I watched a documentary about the race to make the "ultimate weapon" in air forces and navies in WWII.
An initial idea was carpet bombing, many figured that it would deflate civilian morale and make cities easier to take. In 1942, this idea was tested by Great Britain. Strategic bombing was used on the German city of Cologne. The bombing was fairly successful, but little of the German air force was taken out in the process. The Americans invented a bomber that could supposedly fire with high precision so that bombing raids could be carried out in broad daylight successfully. The British essentially created the first version of the radar jammer by using shards of aluminum to disrupt the radar signals. Eventually the carpet bombing campaign died out because the Germans began to find ways to increase British losses and the British soon realized that German morale was not being affected, and so the British carpet bombing days came mostly to an end. In the middle of 1944, the British created a hybrid plane made from American plane parts and created the first long range bomber. These planes were tasked with destroying oil supplies, and were successful because of their longer range and increased maneuverability. However, carpet bombing still proved unsuccessful for being the "knockout blow" to Germany. The attention turned towards making navy weapons. The Germans made the Bismarck battleship in 1941. British navy engaged this battleship in a naval conflict, and the Bismarck easily defeated the battlecruiser "Hood", killing nearly all the crew. The Bismarck was spotted later by British planes armed with torpedoes that crippled the Bismarck, and it was later finished off by more planes and British ships. The sister ship was spotted in the Norwegian seas, and British submarines attempted to destroy it but only minor damage was caused. Divebombers joined the fight, and soon bombers were able to cause enough damage to eventually sink it after chasing it around for almost two years. The Germans soon turned to submarine warfare. German subs and U-Boats terrorized British merchant ships, sinking nearly 40% of their convoy. A technological breakthrough was reached in Britain. A type of radar could detect when German U-boats surfaced, and pinpointed their location. The sinking of merchant ships were cut in half, and the U-boats began to be defeated along with their famous commanders. U-boat production soon increased rapidly, but not until the British cracked the German code used for communication after one of their subs was captured. The Hedgehog was invented as an anti-sub weapon that became useful for sinking U-boats in the black zone, and along with the invention of an underwater searchlight that caught U-boats by surprise, the sinking of U-boats increased rapidly. A new bomber was invented by the Allies that allowed them to sink U-boats in the black zone, and Hitler soon realized he was losing the submarine war. A prototype electric sub was invented by the Germans, but it was too little too late, and the Allies soon had complete naval control over the Atlantic.
This event was very important in the course of the war, because since the Allies had naval control, ports could be blockaded and overall it made defeating the Germans a whole lot easier. WWII brought out many new inventions that changed the course of the history of warfare. Air and naval conflict changed completely, and new tactics were tested to deflate civilian morale. German navy could have been much stronger if their battleships would have been more successful. The course of the war could've changed completely if the German battleships were stronger, and if their prototype electric U-Boat would've been produced more, the Germans could've won the naval war and this might have altered the outcome of the war. The new inventions of WWII changed the way wars were fought, and it was a very good thing that the Allies got lucky and came out on top in the race to outsmart and outgun the Germans in the air and sea.
Comments
Good but be sure to use paragraphs to break up info!