Top 10 Inventions Of WWII

Nothing like a big bang for uniting the troops, is there?

[lancesergeant]

Originally Posted by Herroberst

So Von start the new thread as things are going flat around heya lately...Please.

Feel free also to continue this thread. Anyone see the famous Russian flying submarine invention?

Didn't they show it about a week ago on Saturday showing Russian secret inventions on Discovery channel. According to the programme the Russians had a jet fighter flying before both the British and the Germans! Also a transparent aircraft but which they discarded because of unreliable materials.

[Herroberst]

Ah yes, I taped that and thought it was very interesting. They had the German weapons before the Russian ones. It was interesting how Stalin helped the Germans out by doing stupid things and then Hitler helped the Russians out by doing the same.

[Dave--]

agreed on the atomic bomb.

[Herroberst]

Well even though the atomic bomb was a horrible weapon it did save alot of American lives and ended WWII. Unless massive fire bombing continued over Japan I can think of no other way to defeat bushidoism and get them to surrender. As far as ethics discuss that with veterans from Pearl Harbor.

[BulgarianSoldier]

For me the first one is Jet engine the secound is V1 and V2 rockets.I also think the tank "Tigar" and "Panther" has give a lot for resarching beter weapons.I think that we can put "FG" and "MP44" in those 10 iventions.The atom bomb that americans drop in Japan was one for sure.I will put the "Katusha" in 10 iventions in my opinion.The U-boats and the enigma must be one of the best iventions of WW2 too.It may sound REALLY funny but the german helmet is one of the iventions too many of todays army have helmets just like the form of the nazis helmets

[Proffesor '07]

Well this may sound shallow but I would say
#1. Atomic bomb- It killed many people yes, but also saved the lives of countless others from needing to invade the Japanese mainland.
#2. M1 Garand- Although a simple and small weapon, its use inthe hands of american infantry was decisive against other bolt-action rifles of the day.
#3. Messerchimt Jet- Although it was first put to use during the battle of the bulge which did little good because it was overcast for nearly the entire battle and by that point the war was nearly finished anyways. It opened a new door to innovation and warfare for the future.

[lancesergeant]

I thought Penicillin was discovered in 1928? Florey and Chain picked up the baton and started to produce it in significant amounts around about 1941,after picking up on the research. If one includes penicillin in the top ten it can only be from the viewpoint of the major/mass production of a life saving drug, it's ultimate development,and thus widespread use and associated issues.

[spidge]

[quote=lancesergeant;78778]

I thought Penicillin was discovered in 1928?

You are correct. Sir Alexander Fleming was the first to observe the action of this Antibiotic whilst working on another project. (How often in science has this occurred).

He theorised the importance and possibilities however he was unable to make it work and in 1931 gave up on the idea.

Florey and Chain picked up the baton and started to produce it in significant amounts around about 1941,after picking up on the research.

A most inadequate and simplistic definition of the process that occurred. They carried the "could", "if", "maybe", possibilities for this product in 1939 by doing exhaustive research. Florey, the Australian Pathologist and Co-discoverer of Penicillin and the German-born British biochemist Chain, isolated the active agent, penicillin, from a fraction of the mould and invented formulated procedures for extraction and production and carried out clinical trials to examine its effectiveness.

They did as you say, "pick up on the research" however they took something from the theoretical to the practical, without whom, battle wound death percentages would have been similar to WW1. It is well documented that 95% of all allied infected wound deaths in WW2 (44-45) were averted by the introduction of Penicillin. (We will leave the amount of troops available for duty through treatment of STD's compared to WW1 for another thread)

Without Florey and Chain and other scientists in the team "penicillin" would still have been another theory of the possibility of a "Universal Wonder Drug".

Due to wartime industries in Britain being affected by WW2, Florey took his process to the United States, where private and government laboratories produced sufficient quantities to combat bacterial infection in wounded soldiers. (by December 1943 an Australian CSIRO scientist Percival Landon Bazeley, http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-heroes/bazeley.htm had organised the production of enough Penicillin to supply all Australian Military forces, American Forces in the SWPA and the total Australian population).

If one includes penicillin in the top ten it can only be from the viewpoint of the major/mass production of a life saving drug, it's ultimate development,and thus widespread use and associated issues.

As stated above this was definitely not the case.

[spidge]

Thought I would include this here rather than another thread.

"Deaths from disease in WW1 were more than 31 times greater than those suffered in WW2, while lost service due to venereal disease (V.D.) was 30 times higher in WW1 than during WW2 … (although WW2 still numbered 606 men who came down with VD each day") .

Also:

Ultimately Pfizer, the American pharmaceutical company produced 90 percent of the penicillin that went ashore with Allied forces at Normandy on D-Day in 1944 and more than half of all the penicillin used by the Allies for the rest of the war.