Thanks to
@Some Bloke for providing me with the ideas for the Griffon engine and the Burney Gun.
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It is at this point, at the dawn of 1942, that it is appropriate to observe the development of British technology during the war, for numerous major strides were made by British engineers which ultimately had a significant impact on the outcome of the war.
After the Allied victory in the Battle of Britain, emphasis in Britain began to shift from constructing existing models (which was considered the norm in order to have an air force, navy, and weaponry sufficient to fend off an invading army), to developing new weapons and technology to provide the Allies with a new edge over Axis forces.
One of the first technological advancements made during 1941 was the Griffon engine for the new variant of Supermarine Spitfires. The Griffon engine, developed by Rolls-Royce, had first been tested in November 1939, and throughout 1940 and early 1941, British engineers worked on adapting the new engine to a new Spitfire variant. The work, largely overseen by aircraft designer Joseph Smith, came to an end on July the 18th 1941, when the new Spitfire had its first flight – the Griffon-engine powered Spitfires would subsequently be introduced into the RAF in June 1942, and proved to be extremely valuable, with the Griffon-engine proving to be capable of improving the Spitfire’s performance significantly.
Another area of technological improvement made by British engineers came in the field of anti-tank weaponry. During the first years of the war, work had been underway in Britain for the development of a new anti-tank gun, known as the 3.45 inch RCL – or, Burney Gun as it was commonly known [1]. The Burney Gun, named after its designer, Sir Dennis Burney, was developed by the Broadway Trust Company, and was developed as a recoilless weapon which had a range of 1000 yards. Initially, however, the development of the Burney Gun encountered several problems, which led to the project coming close to being scrapped, yet an unusual event occurred which saved the Burney Gun and ensured it would enter production – the Battle of Crete. When German paratroopers landed on the island, they were easily repulsed by the British and Greek defenders (German parachute regiments were yet to recover from the Battle of Britain), which gave the Allies control over multiple German equipment which had been taken with the paratroopers to the island. Amongst the equipment secured by the Allies was the 7.5cm
Leichtgeschütz 40, a recoilless gun which bore numerous similarities to the Burney Gun.
As a result of this, several
Leichtgeschütz 40s were transported back to Britain and given to the Broadway Trust Company, which began reverse engineering several so as to improve the Burney Gun. Eventually, modifications were made to the Burney Gun based on the German model, including the adoption of a lighter, and more effective, 75mm shell, which enabled the Burney Gun to be transported with relative ease by soldiers using it. Having refined his new weapon so as to make it more effective and efficient, Burney had his new Gun mass-produced, and by 1942, British soldiers on the frontline were using the Burney Gun against enemy tanks, and, overall, the weapon proved to be quite effective.
Yet the most significant technological development worked on in Britain during the war was also, by far, the most difficult to develop – a weapon which utilised uranium fission, or, as it was also known, an ‘super bomb’ [2]. The origin of the British programme to create a nuclear weapon came in March 1940, when Rudolf Periels and Otto Frisch, at the time working for notable physicist Mark Oliphant at the University of Birmingham, issued what has since been called the Frisch-Periels Memorandum. In the Memorandum, the two scientists provided numerous calculations which demonstrated the feasibility nuclear weapon, and at the end of the memorandum, they urged Britain to develop a nuclear weapon before Germany, as it would ultimately be crucial to the outcome of the war (as it happened, Britain needn’t have worried about the German nuclear programme, as it was actually in a state of disarray). The memorandum the two scientists issued was read by Churchill, who decided to respond to it by establishing the MAUD Committee in June 1940, which would investigate whether or not Frisch and Periels’ calculations were in fact, and whether or not a super bomb was possible. Just over a year later, on July the 15th 1941, the MAUD Committee issued two reports, which confirmed that the Frisch-Periels Memorandum was indeed correct, and a super bomb was indeed feasible. Having received concrete confirmation of the super bomb’s feasibility, Churchill ordered that a British nuclear programme be established, headed by Wallace Akers, which took the name ‘Tube Alloys’, to mislead spies.
Initially, work on Tube Alloys was conducted within Britain, and the scientists inside the programme focused on numerous issues which blocked the development of the super bomb. Yet, by early 1942, it was evident that continuing to station Tube Alloys in the British Isles was a risk-filled move, as there was a possibility that German spies would be able to discover the programme, or that, if a super bomb was created and tested, German radars would be able to detect it, and would therefore be alerted of Britain’s progress with its nuclear programme. Therefore, Churchill and the Government decided in August 1942 to re-locate Tube Alloys to Canada – not only would this prevent the Nazis from learning of the nuclear programme, yet it also held several other advantages. For example, the vast, uninhabited wilderness in Northern Canada was an ideal location for the testing of a super bomb, if the programme successfully developed one, while re-locating to Canada also ensured that British nuclear co-operation with the United States could expand. Ever since the Tizard Mission in August 1940, information sharing between the Tube Alloys programme and the American nuclear programme, the S-1 Executive Committee, had increased until, after Tube Alloy’s re-location to Canada, US President Franklin D Roosevelt agreed to fold the S-1 Executive Committee into Tube Alloys and so, from 1942 onwards, British, Canadian and American scientists worked jointly within the Tube Alloys programme. This, combined with the Lend-Lease Agreement (whereby the US agreed to provide supplies to Britain), and the Atlantic Charter (a policy agreement signed between Churchill and Roosevelt on their respective countries' attitudes towards the war), was one of the many areas of the increasing informal alliance between Britain and America which was emerging as the war continued.
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[1] See the Wikipedia article on the weapon here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordnance,_RCL,_3.45_in
[2] This was the name given to a nuclear weapon in the Frisch-Periels Memorandum.