The Battle of Britain couldn't have been won without UK's homegrown tech innovations

Today marks the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, where Britain saw off Nazi Germany's air force and briefly stood alone against Hitler's military might. Yet while the occasion is marked by flypasts and parades, it's important to remember that tech also played a part in Britain's victory. Fought over the skies of …

[Death_Ninja]

Re: Battle of Britian - some of the forgotten bits.

Yes, I believe they could determine speed in some way, but that assumes someone wasn't flying slowly like a bomber...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Battle of Britian - some of the forgotten bits.

> Actual enemy aircraft type identification was done by the Observer Corps - once it had come into sight.

My dad was in the Observer Corps, aged 16. Office boy during the day; observer before and after work. Most times the planes could be identified by sound alone with visual sighting providing confirmation plus numbers, direction and altitude. Once he reached 18 he was conscripted into the Army and sent to North Africa, only to be shot while on patrol in no-mans-land after just a couple of months. He spent 18 months in hospital recovering and was invalided out.

He claims that while in the field hospital, a US Major came round handing out Purple Hearts and he was all set to say "Thank-you sir" in his best American accent but the sergeant accompanying him realised in time that my dad was a "limey', so all he got was a "Get well soldier" or some such. ;-)

Later he volunteered as a glider pilot for Arnhem but was rejected because of a partial paralysis in his foot. (He pointed out that Douglas Bader was allowed to fly but that didn't go down very well, apparently.)

[Man inna barrel]

Re: Battle of Britian - some of the forgotten bits.

I am pretty sure that all RADAR could do in WW2 was spot aircraft of some kind, as distinct from a flock of birds, for example. This was very valuable, because fighter aircraft could get up into the air earlier, and shoot down the Luftwaffe bombers before they reached our shores.

[Joe Gurman]

Re: Battle of Britian - some of the forgotten bits.

Weight alone didn't disqualify a twin-engine plane from being an effective fighter. Consider the P-38 Lightning, which weighed > 30% more than the Bf 110.... yet did a very creditable job of air-to-air combat, ground attack, and even bomber escort (that last until more appropriate/easier to fly at altitude aircraft were available). And P-38s killed Yamamoto.

[Danny 2]

Ironic Obit

Wilhelm Messerschmitt died on 15/9/1978 - the anniversary of Battle of Britain day. I am confident Britain's armed forces are fully prepared to take on Germany when they start WWIII.

When Gavin Williamson was defence secretary he threatened to deploy our aircraft carriers to intimidate China, despite having no aircraft. I suggested putting our remaining Spitfires on them as a gesture.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Ironic Obit

Actually that freedom of the seas patrol in the Pacific was a cunning wheeze to borrow a couple of squadrons of US Marine aircraft.

The plan was to have 2 RAF squadrons fully operational at that point, and then to borrow some Marines to do joint excercises / training. Seeing as they've been using the aircraft in carrier operations for longer, that's some good operational experience to be shared. Meanwhile we do them a favour in the Pacific, which is also good for our relations with Japan and Australia who have also been doing freedom-of-the-seas patrols in the South China Sea for the last year or so.

[Joe Gurman]

Technological edges

They weren't all in the RAF's favo[u]r. The Spitfire in 1940 still had a simple carburetor[t]or rather than fuel injection, and so could suffer loss of power in high-g maneuvers such as.... a straight, node-down dive; the contemporary Luftwaffe fighters had fuel injection. Improved pressure carburetor[t]ors for the Spitfire were introduced in 1942.

The use of carburetion was allegedly to produce more power at the supercharger. Someone must have licked that problem with fuel injection in the intervening decades, as my, er, Mexican-built "German" car has both fuel injection and a turbocharger.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Technological edges

The Bf109, Spitfire and Hurricane were all similar in ability. Each had advantages and disadvantages. The Germans had cannon, which was probably their biggest plus - something the RAF didn't get in numbers until later.

If you read about the air war in Europe advantage would swinging around wildly for the next couple of years. Both sides would make a new version of their plane, chuck it into service and give the enemy a nasty surprise when it could suddenly do things they'd learned weren't possible.

[Man inna barrel]

Re: Technological edges

The Spiftire was without doubt a work of art, but my history tells me that the Hurricane was the real warhorse in WW2.

The geometry and and design of the Spitfire are lovely, but did all that curvature make it a better warplane? There is an American warplane, called the A10, I think. It is ugly, old, heavy. and slow. But it does the business.

I think there is a serious risk of military porn here, so I will stop now.

[WolfFan]

Jamaica was not a dominion

IIRC it was a Crown Colony. A large number of Jamaicans did fly in the RAF, but relatively few in Fighter Command (a prominent Fighter Command pilot was a future Prime Minister of Jamaica, another a prominent journalist, and one more a prominent academic) and of those few again relatively few in the BoB. A rather considerable number were in Bomber Command, though zero in 139 (Jamaica) Squadron, 139 got the tag after the Gleaner newspaper ran an appeal and raised the money to buy enough aircraft to form a squadron. And yes, the prominent journalist noted above worked for the Gleaner. The most famous Jamaican in Bomber Command would later defend Jomo Kenyatta in court and go on to be Minister of National Security in Jamaica. He’s still a hero in Kenya, not so much in Jamaica due to certain events while he was Minister, notably when several young men from the Prime Minister’s constituency made contact with people in the Army to get serious weapons, including two General Purpose Machine Guns. The young men and the soldiers went to an Army shooting range outside Kingston, allegedly to demonstrate the weapons. They were demonstrated, alright: on the young men. Oops. The Minister remarked, on the record, that, and I quote, “No angels died” at the range. This did not go down well. The Minister was also still in charge when a prominent ‘community activist’ (a major figure in the grass roots support of the party then in opposition) was killed by police. The autopsy showed 42 bullet wounds in his body, several located in places indicating that he had had his hands up when he was killed. That didn’t go down well either.

[Anonymous Coward]

Magnetrons

This may or may not be true!

When I was doing my Radar training at RAF Locking in the 60s we had a couple of very entertaining civilian instructors. One was quite theatrical in his lectures.

I remember one of his tales as to the reason the Brits got radar working properly before the Germans was that of German thoroughness and efficiency.

He explained that as the Magnetron heated up it reached a point where it could go into thermal runaway and explode, and often did.

He went on to say that the Germans lost several of their boffins because of exploding Magnetrons in the labs. All down to the fact (?) that the heater was soldered/welded/bolted to the heater supply.

Here in Blighty, we only had crocodile clips.

Once morning while the boffins were hiding behind their blast screens waiting for the bang, Gladys came in with the tea trolley and accidentally knocked one of the croc clips off.

Drinking their tea afterwards and wondering why the big bang didn't happen, it was only then they realised the heater was only needed to get the thing to start. Once it was going it would run until its HT supplies were removed.

English tea wins the war.

At least that's what he told us - and we were only teenagers so what did we know?

[swm]

Re: Magnetrons

"the heater was only needed to get the thing to start"

That is correct. Some of the electrons crash into the cathode and keep it warm. I have an old 1946 RADAR book from MIT that explains this.

[J.G.Harston]

Robert Watson-Watt

Perfect name for a boffin.

[Ian Johnston]

Although Watson-Watt's Chain Home was important, it would have been useless without the Dowding System, an astonishingly efficient system for getting radar information to fighters in a matter of minutes. We've all seen it, possibly without knowing what was going on. Those young women were pushing around models showing enemy radar contacts. Meanwhile, other young women in a gallery were passing the information on to RAF bases. Of course both the Dowding System and Chain Home depended on each other, but it's arguable that the Dowding System was more truly innovative.

[Ivan Headache]

Spitfires and that engine sound

From where I live in north-west London I can see Bentley Priory from my upstairs windows.

Every year until a couple of years after RAF sold it (it's now an estate of executive houses), at about 1800 on 16th September I would hear that wonderful sound. Looking out, there would be a lone Spitfire performing aerobatics over the priory for about ten minutes.

Did't hear anything today.

[Cynical Pie]

Both or my grandfathers had involvement of sorts in the radar boffinry.

One was an engineer/draughtsman who worked for Drayton (best known now for thermostatic radiator valves) in a reserved occupation making the valves and components for the radar sets that were handmade.

The other was a radar operator in the RAF based in N France prior to Dunkirk. As the allies retreated towards Dunkirk he had to go behind enemy lines to help destroy radar equipment left behind and remove various components so that the Germans couldn't use them to reverse engineer their own versions of allied kit.

He had to go was he was the only operator who understood how it actually worked and which bits to remove/destroy.

[Tempest]

There were some imports from the USA - Decca Navigator

The Decca Navigator was the brainchild by an American, W (Bill). J. O'Brien as a method of measuring the ground speed of aircraft and he worked on the system independently from 1936 to 1939. Unsuccessfully interesting the US military, or the civil authorities, the concept lapsed until 1939. Not dissuaded, O'Brien contacted a fellow American, his friend H. F. Schwarz, who was resident in London, who contacted the War Office.

O'Brien and Schwarz, with financial support from Decca, refined and proved it's viability. The British military expressed interest in the multi-frequency Decca system which, at this time, employed the GEE system and suffered from jamming.

The concept of radio hyperbolic navigation was common knowledge in the 1930s, The GEE, Decca, Omega, Loran, CHAYKA & Alpha were all hyperbolic navigation systems.

After the war Decca was to be found in aircraft and boats, both military and civilian. There were 2 Decca transmitter chains is use during the American War in VietNam. There remains only remnants of two of the original 6 transmitter station sites existent in VietNam (where I reside) today. During the Cold War tests with Decca, surreptitiously mounted in BOAC aircraft, were conducted on their Moscow routes for potential use in bombers.

The Global Positioning System, and the EU, essentially killed off Decca. (See http://www.jproc.ca/hyperbolic/decca.html for more WW2 information on Decca)

[Man inna barrel]

Mad scientists.

I grew up in Malvern, that was quite influential in the development of RADAR. My father worked on the electronics. There were some serious mad scientists. One was Dr Nichols (sp?). His usual attire was a green mini-skirt, purple tights, and a basket on his head. The thing is, this was all entirely rational. Skirts are more practical than trousers, he believed. A basket on the head avoids strain on the spine. It is possible that Dr Nichols may have suffered some brain damage from his RADAR research. I am told that he used to tune waveguides by looking down the tube, and filing the bits that made sparks.