Innovating Victory: Naval Technology in Three Wars

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A poor condition book can still make a good reading copy but is generally not collectible unless the item is very scarce. Neither ProQuest nor its licensors make any representations or warranties with respect to the translations. O'Hara and Heinz chart the influence of six innovative technologies and recount how the combat potential of those technologies was enhanced or constrained by the organizations that developed, refined, and employed them. The authors also wanted to know whether any identified principles led to victory irrespective of the time in history or the specific technology pursued. The authors argue that assessing innovation ultimately must go through the crucible of combat to assess and develop the technology for the purposes of 'securing power at sea.

The chapters on mines, torpedoes and submarines are particularly germane given heightened anxieties regarding possible conflict with China. Other technologies such as analog and digital computers, jet and rocket propulsion, and nuclear weapons were also under development during this period and were competing with the subject technologies for limited financial, scientific, and production resources. The armored gunnery platform reached its acme of power and influence and imperceptibly began to fade in importance. In terms of formations, objectives, and major weapons, John Jellicoe and Reinhard Scheer, the admirals at Jutland, essentially fought the same way that Horatio Nelson and Pierre Villeneuve fought Trafalgar. But even as platforms and systems evolved, the era of certain knowledge—the knowledge that only comes from observing naval technology used in peer-to-peer combat—ended in 1945.The capstone of this process is determining the technology’s best uses and then combining those with best practices for best results.

By 1945, within the span of a Jutland officer’s service career, basic naval technologies included radar and guided weapons. Distances over sea are stated in nautical miles and over land in statute miles unless otherwise specified.The work does this by using six weapon case studies: the torpedo, the mine, radio, radar, submarines, and aircraft.

Technology was hardly the only force that shaped naval warfare in the twentieth century, but it was a force that navies always had to take into account. The volume has numerous photographs and charts that enhance the study, as well as an extensive bibliography. In essence, technology is the practical application of knowledge expressed through the use of a device. Forethought, strategic vision, and technical acumen might drive technological development in periods of peace, but it is a thesis of this work that navies learn the best use of new technology only through the medium of peer-to-peer combat. Also critical are the methods used to select and develop new technologies and the doctrines governing their use.Each chapter considers the state of a subject technology when it was first used in war and what navies expected of it.