Closing the Gaps in US Rocket Propellant Production, 1940–1945

The article supplements and revises past historiographical explanations on why the US entered World War ii without propellant based engines, for tactical rockets and how that gap was overcome. Short range rockets were used extensively by all sides in the War for various purposes, but in the interwar period (1919–1939), rocket advances were made mostly in Europe with the US lagging behind. The rockets engines were based on solid propellant tubes, but in 1940 there was hardly any US tubes design knowledge and no production facilities. Technological and production gaps had to be closed, and from 1940 were made with a significant help from Britain and under the leadership of the civilian National Defense Research Council (ndrc) agency, merged in 1941 into the Office of Scientific Research and Development (osrd). Due to the pressing needs to equip American forces with rockets, a joint group of ndrc and Army developers modified in early 1942 an existing gun propellant production technology for rocket tubes. Used initially for the Bazooka this adoption was found later to be extremely problematic in production and performance of tubes in the widely-used, Army’s 4.5-inch barrage and fighter plane rockets. Working in parallel, a joint group of ndrc and navy developers was able to construct the more modern tube production process already used abroad, avoiding the main army difficulties and taking the lead. The growing needs for these superior Navy rockets, some of which were used extensively by the Army, led to gaps between supplies and demands by 1943. Two fortunate events, one of them connected with the Soviet Union, helped to relieve the shortage.

Technology-Driven Revolutions in Military Affairs

The term Revolutions in Military Affair (rma) was originally coined by the Soviets realizing that the US planned to utilize electronics and computers to improve both its weapons and battle management. Other such revolutions were caused by the emergence of aircraft, submarines, mechanized warfare, precision-guided munitions (pgms), unmanned vehicles and Net-Centric-Warfare. Beside its effect on fighting, military technology also affects the public and its leadership. Several technological developments, such as rockets and drones, cyberwarfare, and homemade explosives and chemical and biological weapons, are already changing current concepts and conduct of warfare through their direct effect on warfighting and by their potential effect on the public and its leadership. Consequently, rmas should be analyzed in terms of the linkages between the rear, where chaos can be created, and the front, where the armed forces typically operate.

“The Enthusiasm Expressed by Our Industry Friends”

This article analyzes the groundbreaking 1952 plan by US Army leadership to develop a sizeable cargo helicopter program in the face of interservice opposition. It examines the influence that decision had in the next decade on the Army, the helicopter industry, and vtol technology. The Army’s procurement of large helicopters that could transport soldiers and materiel was neither a fait accompli nor based on short-term needs. Rather, archival records reveal that the decision was based on long-range concerns about the postwar health of the helicopter industry, developing the state of the art, and fostering new doctrinal concepts. The procurement had long-term consequences. Helicopters became central to Army war planning, and the ground service’s needs dictated the next generation of helicopter designs. That technology made possible the revolutionary airmobility concept that the Army took into Vietnam and also led to a flourishing commercial helicopter field.

The PBY Catalina’s Offensive Utility and Its Transformation into Black Cats and MAD Cats

By the Second World War the US Navy had slated the pby Catalina to function as its long-range patrol seaplane and considered it for a bombing role. The first months of the war, however, revealed the pby to be too antiquated and slow to be a viable offensive weapon and thus minimized its utility. Relegated to conducting patrols and rescue operations, pby crews looked to the aircraft itself and experimented with technical and operational changes in reaction to fighting the Japanese in the South Pacific and the U-boat threat in the Atlantic. With the blessing of Navy’s command structure, crews made physical adjustments, added the latest technologies, incorporated supporting armaments, and designed new operational methods on an ad hoc basis for their respective circumstances and opponent. This experimentation and innovation resulted in the enhancement of the pby’s offensive utility as an attack weapon, and its transformation into the Black Cats and mad Cats.

Biting the Bullet

The deployment and use of European harquebuses following their introduction to Japan in 1543 is conventionally regarded as having followed a straightforward path of enthusiastic adoption, wherein the Japanese adapted and improved the revolutionary new weapons. This paper demonstrates that the procedure was instead both haphazard and idiosyncratic. In many cases firearms were tried by Japan’s rival daimyo (lords) and then either neglected or used ineffectively, a hit-and-miss approach that can even be identified in the person of Oda Nobunaga, the man who is usually credited with Japan’s military revolution. The situation is however complicated by the nomenclature used for the guns themselves, the projectiles, and even the nature of the wounds they caused. As for their impact, until the battle of Nagashino in 1575 all the actions involving firearms took place at defended positions with almost no mention of guns being used during open battles.