Innovating Victory: Naval Technology in Three Wars

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Torpedoes had to be hardened to withstand the impact with the water when launched at the speeds necessary to keep aircraft aloft. But even as platforms and systems evolved, the era of certain knowledge—the knowledge that only comes from observing naval technology used in peer-to-peer combat—ended in 1945. In terms of formations, objectives, and major weapons, John Jellicoe and Reinhard Scheer, the admirals at Jutland, essentially fought the same way that Horatio Nelson and Pierre Villeneuve fought Trafalgar. The tactical function of the dreadnought battleships that fought the Battle of Jutland, 111 years after Victory’s triumph at Trafalgar, was essentially the same.

By 1944, synthetic rubber plants were producing around 800,000 tons of material annually for the war effort. On July 16, 1945, in a test code-named Trinity, the scientists witnessed the first successful atomic explosion. Having made these observations the authors nevertheless do make some broad statements on current capabilities. If Germany had fielded 50 more submarines when World War II began, the outcome may have been quite different. One of the key messages from the book is the need for a combination of scientists and specialists to work in collaboration with the end users to ensure a successful and effective outcome.The authors use their expertise to explore six case studies that analyze technological developments in the twentieth century. As technologies matured, their potency multiplied—compare the first gasoline-powered submarines that went to sea with one torpedo, no radio, and no periscope with the nuclear-powered and -armed boats of today.

Mines are relatively cheap to manufacture, can be laid by many platforms either covertly or overtly, and cannot be ignored.

The matter of reducing and narrowing industrial capacity is particularly concerning at present for western democracies. The authors recognize this is a 'vast subject, ' but they have done a very effective job at examining the six technologies and their use in war.

As Professor Irving Holley wrote in the early 1950s, The greatest stumbling block to the revision of doctrine was probably not so much vested interests as the absence of a system for analyzing new weapons and their relation to prevailing concepts of utilizing weapons. Naval technologies present in 1905 that had been unknown at Trafalgar included torpedoes, radio, moored contact mines, and (barely) practical submarines. In essence, technology is the practical application of knowledge expressed through the use of a device. In relation to naval aviation the authors conclude that: “It is difficult to know whether the carrier has had its day, but the current crop of antiship weapons give little cause for optimism. Development of the technology in different navies is examined as is its employment in time of conflict, mainly during the Russo-Japanese War, World War 1 and World War 2.

For example, Guglielmo Marconi demonstrated his radio in 1896 and by 1897, the Italian Navy had trialed ship to shore communication. During the current period, naval technology has incorporated atomic energy and progressed to satellites, computers, drones, data networks, and artificial intelligence. Victory’s tactical function as a capital ship was to maneuver in formation with her fellow capital ships to a position from which she could bombard enemy ships with her broadside of cannons. S. customary system of measurement and do not convert measurements given in one system to another, assuming the reader can navigate the metric and customary systems.

We already have low-tech alternatives to meat and dairy (they grow in the ground), but the world’s population is growing much faster than veganism. O'Hara is a noted naval historian and the author, co-author, or editor of eight books and many articles that have appeared in publications like Naval War College Review, Warship, Seaforth Naval Review, and Military History Quarterly. You may have access to different export options including Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive and citation management tools like RefWorks and EasyBib. An example documented by O’Hara and Heinz is China’s use of mines dating back to the tenth century during the Sung dynasty. Once the technology existed, however, bottom-up experimentation and lessons learned were the quickest ways to develop effective exploitation methods.

Fourth-wave technologies—that is, technologies invented or developed since the end of World War II—will be treated very lightly as they remain largely untested in peer-to-peer combat.