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Department Of Miscellaneous Weapons Development
The Department of Miscellaneous Weapons Development (DMWD), also known as the Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapon Development and colloquially known as the ''Wheezers and Dodgers'', was a department of the British Admiralty responsible for the development of various unconventional weapons during World War II. History The Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapon Development was a temporary wartime body which developed in 1941 from the Inspectorate of Anti-Aircraft Weapons and Devices, set up in 1940 (an office of Admiral James Somerville) which was corrupted to "Instigator of Anti-Aircraft Wheezes and Dodges" to advance radar and other devices for anti-aircraft and other purposes. Charles Goodeve was responsible for its expansion from an Inspectorate and widening of its role. Among the staff were Lieutenant-Commander N. S. Norway, RNVR (better known by his pen name, Nevil Shute); Lt-Cdr Edward Terrell RNVR, who developed plastic armour for ships and tanks and who left in late 194 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Government Of The United Kingdom
ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd , image = HM Government logo.svg , image_size = 220px , image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg , image_size2 = 180px , caption = Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom, Royal Arms , date_established = , state = United Kingdom , address = 10 Downing Street, London , leader_title = Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Prime Minister (Rishi Sunak) , appointed = Monarchy of the United Kingdom, Monarch of the United Kingdom (Charles III) , budget = 882 billion , main_organ = Cabinet of the United Kingdom , ministries = 23 Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom#Ministerial departments, ministerial departments, 20 Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom#Non-ministerial departments, non-ministerial departments , responsible = Parliament of the United Kingdom , url = The Government of the United Kingdom (commonly referred to as British Governmen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plastic Armour
Plastic armour (also known as plastic protection) was a type of vehicle armour originally developed for merchant ships by Edward Terrell of the British Admiralty in 1940. It consisted of small, evenly sized aggregate in a matrix of bitumen, similar to asphalt concrete. It was typically applied as a casting ''in situ'' in a layer about thick on to existing ship structures made from mild steel or formed in equally thick sections on a steel plate for mounting as gun shields and the like. Plastic armour replaced the use of concrete slabs, which although expected to provide protection, were prone to cracking and breaking up when struck by armour-piercing bullets. Plastic armour was effective because the very hard particles would deflect bullets, which would then lodge between the plastic armour and the steel backing plate. Plastic armour could be applied by pouring it into a cavity formed by the steel backing plate and a temporary wooden form. Production of the armour was by road co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holman Projector
The Holman Projector was an anti-aircraft weapon used by the Royal Navy during World War II, primarily between early 1940 and late 1941. The weapon was proposed and designed by Holmans, a machine tool manufacturer based at Camborne, Cornwall. A number of models were produced during the war years, but all worked on the principle of a pneumatic mortar, using compressed air or high pressure steam to fire an explosive projectile at enemy aircraft. Intended primarily as a stop-gap defensive weapon for British merchant ships, which had been suffering heavy losses from Luftwaffe aircraft flying anti-shipping missions, the low altitude at which such strikes often took place (such as during torpedo attacks by Heinkel He 111s or skip-bombing attacks by Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor) meant that a weapon of such limited range and velocity could throw up an effective screen of fire over a vessel, even if only to create a distracting or deterrent effect, obliging the enemy to bomb from greater h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Squid (weapon)
Squid was a British World War II ship-mounted anti-submarine weapon. It consisted of a three-barrelled mortar which launched depth charges. It replaced the Hedgehog system, and was in turn replaced by the Limbo system. Development Ordered directly from the drawing board in 1942, under the auspices of the Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapons Development, this weapon was rushed into service in May 1943 on board HMS ''Ambuscade''. The first production unit was installed on HMS ''Hadleigh Castle''; it went on to be installed on 70 frigates and corvettes during the Second World War. The first successful use was by HMS ''Loch Killin'' on 31 July 1944, when she sank . The system was credited with sinking 17 submarines in 50 attacks over the course of the war. By 1959, 195 Squid installations had been produced. This weapon was a three-barrel mortar with the mortars mounted in series but off-bore from each other in order to scatter the projectiles. The barrels were mounted in a f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hedgehog (weapon)
The Hedgehog (also known as an ''Anti-Submarine Projector'') was a forward-throwing anti-submarine weapon that was used primarily during the Second World War. The device, which was developed by the Royal Navy, fired up to 24 spigot mortars ahead of a ship when attacking a U-boat. It was deployed on convoy escort warships such as destroyers and corvettes to supplement the depth charges. As the mortar projectiles employed contact fuzes rather than time or barometric (depth) fuzes, detonation occurred directly against a hard surface such as the hull of a submarine making it more deadly than depth charges, which relied on damage caused by hydrostatic shockwaves. During WWII out of 5,174 British depth charge attacks there were 85.5 kills, a ratio of 60.5 to 1. In comparison, the Hedgehog made 268 attacks for 47 kills, a ratio of 5.7 to 1. Development The "Hedgehog", so named because the empty rows of its launcher spigots resembled the spines on the back of a hedgehog, was a repla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Persil
Persil is a German brand of laundry detergent manufactured and marketed by Henkel around the world except in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Latin America (except Mexico), China, Australia and New Zealand, where it is manufactured and marketed by Unilever. Persil was introduced in 1907 by Henkel. It was the first commercially available laundry detergent that combined bleach with the detergent. The name was derived from two of its original ingredients, sodium perborate and sodium silicate. History The chore of washing the laundry began to change with the introduction of washing powders in the 1880s. These new products originally were simply pulverized soap. New cleaning product marketing successes, such as the 1890s introduction of Gold Dust Washing Powder (created by industrial chemist James Boyce for the N. K. Fairbank Company in the United States), proved that there was a ready market for better cleaning agents. Henkel & Cie, founded in Düsseldorf in 1876, pursue ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coal Dust
Coal dust is a fine powdered form of which is created by the crushing, grinding, or pulverizing of coal. Because of the brittle nature of coal, coal dust can be created during mining, transportation, or by mechanically handling coal. It is a form of fugitive dust. Grinding coal to dust before combusting it improves the speed and efficiency of burning and makes the coal easier to handle. However, coal dust is hazardous to workers if it is suspended in air outside the controlled environment of grinding and combustion equipment. It poses the acute hazard of forming an explosive mixture in air and the chronic hazard of causing pulmonary illness in people who inhale excessive quantities of it. The distribution of the particle-size of coal dust is frequently measured in mesh. The British slang term for cheap fuel consisting of coal dust (slack) containing small lumps of coal (nuts) is nutty slack. Risks The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has set the legal limit (P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kentucky Minstrels
The Kentucky Minstrels were a team formed under the leadership of Duncan Bruce to study a scheme during World War II to cover the River Thames with soot in order to conceal it from German Bombers.{{cite book, last=Pawle, first=Gerald, title=The Secret War 1939-45, year=1957, url=https://archive.org/stream/secretwar193945007234mbp/secretwar193945007234mbp_djvu.txt, page=188 Work began on the Thames in a craft inappropriately named H.M.S. Persil Persil is a German brand of laundry detergent manufactured and marketed by Henkel around the world except in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Latin America (except Mexico), China, Australia and New Zealand, where it is manufactured and mar .... References United Kingdom home front during World War II Military deception during World War II Military history of the United Kingdom during World War II 1940s in London ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Materiel
Materiel (; ) refers to supplies, equipment, and weapons in military supply-chain management, and typically supplies and equipment in a commercial supply chain context. In a military context, the term ''materiel'' refers either to the specific needs (excluding manpower) of a force to complete a specific mission, or the general sense of the needs (excluding manpower) of a functioning army. An important category of materiel is commonly referred to as ordnance, especially concerning mounted guns (artillery) and the shells it consumes. Along with fuel, and munitions in general, the steady supply of ordnance is an ongoing logistic challenge in active combat zones. Materiel management consists of continuing actions relating to planning, organizing, directing, coordinating, controlling, and evaluating the application of resources to ensure the effective and economical support of military forces. It includes provisioning, cataloging, requirements determination, acquisition, distrib ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hajile
Hajile was an experimental project developed by the British Admiralty's Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapons Development (DMWD) during the final years of Second World War for slowing the landing of air-dropped supplies with retrorockets. Development The project was initiated by a request from the Army for a method of dropping heavy equipment and vehicles from aircraft at high speed, retaining the materiel's terminal velocity for as long as possible in order to minimise drift and damage from anti-aircraft gun batteries. It was further required that the materiel suffer only minimal or no damage from landing, and once dropped be ready to deploy within minutes. The high falling speed ruled out parachutes, so the DMWD came up with the idea of loading the drops onto a platform surrounded with cordite rockets. These would fire at the last instant to decelerate the materiel to a safe landing speed. The initial test produced the project's codename; as the rockets' exhaust engulfed the appar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Panjandrum
Panjandrum, also known as The Great Panjandrum, was a massive, rocket-propelled, explosive-laden cart designed by the British military during World War II. It was one of a number of highly experimental projects, including Hajile and the Hedgehog, that were developed by the Admiralty's Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapons Development (DMWD) in the final years of the war. The Panjandrum was never used in battle. Development The DMWD had been asked to come up with a device capable of penetrating the high, thick concrete defences that made up part of the Atlantic Wall. It was further specified that the device should be capable of being launched from landing craft since it was highly likely that the beaches in front of the defences would act as a killing ground for anyone attempting to deliver the device by hand. Sub-Lieutenant Nevil Shute calculated that over of explosives would be needed in order to create a tank-sized breach in such a wall. The delivery method for such a quantit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ministry Of Supply
The Ministry of Supply (MoS) was a department of the UK government formed in 1939 to co-ordinate the supply of equipment to all three British armed forces, headed by the Minister of Supply. A separate ministry, however, was responsible for aircraft production, and the Admiralty retained responsibilities for supplying the Royal Navy.Hornby (1958) During the war years the MoS was based at Shell Mex House in The Strand, London. The Ministry of Supply also took over all army research establishments in 1939. The Ministry of Aircraft Production was abolished in 1946, and the MoS took over its responsibilities for aircraft, including the associated research establishments. In the same year, it also took on increased responsibilities for atomic weapons, including the H-bomb development programme. The Ministry of Supply was abolished in late 1959 and its responsibilities passed to the Ministry of Aviation, the War Office, and the Air Ministry. The latter two ministries were subsequently ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
