100 Comments

...n being and their tool, a claim that I believe goes directly to what makes humans human. (That is, it becomes an issue for ethics as well as economics.) So it is, to my mind, useful to deconstruct these comparisons to pre-empt theses about the nature of humanity that I believe cannot stand on their own merits. As Christopher writes, the ultimate reason that British destroyers did not carry true dual-purpose main armament is that the Admiralty chos...

36 Comments

...hort-run developmental potential of plasticised wood materials favoured by Russian designers and by de Havilland were not exhausted until the early jet age. That is why the RAF and DCA shifted over to metal structures in the 1920s, while de Havilland continued to explore "wood" planes until the Hornet. Aerodynamic cladding is a different matter. Again, the potential of plasticised material ("doped" cotton) was not exhausted until much later than i...

10 Comments

...rs (the historian ones, at least) seem not to have understood the point of Human Smoke. It's not a history as such, nor an argument that the Second World War was not a good/just/necessary war (though I think Baker is sympathetic to such views). After all, Baker is a novelist, not an historian (or journalist). Instead, it's an attempt to understand how an American observer of world events in the 1930s and early 1940s might arrive at a pacifist-isol...

47 Comments

...t must be said that by the Second World War rolled around, French aircraft designers had gotten their act together, coming up with splendidly clean designs like the Amiot 350 [edit: actually the Amiot 351, according to somebody who knows more than I do on the subject] (first flight 1939, I think): Not a flying fortress: it looks more like the result of the re-thinking Spaight mentions. Image sources (other than as noted): Amiot 143; Amiot 350; Far...

14 Comments

...sure who "we" are, but anyway) characterise suicide/kamikaze as something crude and incompatible with human decency. We disdane it, as a form of mindlessness and contempt for human life, and therefore a lesser action. Modern Mechanics adopts this superior tone. And yet, when one of our guys runs a gauntlet and gets through but dies in the attempt, he is a hero of unquestioned dignity, strength and valour. Worthy of a VC, Medal of Honour, etc. Some...

28 Comments

...nder the impact of what the PRIME MINISTER called a cataract of disaster. Truly, as he said, "never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." So here too the fighter pilots are just one element of the Few. The other newspapers I've looked at don't mention the Few explicitly. The Daily Express (21 August 1940, 5) barely even alludes to the Battle, saying only that 'the fight which this nation and this Empire is making h...

24 Comments

...made its appearance it was clear to all thinking people that the need for human drudgery, and therefore to a great extent for human inequality, had disappeared. If the machine were used deliberately for that end, hunger, overwork, dirt, illiteracy, and disease could be eliminated within a few generations. And in fact, without being used for any such purpose, but by a sort of automatic process—by producing wealth which it was sometimes impossible...

9 Comments

...of world war by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. I have no hesitation in saying that the process of bombing the military industries and communications of Germany, and the air bases and storage depots from which we are attacked -- which will continue on an ever-increasing scale until the end of the war, and may in another year attain dimensions hitherto undreamed of --...

25 Comments

...ian garrison and the large European expeditionary force. The units, infrastructure, recruiting and nominal training was there to send 5 infantry and 1 mobile division of the regular army to Europe upon the commencement of hostilities, and the Territorial Army of 12 (13) infantry divisions and I mobile division in increments thereafter. (Leaving lots of complications about doubling formations and Kitchener and how many battalions to the division ou...

19 Comments

...could, perhaps, have turned the Blitzkrieg's armoured thrusts into smoking ruin... --- FWIW, the original Connie had a single tail, had dire handling due to (IIRC) masking by fuselage during turns. The inspired re-design made it a Classic. And, um, few aircraft use DeLanne system because the spacing is very tricky to get right, modern wing designs are better and commercial aircraft can unfold all those slots, flaps etc, which have a similar effect...