Military

Military

1718: The Puckle Gun or Defence Gun, a multi-shot gun mounted on a tripod, invented by James Puckle (1667–1724).

1784: Shrapnel shell, an anti-personnel artillery munition, developed by Henry Shrapnel (1761–1842).

1804: The Congreve rocket, a weapon, invented by Sir William Congreve (1772–1828).

1830s: The safety fuse invented by William Bickford (1774–1834).

1854: The Whitworth rifle, often called the “sharpshooter” because of its accuracy and considered one of the earliest examples of a sniper rifle, invented by Sir Joseph Whitworth (1803–1887).

18541857: The Armstrong Gun, a uniquely designed field and heavy gun, developed by Sir William Armstrong (1810–1900).

1866: First effective self-propelled naval torpedo invented by Robert Whitehead (1823–1905).

1875: The side by side boxlock action, commonly used in double barreled shotguns, invented by William Anson and John Deeley for the Westley Richards company of Birmingham.

1884: The Maxim gun, the first self-powered machine gun invented by Sir Hiram Maxim (1840–1916); American-born, Maxim moved from the United States to England in 1881, becoming a (naturalised) British subject. The Maxim gun was financed by Albert Vickers of Vickers Limited and produced in Hatton Garden, London. It has been called “the weapon most associated with British imperial conquest”.

1891: Cordite, first of the “smokeless powders” which came into general use towards the end of the 19th century, invented by Englishman Frederick Abel (1827–1902) and Scot James Dewar.

1901: Bullpup firearm configuration first used in the Thorneycroft carbine rifle, developed by an English gunsmith as patent No. 14,622 of July 18, 1901.

1906: The Dreadnought battleship, the predominant type of battleship in the early 20th century, credited to First Sea Lord Admiral John “Jackie” Fisher (1841–1920).

1914: First operational fighter aircraft, the Vickers F.B.5 (a.k.a. th “Gunbus”), developed from a design by Archibald Low (1888–1956).

1916: The tank developed and first used in combat by the British during World War I as a means to break the deadlock of trench warfare. Key co-inventors include Major Walter Gordon Wilson (1874–1957) and Sir William Tritton (1875–1946).

1916: The first effective depth charge, an anti-submarine warfare weapon, developed from a design by Herbert Taylor at the RN Torpedo and Mine School, HMS Vernon.

1916: The Livens Projector, a weapon, created by William Howard Livens (1889–1964).

1917: Dazzle camouflage created by Norman Wilkinson (1878–1971).

1940s: High-explosive squash head, a type of ammunition, invented by Sir Charles Dennistoun Burney (1888–1968).

1941: The Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife invented by William Ewart Fairbairn (1885–1960) and Eric A. Sykes (1883–1945).

19411942: The Bailey Bridge – a type of portable, pre-fabricated, truss bridge – invented by Donald Bailey (1901–1985). Field Marshal Montgomery emphasised the importance of the Bailey bridge in Britain winning the war.

1943: The bouncing bomb invented by Barnes Wallis (1887–1979).

1943: H2S radar (airborne radar to aid bomb targeting) invented by Alan Blumlein (1903–1942). Blumlein died in a plane crash during a secret trial of the H2S system.

1950: The steam catapult, a device used to launch aircraft from aircraft carriers, developed by Commander Colin C. Mitchell RNR.

1960s: Chobham armour, a type of vehicle armour, developed by a team headed by Gilbert Harvey of the FVRDE at the tank research centre on Chobham Common, Surrey.

1960: Harrier Jump Jet developed by Hawker Aircraft of Kingston upon Thames following an approach by the Bristol Aeroplane Company in 1957.