Download or read book Technological Change and the United States Navy 1865 1945 written by William M. McBride and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2003-04-01 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner, Engineer-Historian Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Navies have always been technologically sophisticated, from the ancient world's trireme galleys and the Age of Sail's ships-of-the-line to the dreadnoughts of World War I and today's nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines. Yet each large technical innovation has met with resistance and even hostility from those officers who, adhering to a familiar warrior ethos, have grown used to a certain style of fighting. In Technological Change and the United States Navy, William M. McBride examines how the navy dealt with technological change—from the end of the Civil War through the "age of the battleship"—as technology became more complex and the nation assumed a global role. Although steam engines generally made their mark in the maritime world by 1865, for example, and proved useful to the Union riverine navy during the Civil War, a backlash within the service later developed against both steam engines and the engineers who ran them. Early in the twentieth century the large dreadnought battleship at first met similar resistance from some officers, including the famous Alfred Thayer Mahan, and their industrial and political allies. During the first half of the twentieth century the battleship exercised a dominant influence on those who developed the nation's strategies and operational plans—at the same time that advances in submarines and fixed-wing aircraft complicated the picture and undermined the battleship's superiority. In any given period, argues McBride, some technologies initially threaten the navy's image of itself. Professional jealousies and insecurities, ignorance, and hidebound traditions arguably influenced the officer corps on matters of technology as much as concerns about national security, and McBride contends that this dynamic persists today. McBride also demonstrates the interplay between technological innovation and other influences on naval adaptability—international commitments, strategic concepts, government-industrial relations, and the constant influence of domestic politics. Challenging technological determinism, he uncovers the conflicting attitudes toward technology that guided naval policy between the end of the Civil War and the dawning of the nuclear age. The evolution and persistence of the "battleship navy," he argues, offer direct insight into the dominance of the aircraft-carrier paradigm after 1945 and into the twenty-first century.
Download or read book Information at Sea written by Timothy S. Wolters and published by Johns Hopkins University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book to explore information management at sea as practiced by the U.S. Navy from the Civil War to World War II. The brain of a modern warship is its combat information center (CIC). Data about friendly and enemy forces pour into this nerve center, contributing to command decisions about firing, maneuvering, and coordinating. Timothy S. Wolters has written the first book to investigate the history of the CIC and the many other command and control systems adopted by the U.S. Navy from the Civil War to World War II. What institutional ethos spurred such innovation? Information at Sea tells the fascinating stories of the naval and civilian personnel who developed an array of technologies for managing information at sea, from signal flares and radio to encryption machines and radar. Wolters uses previously untapped archival sources to explore how one of America's most technologically oriented institutions addressed information management before the advent of the digital computer. He argues that the human-machine systems used to coordinate forces were as critical to naval successes in World War II as the ships and commanders more familiar to historians.
Download or read book Civil War Ironclads written by William H. Roberts and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2007-08-30 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Honorable Mention, Science and Technology category, John Lyman Book Awards, North American Society for Oceanic History Civil War Ironclads supplies the first comprehensive study of one of the most ambitious programs in the history of naval shipbuilding. In constructing its new fleet of ironclads, William H. Roberts explains, the U.S. Navy faced the enormous engineering challenges of a largely experimental technology. In addition, it had to manage a ship acquisition program of unprecedented size and complexity. To meet these challenges, the Navy established a "project office" that was virtually independent of the existing administrative system. The office spearheaded efforts to broaden the naval industrial base and develop a marine fleet of ironclads by granting shipbuilding contracts to inland firms. Under the intense pressure of a wartime economy, it learned to support its high-technology vessels while incorporating the lessons of combat. But neither the broadened industrial base nor the advanced management system survived the return of peace. Cost overruns, delays, and technical blunders discredited the embryonic project office, while capital starvation and never-ending design changes crippled or ruined almost every major builder of ironclads. When Navy contracts evaporated, so did the shipyards. Contrary to widespread belief, Roberts concludes, the ironclad program set Navy shipbuilding back a generation.
Download or read book The United States Air Force and the Culture of Innovation 1945 1965 written by Stephen B. Johnson and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Naval Warfare 1815 1914 written by Lawrence Sondhaus and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-10-12 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book looks at the transition of wooden sailing fleets to the modern steel navy. It details the technological breakthroughs that brought about this change - steampower, armour, artillery and torpedoes, and looks at their affect on naval strategy and tactics. Part of the ever-growing and prestigious Warfare and History series, this book is a must for enthusiasts of military history.
Download or read book From Sail to Steam written by Barbara B. Tomblin and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Structures of Change in the Mechanical Age written by Ross Thomson and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2009-05-08 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States registered phenomenal economic growth between the establishment of the new republic and the end of the Civil War. This study argues that the transition of the United States from an agrarian economy in 1790 to an industrial leader in 1865 relied fundamentally on the spread of technological knowledge within and across industries.
Download or read book Re inventing the Ship written by Don Leggett and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-08 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ships have histories that are interwoven with the human fabric of the maritime world. In the long nineteenth century these histories revolved around the re-invention of these once familiar objects in a period in which Britain became a major maritime power. This multi-disciplinary volume deploys different historical, geographical, cultural and literary perspectives to examine this transformation and to offer a series of interconnected considerations of maritime technology and culture in a period of significant and lasting change. Its ten authors reveal the processes involved through the eyes and hands of a range of actors, including naval architects, dockyard workers, commercial shipowners and Navy officers. By locating the ship's re-invention within the contexts of builders, owners and users, they illustrate the ways in which material elements, as well as scientific, artisan and seafaring ideas and practices, were bound together in the construction of ships' complex identities.
Download or read book Silent Strategists written by Manley R. Irwin and published by University Press of America. This book was released on 2013-09-03 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few historians have looked beyond the Teapot Dome scandal and examined the naval policies of President Warren Harding and his secretary of navy, Edwin Denby. Both sponsored policies that nourished the nation’s industrial infrastructure. Their legacy would yield a dividend of growth, production, employment, and ultimately, national security. In this revised edition, Professor Manley R. Irwin brings forth an innovative approach to researching these policies, papers, and archives, adding additional research from new documents which expand, enhance, and complement the first edition. The book argues that Harding and Denby exercised unusual foresight in preparing the navy for a war against Japan. Both individuals promulgated structural changes in the department and adopted a set of management tools that would redound to the navy in its prosecution of its Pacific offensive in World War II. Irwin's thorough investigation and addition of new evidence from original documents provides invaluable details and insights into the lasting legacy of the Harding administration.
Download or read book Admiral Nimitz The Commander of the Pacific Ocean Theater written by Brayton Harris and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2012-01-03 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The life of legendary fleet admiral Chester W. Nimitz and how his command shaped the course of World War II in the Pacific"--Jacket.
Download or read book From Torpedoes to Aviation written by Stephen K. Stein and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2007-05-21 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The career of Washington Irving Chambers spans a formative period in the development of the United States Navy: He entered the Naval Academy in the doldrum years of obsolete, often rotting ships, and left after he had helped like-minded officers convince Congress and the public of the need to adopt a new naval strategy built around a fleet of technologically advanced battleships. He also laid the groundwork for naval aviation and the important role it would play in the modern navy.
Download or read book The Truth Machine written by Geoffrey C. Bunn and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2012-06 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For centuries, all manner of truth-seekers have used the lie detector. In this eye-opening book, Geoffrey C Bunn unpacks the history of this device and explores the interesting and often surprising connection between technology and popular culture.
Download or read book War Strategy and the Modern State 1792 1914 written by Carl Cavanagh Hodge and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-11-25 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a comparative study of military operations conducted my modern states between the French Revolution and World War I. It examines the complex relationship between political purpose and strategy on the one hand, and the challenge of realizing strategic goals through military operations on the other. It argues further that following the experience of the Napoleonic Wars military strength was awarded a primary status in determining the comparative modernity of all the Great Powers; that military goals came progressively to distort a sober understanding of the national interest; that a genuinely political and diplomatic understanding of national strategy was lost; and that these developments collectively rendered the military and political catastrophe of 1914 not inevitable yet probable.
Download or read book Between Human and Machine written by David A. Mindell and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2003-04-30 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, we associate the relationship between feedback, control, and computing with Norbert Wiener's 1948 formulation of cybernetics. But the theoretical and practical foundations for cybernetics, control engineering, and digital computing were laid earlier, between the two world wars. In Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics, David A. Mindell shows how the modern sciences of systems emerged from disparate engineering cultures and their convergence during World War II. Mindell examines four different arenas of control systems research in the United States between the world wars: naval fire control, the Sperry Gyroscope Company, the Bell Telephone Laboratories, and Vannevar Bush's laboratory at MIT. Each of these institutional sites had unique technical problems, organizational imperatives, and working environments, and each fostered a distinct engineering culture. Each also developed technologies to represent the world in a machine. At the beginning of World War II, President Roosevelt established the National Defense Research Committee, one division of which was devoted to control systems. Mindell shows how the NDRC brought together representatives from the four pre-war engineering cultures, and how its projects synthesized conceptions of control, communications, and computing. By the time Wiener articulated his vision, these ideas were already suffusing through engineering. They would profoundly influence the digital world. As a new way to conceptualize the history of computing, this book will be of great interest to historians of science, technology, and culture, as well as computer scientists and theorists. Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics
Download or read book Execute against Japan written by Joel Ira Holwitt and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2009-04-01 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “ . . . until now how the Navy managed to instantaneously move from the overt legal restrictions of the naval arms treaties that bound submarines to the cruiser rules of the eighteenth century to a declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare against Japan immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor has never been explained. Lieutenant Holwitt has dissected this process and has created a compelling story of who did what, when, and to whom.”—The Submarine Review “Execute against Japan should be required reading for naval officers (especially in submarine wardrooms), as well as for anyone interested in history, policy, or international law.”—Adm. James P. Wisecup, President, US Naval War College (for Naval War College Review) “Although the policy of unrestricted air and submarine warfare proved critical to the Pacific war’s course, this splendid work is the first comprehensive account of its origins—illustrating that historians have by no means exhausted questions about this conflict.”—World War II Magazine “US Navy submarine officer Joel Ira Holwitt has performed an impressive feat with this book. . . . Holwitt is to be commended for not shying away from moral judgments . . . This is a superb book that fully explains how the United States came to adopt a strategy regarded by many as illegal and tantamount to ‘terror’.”—Military Review
Download or read book Not Merely for Defense written by Laurence Wood Bartlett (III.) and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1865 and 1882 the United States Navy experienced both a quantitative and qualitative decline. The navy faced dramatically reduced appropriations following the Civil War as it returned to its traditional peacetime missions and fleet dispositions. Those missions included the promotion and protection of American commerce, protecting American citizens and their property overseas, and acting in support of national policies. The navy accomplished these missions by dispersing its ships, singly and in small squadrons, to areas around the world where America had interests. Beginning in 1873 a series of war scares convinced American naval officers that the navy had fallen hopelessly behind the navies of other countries. A revolution in naval technology, which had begun in the 1860s, continued at an accelerating rate. Officers argued that navy could no longer fulfill its missions and desperately required rehabilitation. Concerned officers called on Congress to build a larger, modern navy. Their efforts bore fruit with the authorization of the ABCD ships in 1883. As the navy rebuilt, furious debates racked the officer corps. The proper role of technology lay at the heart of most of the debates. One of the most serious revolved around the use of steam power. The navy had been using steam power in an auxiliary role since the 1840s. At issue in the 1880s was whether it should remain an auxiliary power source or assume a primary role. The answer had profound strategic ramifications. An all steam navy would require coaling stations in its areas of operation. For those stations to be of use in wartime they would have to be sovereign U.S. territory. Another debate addressed the navy's core missions. By the 1890s the navy had defined a new national security mission and a new force structure centered on battleships. Despite their apparent success, proponents of naval expansion found they had limited influence. Funding never matched requests, resulting in the creation of an unbalanced fleet with an inadequate logistical infrastructure.
Download or read book Managing Defense Transformation written by Adam N. Stulberg and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-13 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why are some military organizations more adept than others at reinventing themselves? Why do some efforts succeed rapidly while others only gather momentum over time or become sidetracked or even subverted? This book explicates the conditions under which military organizations have both succeeded and failed at institutionalizing new ideas and forms of warfare. Through comparative analysis of some classic cases - US naval aviation during the interwar period; German and British armour development during the same period; and the US Army's experience with counter-insurgency during the Vietnam War - the authors offer a novel explanation for change rooted in managerial strategies for aligning service incentives and norms. With contemporary policy makers scrambling to digest the lessons of recent wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as to meet the unfolding challenges of the new revolution in military affairs (RMA), understanding the sources and impediments to transformation has become critical.
