David Porter on military history’s doomed inventions…
Sometimes poor quality-control can be as lethal as bad design – this was certainly true in the case of HMS Glatton.…
Although Vasa was designed and built by an experienced Dutch shipbuilder, Henrik Hybertsson, she was larger than any vessel he had previously…
The mid 19th century saw a revolution in naval weapons technology – smooth-bore muzzle-loading artillery, which had changed little for over 300…
The idea ‘took off’ in the aftermath of the Dunkirk evacuation, when a German invasion seemed imminent and there was a critical…
It was a futuristic-looking aircraft, which Lockheed publicised as ‘a missile with a man in it’.…
Although its ‘high-tech’ features, such as an auto-loader for the main armament and its ultra-compact multi-fuel engine, were superficially impressive, they proved…
One of the oddest inventions was the Supermarine Nighthawk, a massive twin-engine quadruplane night fighter designed to fly patrols of anything up…
In the 1950s, the Cold War was at its height. To many, it seemed to be a question of when, rather than…
When the USAAF’s Eighth Air Force arrived in Britain in mid-1942, it was confident that unescorted formations of B-17 Flying Fortresses could…