| For a good overview on the key role that enginners, scientists, and 'technologists' had in helping to win WW2 for the Allies, see Engineers of victory: the problem solvers who turned the tide in the Second World War by Kennedy: > Kennedy recounts the inside stories of the invention of the cavity magnetron, a miniature radar “as small as a soup plate,” and the Hedgehog, a multi-headed grenade launcher that allowed the Allies to overcome the threat to their convoys crossing the Atlantic; the critical decision by engineers to install a super-charged Rolls-Royce engine in the P-51 Mustang, creating a fighter plane more powerful than the Luftwaffe’s; and the innovative use of pontoon bridges (made from rafts strung together) to help Russian troops cross rivers and elude the Nazi blitzkrieg. He takes readers behind the scenes, unveiling exactly how thousands of individual Allied planes and fighting ships were choreographed to collectively pull off the invasion of Normandy, and illuminating how crew chiefs perfected the high-flying and inaccessible B-29 Superfortress that would drop the atomic bombs on Japan. > The story of World War II is often told as a grand narrative, as if it were fought by supermen or decided by fate. Here Kennedy uncovers the real heroes of the war, highlighting for the first time the creative strategies, tactics, and organizational decisions that made the lofty Allied objectives into a successful reality. In an even more significant way, The Turn of the Tide has another claim to our attention, for it restores “the middle level of war” to its rightful place in history. * https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/91616/engineers-of-... * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13132847-engineers-of-vi... Lots of references in case you want to dig into more detail on the particular inventions he goes over. I was a bit surprised to learn that the Americans were quite reluctant to build Merlin-powered P-51s: they were originally designed with Allison engines, but after a test flight the British decide to shoehorn a Rolls Royce engine into one and the performance went from pretty good to astounding. |