New Advances in Warfare: World War II

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New Advances in WarfareWorld War II

• 19th 20th Century World History
• Spring Semester
• Mrs. Huff

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Overview of Technological Advances

• Weaponry
• Ships, vehicles, aircraft, atomic weaponry
• Logistical Support
• Vehicles necessary for transporting soldiers and
  supplies
• Industrial
• Factory Technology

• Communications Intelligence
• Devices used for navigation, communication
  espionage
• Medical
• Surgical and pharmaceutical innovations

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Weaponry during WWII Was constantly EVOLVING!!

• Beginning (1939-ish)

• Conclusion (1945-ish)

• Cavalry
• Trenches
• World War I-era battleships

• Jet aircraft
• Ballistic missiles
• DUKW the Dells ducks- that allow for an
  amphibious landing
• Atomic weapons

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Innovation 1 Aircraft Technology
Reconnaissance
Fighters
bombers

• German aircraft (and the lack of Allied) allowed
  the German military to overrun Western Europe.
• French Air Force had basically been ignored.
• By 1940, French had 740 fighter planes and 140
  bombers.
• Germans 8,250 fighters and fighter-bombers

• By 1940, the German military had an immense
  advantage in terms of reconnaissance and
  intelligence.
• General Idea Massed aerial bombing the
  Bomber Dream.
• Bomb an enemy into submission.

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New Developments

• Jet Aircraft

• Smart Bombs

The Enola Gay A B-29 bomber used to drop the
atomic bombs over Japan.
The F-80 (also called P-80) was the best Allied
fighter jet to emerge from World War II.
Unfortunately, it was developed too late to see
actual combat.
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Innovation 2 RADAR(Radio Detecting and
Ranging)

• During World War II, battles were won by the side
  that was first to spot enemy airplanes, ships, or
  submarines.
• Technology developed by British and American
  scientists. (Though almost every nation was
  working independently to develop effective radar.
  
• Radar worked by sending out a radio wave and
  analyzing the reflected wave after it bounced off
  any objects in the air.

German engineers also developed radars during
World War II. Perhaps the most important of these
was the Würzburg type shown here at an
installation in Douvre, France (then
German-occupied France). Its 8-meter wide dish
antenna was part of a system used to detect
incoming aircraft.
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• 1940s radar relied on a semiconductor crystal, or
  "rectifier."
• These crystals often couldn't handle the
  quickness and intensity of a rapidly changing
  radar signal. They would burn out frequently.
• Purdue, Bell Labs, MIT, and the University of
  Chicago joined forces to build better crystals.
• In the post-war era, this same technology would
  be used to create the transistor, as in
  transistor radio.

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Types Purposes of Radar

• Detection

• Fire Control

• Used to create a radar map of all objects in all
  directions and often as far as possible.
• Purpose
• early warning detection of aircraft and ships,
• ground controlled intercept of aircraft, which is
  done by directing fighter aircraft to detected
  incoming aircraft, and
• mapping of the ground terrain for navigation and
  targeting, mostly by bombers.

• Are the radar equivalent of a searchlight.
  Dedicated to the precise positioning of a
  previously detected particular target, precise
  enough to aim guns at it and hit it without
  actually seeing it.
• Purpose
• Used mostly by night fighters to help find their
  targets.

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Lichtenstein SN2 - the radar of the German night
fighters (range 2.5 miles)
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Proximity FuseSmart Bombs

• The idea was simple, but seemingly impossible
  put a tiny radar set on each artillery shell, and
  have the radar set trigger the detonation of the
  shell when it was close to its target.
• The proximity fuze moved rapidly from
  experimental device to use in practical weapons.
• By the end of the war some 22 million had been
  produced, and they became very important in
  artillery, particularly anti-aircraft artillery.

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Chain Home

• Chain Home - a network of British early warning
  radars used to defend Britain in the Battle Of
  Britain. It was an early and primitive radar, but
  it was powerful and reliable, and was efficiently
  operated by experienced operators, and therefore
  was a critical asset which allowed the British
  Fighter Command to optimally engage incoming
  German bomber formations. (range 185 miles)

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Random Factoid Time! ?

• There are more chickens on the Earth than people.
• Donkeys kill more people annually than plane
  crashes.
• Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be
  kept at least 6 feet away from a toilet to avoid
  airborne particles from the flush.
• Marilyn Monroe had six toes.

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Innovation 3 Aircraft Carriers

• Aircraft carriers were a new development in WW II
  and allowed for remote deployment of fighter and
  bomber aircraft.
• These were used most effectively in the Pacific
  Theatre of the war as part of the island
  hopping strategy.

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Innovation 4 SONAR(SOund Navigation And
Ranging)

• The research into SONAR began following the
  sinking of the Titanic in 1912 and expanded
  greatly during World War I.
• By 1918, the U.S. and G.B. had built SONAR
  devices, but it took until 1922 before active
  production of this technology was occurring.
• During WWII, SONAR was referred to as ASDIC a
  generic code used so that the Axis Powers would
  not know what the Allied Powers were up to.

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Basics of SONAR

• Sonar is utilized by listening for the
  reverberation of sound against a solid material.
  (Ex. a U-Boat!)
• Sonar operation is affected by variations in
  sound speed, particularly in the vertical plane.
  
• Sound speed is slower in fresh water than in sea
  water.

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Innovation 5 Coding Devices

• The ENIGMA was a German machine used to encrypt
  and decrypt secret messages.
• The technology was developed during the
  mid-1920s, and it didnt take long before the
  Allied forces could decrypt German messages.
• ULTRA was the name used by the British for
  intelligence resulting from decryption of German
  communications in World War II.

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Navajo Code Talkers

• The Navajo language was used by the Marines
  during WWII. It was never deciphered by the
  Japanese.
• Johnston believed Navajo answered the military
  requirement for an undecipherable code because
  Navajo is an unwritten language of extreme
  complexity.
• Its syntax and tonal qualities, not to mention
  dialects, make it unintelligible to anyone
  without extensive exposure and training.
• It has no alphabet or symbols, and is spoken only
  on the Navajo lands of the American Southwest.
• One estimate indicates that less than 30
  non-Navajos, none of them Japanese, could
  understand the language at the outbreak of World
  War II.

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Innovation 6 Industrial Dev.

• While the development of new equipment was rapid,
  it was also important to be able to produce these
  tools and get them to the troops in the
  appropriate quantity.
• Those nations that were able to maximize their
  industrial capacity and mobilize it for the war
  effort were most successful at equipping their
  troops in a timely way with adequate material.
• Ability to produce synthetic rubber.
• Development of alternative fuels.
• Hydrogen Peroxide Forerunner to the development
  of fuel-cell technology and synthetic fuel
  technology.

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More Random Factoid Time! ?

• Only one person in two billion will live to be
  116 or older.
• The fingerprints of koala bears are virtually
  indistinguishable from those of humans, so much
  so that they could be confused at a crime scene.
• Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a
  great king from historySpades - King David
  Clubs - Alexander the GreatHearts -
  Charlemagne Diamonds - Julius Caesar.

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Innovation 7 Medical Advances

• Most dramatic single advance was the widespread
  use of Sulfanilamide and Penicillin to treat
  wounds and disease.
• Sulfanilamide Developed in 1932 by a German
  biochemist whose discovery helped spare his own
  daughter from death due to a strep infection.
• Sulfanilamide was widely used in WW II. All
  American soldiers carried a medic kit. They were
  instructed to sprinkle sulfa powder on any open
  wound and dress it with a bandage.

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Development of Penicillin

• Sir Robert Fleming 1906 Scottish
  bacteriologist
• Discovered penicillin, but could not make enough
  to make it useful written off as a lab
  curiosity.
• 1916 Oxford scientists rediscovered Flemings
  work, but due to Britains role in World War I,
  they had to seek help from the U.S.
• Representatives from Pfizer took a huge financial
  risk, curtailed production of other drugs, and
  ended up, in 1942, being the first pharmaceutical
  company to mass-produce penicillin.

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Role of Penicillin in World War II

• Due to the abundant demand for penicillin during
  World War II, Pfizer shared its production
  secrets with 19 other companies. None of these
  could even come close to producing the quantities
  that Pfizer could produce.
• Pfizer produced over 50 of all penicillin used
  by the Allied forces over the course of the war,
  and 90 of all the penicillin used at the D-Day
  invasion.

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Other Medical Advances

• Treatment of Malaria
• Atabrine vs. Quinine
• Use of blood plasma
• Use of morphine as a pain killer

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Innovation 8 Atomic Weapons

• The United States, with assistance from the
  United Kingdom and Canada, designed and built the
  first atomic bombs under what was called the
  Manhattan Project.
• Developed out of fear that Nazi Germany was
  developing a large-scale bombing program.
• Manhattan Project employed over 130,000 people
  and cost the U.S. Government 2 billion!

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Three Bombs

• 1 Trinity detonated on July 16, 1945 near
  Alamogordo, NM
• 2 Little Boy dropped on Hiroshima on August
  6, 1945. Immediate casualties 140,000
  (mostly civilian)
• 3 Fat Man dropped on Nagasaki on August 9,
  1945. Immediate casualties 74,000 (mostly
  civilian)
• 2 3 are the only atomic weapons ever
  detonated as part of a military action (as of
  2007).

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The Devastating Consequences
Nagasaki August 9, 1945
Hiroshima August 6, 1945