Top 10 Inventions Of WWII

Dude...it can't be...no, it's just not possible...let me check this again....scroll down the page...my God...it is possible!....I don't believe it!....Oby, I don't know how it happened.....but well....I mean....we AGREED!
:wow:

 

What are you talking about...We agree about 90% of the time?????

 

Excellent point Owen...you are fast on that keyboard.


The point about nylon was parachutes.

 

You can just see Owen walking down mainstreet at Noon can't you? A grim look on his face and his fingers twitching over the keyboard strapped to his thigh.
Oby, yes we do agree 90% of the time. It's the other 10% that keeps life interesting.
Owen, in an poetry anthology of WW1 i came across a comment by one of the soldiers in the trenches who said, quite bluntly, "first we have fought the father's, now we must fight the sons". Many people knew it wasn't over. So maybe Oby is right, and it was just a continuation of WW1.

 

Both of you have to know that this was a theory put forth by one of my history professors during the 80s and certainly isn't my own. I believe the theory has merit and is a good topic for discussion.

 

Alot of history in the form of buildings were destroyed by both world wars...it was truly a shame.

 

I'm more for penecillin being a discovery rather than an invention. I also wouldn't strictly consider radar as a WW2 invention, did not the Germans build a working radar set that could distinguish ships in Kiel harbour as early as 1933?

With regard to the bredth of the original post I'll confine my post to an invention that directly effected the outcome of WW2.

I would go for the cavity magnetron knocked up by Boot and Black at Nottingham University for my number 1. It gave a huge increase in the power of shortwave radiation together with a massive reduction in the size of apparatus required to generate it, making airborne radar a viable proposition. Airborne radar was one of the main tools that won the Battle of the Atlantic.

The Japanese produced a cavity magnetron even before Boot and Black, but I'll stick with the British invention of it as being the more important as the Japanese version was not developed and had no impact on WW2. The one from Nottingham played a decisive part in just about every theatre of the war.

Regards,
BCP.

 

Surely I was trying to find a quote by a British Officer who'd served in both, Something along the lines of "One big war with a 20 year rest in the middle." eccentric chap but I can't remember his name....
Oooh hangon. This is about Inventions isn't it???
whoops.

The only quote I know of with that meaning is from "Ferdinand Foch" at the signing of the Treaty of Versailles,

'This is not peace. It is an armistice for 20 years'.

Von Poop, let us say this was an invention of a truism or an apophthegm or an Axiom. 20 years and 10 months later the Germans did roll into Poland!

 

I'm more for penecillin being a discovery rather than an invention. I also wouldn't strictly consider radar as a WW2 invention, did not the Germans build a working radar set that could distinguish ships in Kiel harbour as early as 1933?
Regards,
BCP.

Technically you are correct with your timeline on the "invention" of radar however the confirmation of effectiveness (workability) was not completely qualified until the commencement of WW2.

"As early as 1904 the German engineer Hülsmeyer in Duesseldorf received a patent (US patent810,150 dated 1906) for a procedure that showed reflections from a ship at a distance of 1,000 m (later 3,000m)."

With respect to Penicillin, you are technically correct in your assertion to its "discovery" (Fleming 1928 - abandoned work on it early 30's) however you are incorrect with respect to the "invention" of the subsequent processing and distilling of the anti-biotic which brought the effectiveness of Penicillin to the world.

This was achieved by Howard Florey (Australian), Ernst Chain (British/German) and many other dedicated people during the war.

 

"Invention of a truism"!
Phew, Cheers Spidge.

I was being cheeky!!!

 

Yep, while Flemming discovered the effects of penicillin (even though apparently he wasn't the first. Some French guy beat him by about 40 years I think), Flemming pretty much went, "Oh, that's nice." and promptly forgot all about it.

 

So Von start the new thread as things are going flat around heya lately...Please.

Feel free also to continue this thread. Anyone see the famous Russian flying submarine invention?

 

A top invention of WW2 (but not a nice one) was Torpex (is that the right name for it?). Very high explosive, and more efficient than TNT. Made the air war possible.
Not all inventions had to be nice and of use to humanity.

 

A top invention of WW2 (but not a nice one) was Torpex (is that the right name for it?). Very high explosive, and more efficient than TNT. Made the air war possible.
Not all inventions had to be nice and of use to humanity.

Torpex (Torpedo Explosive) was predominantly underwater explosive and used in Torpedoes as it was 50% more powerful underwater.

It was however used in the Tallboy & Grandslam bombs.