My A Level Project

Discussion in 'General' started by Monty, Jul 7, 2004.

  1. Monty

    Monty Member

    Hi all,

    My teacher has presented my with my A level history coursework. I have chosen the Military History side of things and would like to do either WW1 or WW2.

    The titles are (out of the ones i chose):

    'War has been the great engine of technological advance.' Discuss with reference to any period you have studied.

    With reference to any military conflict, assess the relative importance of chance in explaining the outcome of that conflict.

    I know i cant get any help with answers etc, but i was wondering if anyone had any ideas about which battle i could right about (if i did the 2nd one) and which has the most information available in relation to the question. Or if i did the 1st question, would ww1 or 2 be better?

    I personally think that Qu2 may be better, but its finding a particular battle in WW1 or 2 that had chance involved.

    I have to write 2500 words o_O

    Any help would be much appreciated :D

    Robert
     
  2. Thomas McCall

    Thomas McCall Senior Member

    I'd personally do question 2 there are a number of battles you could chose like Normandy it is possible if German Armoured Divisions were closer to the beaches then the Nazis would have contained the landings.

    A good WW1 scenario is cavalry attack on High Wood in which the wood was empty but the oppurtinity was missed in which to capture it and cavalry was sent instead which did not break through as the Germans had re-occupied the wood.
     
  3. DirtyDick

    DirtyDick Senior Member

    Hi

    Both questions look good to me - but then I am an historian by training - but question 2 should be fun.

    Have you decided what 'chance' is and is not? I assume they mean it to be equivalent to luck or serendipity?

    You have Dunkirk and the reasons why the BEF was not trapped -if they were I might not be here, my grandfather was there; and if Hitler had continued attacks on airfields instead of embarking on the Blitz of cities.

    Are you restricted to the world wars?

    For 2500 I'd go with the Falkands: nice chronology and lots of chance involved.

    The 1982 Falklands conflict is a case in point: If the Brits had shot down an airliner en route that transpired to be a Brazilian airliner; Argentinians selecting warships over troop ships during the unloading at San Carlos- if they'd sunk the Canberra as it lay in harbour they could have wiped out thousands of men and lots of supplies; Argentinians' bombs being incorrectly set and thus not detonating when they hit ships - otherwise could have sunk maybe six more ships and turned the conflict around; and the fact that the Argentinians surrendered Port Stanley rather than drag the conflict out - British ships were wearing out and the Southern Winter was about to begin.

    Good book to start on this would be 100 Days by Sandy Woodward (Task Force commander).

    Anyhow, be interesting to see what you think.

    Richard
     
  4. salientpoints

    salientpoints Senior Member

    'War has been the great engine of technological advance.' Discuss with reference to any period you have studied.

    I'd go for question 1. This is easy as during wartime complete overhaul of industrial and technological methods are empowered regardless of cost (were anyway).

    The second world war was the birth of rocket power and without which we would not have made the significant advances in science and space exploration that we did then.

    Furthermore had WW2 not happened we would not then have entered the second phase of this development due to the split of allies thus creating the cold war and the space race. Without this man may never had landed on the moon, even by now.

    If you look now at the V weapons and all secret developments, especially by the Germans during 1944-45 they still bear uncanny resemblance to designs and methods employed now in the name of science and engineering.

    The recent NASA scramjet mach 7 developments are based on principles begun back in the second world war.

    There are lots of articles and evidence which can illustrate how war lends to technological advancement. Look at how WW1 began without tanks...

    Ryan
     
  5. DirtyDick

    DirtyDick Senior Member

    Also got advances in medicine with that one: penicillin, better surgical techniques etc.

    Battle casualties have always allowed medical research to experiment and take note of conditions. From WW1 came improvements in blood transfusion and psychiatric care.

    Not forgetting the multinational team that created the atom bomb.

    Both questions are good.

    Richard
     
  6. angie999

    angie999 Very Senior Member

    For Q1 you could also add electronics (particularly radar and the first electronic computer), submarine design, aircraft (jet engines were invented before WWII, but not fully developed), plastic surgery, to name just a few.

    If you opt for Q2, you will find chance and contingency in any major campaign, but you need to identify it. The Normandy campaign is probably quite a good choice at the moment if for no other reason than that there are many books in the shops this year to choose from. Market Garden might also be a good choice from the angle that it might have gone differently had there not been an SS Panzer Corps refitting in the Arnhem area to name just one factor.

    Which ever you go for, my advice would be to read more than one source, so that you get at least two points of view. This will give your own opinion more balance.
     
  7. Monty

    Monty Member

    thanks alot for your replies, it has really helped me. DirtyDick, i can have any time period after king Alfred I.

    I still have to make my mind up. :unsure:
    PS. sry for the late reply, ive been on holiday then been at the War and Peace show all week
     
  8. DirtyDick

    DirtyDick Senior Member

    Monty

    If you need any pointers for your work, post a thread here (should be easy enough since we are using usernames). :ph34r:

    For an A level project regarding serendipity in war, I'd go with the Falklands Conflict since otherwise you might be pushed for space.

    Get Sandy Woodward's 100 Days and the Sunday Times Insight Team's Falklands book (published in 1983, but a very good overall account) as a starting point.

    Richard
     
  9. Monty

    Monty Member

    ok thanks for the advice Richard
     
  10. Monty

    Monty Member

    ok thanks for the advice Richard
     
  11. Mark Hone

    Mark Hone Senior Member

    If I am not mistaken you are doing a personal study for the OCR Examination board, using their 'generic' questions. You need to look at what the board is looking for in a personal study (the 'assessment criteria') before you make your choice. Your teacher may already have given these to you. If not ask for them. The board also publishes examples of past coursework showing what marks were awarded and why. They are very useful to look at. OCR are very keen for people to include the views of different historians in their studies and to have examined a range of historical sources in their research. In my view the second of your questions is better suited to that. The first might end up simply as a description of some different technologies-more like a lower-school project than an A-Level Personal study. The second will allow you to look at various interpretations of a battle or campaign and compare the views of different writers. A good subject would be the Battle of Arnhem, Operation 'Market Garden'. The reasons for the failure at Arnhem have been the subject of controversy ever since and there are some excellent books for you to look at. See for example:
    'A Bridge Too Far' Cornelius Ryan
    'The Devil's Birthday' Geoffrey Powell
    'Arnhem 1944' Stephen Badsey
    'Arnhem: The Airborne Battle' by Martin Middlebrook
    'It Never Snows in September' by Robert Kershaw
    New books on the battle are being published all the time-the most recent one I saw was by Sandhurst historian Lloyd Clark. It is also the 60th anniversary this year, so no doubt there will be commemorative articles in papers and magazines in September.
    At all costs DO NOT write a narrative account of the battle or campaign. Make it analytically based. This is the biggest problem in my experience with military-based studies. One of the other exam boards, AQA, is not keen on military studies because they tend to turn into simple descriptions of battles. You only have 3.000 words!
     
  12. DirtyDick

    DirtyDick Senior Member

    Very good advice; 3,000-odd words is not very much space at all so you will have to be very careful about what you include and do not include.

    As stated, A Levels tend to be about gaining a wide depth of knowledge on the given subject taken from independent reading, and a bit of analysis and the questioning of certain received views would do no harm. It is better to make reference to as many pertinent events, beliefs etc. as possible (even if very fleetingly given word limit), rather than just explore one or two main themes in greater detail. This obviously depends on the marking criteria, so do as Mark says a have a look at this or else talk to your teacher.)

    (I think Mark is a history teacher, so you won't go far wrong.)

    Richard
     
  13. Monty

    Monty Member

    Thank again for the help.

    My history teacher has drilled it into us that we should be writing analytically and not narrative. We had to do that for

    Thanks Mark for the book list, but it would be hard for me to buy all/some of those on the list, so do you know any websites with any good information about this topic? I know some sites are 'dodgy' in terms of authenticity, but if you know any good ones it would help me.
     
  14. Mark Hone

    Mark Hone Senior Member

    I would not do a Personal study which relied primarily on information from websites. for the reasons you give. Examiners still give more weight to 'proper' books when they look at your bibliography. Plus , books are the best way to gather a variety of historians' opinions. You may need to tailor your study to what is available in the school library, but having said that public libraries often have a reasonable Military History section, and you can request things on inter-library loan. This seems to be a less reliable service than it used to be, but is still useful. As a general guide examiners are looking for 4-6 'substantial' sources to be used in a personal study. This includes specific works on the topic as well as A-Level textbooks. They are looking for your study to reflect a range of opinions, which you will then decide between, not be a simple precis of information from one or two books.
    Hope this is of some help.
     
  15. DirtyDick

    DirtyDick Senior Member

    Also bear in mind that some proper books are 'dodgy', although they are generally far better regarded than unregulated websites (many of which seem to rehash one book's opinions), especially if written by academics, although this will allow you to show wider knowledge by questioning or even refuting some of their assertions with knowledge of similar events. Always helps to make brief comparison of other similar events' convergences and divergences in the 'constrast and compare' of a subject: shows being well-read, analytical and the rational transposition of ideas.

    Richard
     
  16. Monty

    Monty Member

    ill go down the the bookshop/library tomorow and see what they have.

    Thanks for the help
     

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