war broke out many people feared that Hitler's technicians would produce a workable atomic bomb. But since german work was very slow and most of Hitler's best scientists left, German resources were committed in other areas. And Allie commando's had raided and destroyed a Norwegian plant that produced the duuterium oxide that atomic reactors needed to produce power. After 1940 Great Britain and America shared their research. In mid 1945 a test bomb was dropped on Alamagordo in New Mexico. On July 15 the bomb nicked named "Fat Man" because of its shape was detonated. Three years work and $2 Billion were at stake. There hypothesis was right, it exploded. The bomb outshone the sun, had a force of 17 000 tons of TNT, dug a crater nearly 0.5 kilometre across 7.5 metres deep, and its intense heat fused the sand into glass. This success ultimately gave the Allies a military advantage over their enemies.

Conventional Weapons
During World War II more effort was put forward to improve existing conventional weapons rather than inventing completely new ones. The atomic bomb was one of few weapons that came from scientific breakthroughs, the same was true about the developments in rocketry and jet engines. Conventional Weapons included firearms, such as rifles, and machine guns, but also grenades, artillery, and most explosives. Research into rocketry came to the creation of a hand held launchers called "bazookas" that infantry soldiers could fire at tanks. Tanks were in wide use and in production by 1939, but as the war progressed, both sides made their tanks larger, faster, and more powerful. Chemists developed more powerful explosives. British technicians devised bombs for setting cities on fire. They created massive "Tallboy" and "Earthquake" bombs that buried themselves deep in the ground before going off, so that their shock waves had maxium effect on buildings and cities. Sebveral technical advances made big guns more accurate. For example, electronics experts devised predictors to calculate the range, speed, height, and course of enemy aircraft most instantly. But the greatest artillery advance was the proximity fuse. Direct hits became unnecessary because this tiny radar set exploded the shells as they neared their targets.

"Pykrete"
Many researchers were excited when they discovered that a frozen mixture of sawdust and water was so hard that shells and torpedoes only chipped off fragments. Even in sea water in summer, "pykrete," melted so slowly that it conjured visions of unsinkable aircraft carriers that intrigued Winston Churchill and Lord Louis Mountbatten. But a vessel proved too expensive to construct. After working in the Canadian Rockies in complete secrecy, and wasting much time and money, the Allies abandoned "pykrete."

Electronic Warfare
RADAR- Radio Detection and Ranging. The radar was the most widely used electronic weapon of World War II. In 1935 the only technical aid Great Britain had for detecting approaching aircraft was the telescope. by 1939, research into radar had produced a network of radar stations along the British eastern coast linked into an air defence systems. The radar was the main cause of Germanys failure to bomb Great Britain. German devices were better than the British. But the British soonly devised a radar jamming system after studying the recovered German radar that was stolen during a commando raid. When Germans sent air raids, British would drop tin foil strips called a "Window", these stripes turned the Germans screens white. This trick reduced losses among raiding Allied bombers by 33%. The Germans never discovered the method of jamming.

Rockets
Fighter and bomber Many scientists working on rockets and jet propulsion before 1939. The Germans used small rockets as artillery. These were aimed, not guided. Hitler ignored innovative suggestions for guided rockets against enemy bombers. He preffered what he called "Vengeances" weapons (V-1 and V-2) to bombard the Allied cities. The V-1 was a jet-powered flying bomb and the first mass-produced result of this work. Germany launched many thousand V-1's. The Germans also designed the V-2, a genuine ballistic missile. This complicated rocket dropped onto its target faster than the speed of sound. The V-2 was a spectacular scientific achievement, although the six-year lag between conception and production prevented it from influencing the outcome of the war.

Flamethrowers Versus Aircraft
Someone in great Britain argued that a huge flamethrower could defend vessels. Any attacking aircraft would be incinerated as it passed over the ship. The designers built their own flame thrower, and in tests it shot and impressive belch of fire into the air. But a pilot flew through it unscratched, and reported not a hint of warmth. The disappointment researches dciscovered that the falmethrowers heat dissipated so rapidly that the "weapon" was harmless.

World War II and Military Technology
World War II (1939-1945) killed more people, destroyed more property, disrupted more lives, and probably had more far-reaching consequences than any other war in history. It brought about the downfall of Western Europe as the center of world power and led to the rise of the Soviet Union. The development of the atomic bomb during the war opening the nuclear age. World War II was a scientific and human conflict battle. Research and engineering were not directed towards destruction, although that was the intial purpose. The demands of war took precedence between 1939 and 1945. Many of the German scientists were Jewish and Adolf Hitler's persecution of the Jews turned them into refugees, some of whom came to the U.S. Many Allie scientists stood out because of their military usefulness. Ballistics, which is the science of directing objects in flight, made artillery and bombing more effective. Chemistry, during the war helped produce many drugs to promote healing, treat infections, and fight the diseases that were eating away at an army's fighting power. The newly found field of electromagnetics devised instrunments to detect enemy aircraft and naval vessels and to guide weapons to their target. Acoustics, the study of sound, suggested methods of detecting submarines and making underwater mines and torpedoes more deadly.