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 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 Civil War Ironclads written by William H. Roberts and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2002-04 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contrary to widespread belief, Roberts concludes, the ironclad program set Navy shipbuilding back a generation.--Kathy Crewdson and Ian Dew "The Northern Mariner"

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 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 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 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.

Download or read book Great Power Security Cooperation written by David W. Kearn and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2014-12-18 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explains the conditions under which great powers are likely to cooperate to improve their security by engaging in qualitative arms control. In agreeing to limit or proscribe certain classes of weapons, states will constrain their military capabilities and therefore decrease the threat they pose to potential adversaries. Focusing on the expected military impact of technological change and the capacity of states to confidently monitor the activities of its negotiating partners, it may be possible to forge lasting agreements that improves the security of the participating states. However, at other times, the nature technological change may force states to engage in competitive behavior, precluding cooperation and increasing the probability of conflict. Examining a diverse set of cases, including the Washington Naval Conference, The World Disarmament Conference at Geneva, the Baruch Plan for the International Control of Atomic Energy, and the SALT I Accords (including the ABM Treaty), this volume presents a persuasive, comprehensive and interesting contribution to the literature on arms racing and arms control, and should be of interest to students of international relations theory and security studies. By presenting a theoretical-informed model that explicitly links the security strategies of states to their choices about development and deployment of new weapons and, consequently, their willingness to engage in arms control cooperation, this book provides an important refinement upon existing theoretical and historical approaches.

Download or read book Ways of War written by Matthew S. Muehlbauer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-26 with total page 559 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the first interactions between European and native peoples, to the recent peace-keeping efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, military issues have always played an important role in American history. Ways of War comprehensively explains the place of the military within the wider context of the history of the United States, showing its centrality to American culture and politics. The chapters provide a complete survey of the American military's growth and development while answering such questions as: How did the American military structure develop? How does it operate? And how have historical military events helped the country to grow and develop? Features Include: Chronological and comprehensive coverage of North American conflicts since the seventeenth century and international wars undertaken by the United States since 1783 Over 100 maps and images, chapter timelines identifying key dates and events, and text boxes throughout providing biographical information and first person accounts A companion website featuring an extensive testbank of discussion, essay and multiple choice questions for instructors as well as student study resources including an interactive timeline, chapter summaries, annotated further reading, annotated weblinks, additional book content, flashcards and an extensive glossary of key terms. Extensively illustrated and written by experienced instructors, Ways of War is essential reading for all students of American Military History.

Download or read book Warfighting and Disruptive Technologies written by Terry Pierce and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-08-05 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Occasionally, during times of peace, military forces achieve major warfighting innovations. Terry Pierce terms these developments 'disruptive innovations' and shows how senior leaders have often disguised them in order to ensure their innovations survived. He shows how more common innovations however, have been those of integrating new technologies to help perform existing missions better and not change them radically. The author calls these 'sustaining innovations'. The recent innovation history suggests two interesting questions. First, how can senior military leaders achieve a disruptive innovation when they are heavily engaged around the world and they are managing sustaining innovations? Second, what have been the external sources of disruptive (and sustaining) innovations? This book is essential reading for professionals and students interested in national security, military history and strategic issues.

Download or read book Information and Revolutions in Military Affairs written by Emily O. Goldman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-13 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Like the industrial revolution before it, the information technology revolution appears to be creating a new ruling class, a new economy and a new society. Information technology is also transforming military operations and warfare. A vast literature on the revolution in military affairs (or "RMA") cites the important (indeed, dominant) role of information technology in enabling a new military revolution. This volume challenges conventional wisdom not by claiming that information's impact on military operations is not "positive" or "transformative" but by claiming its impact is not "new". Previous periods of military revolution can also be characterized as information revolutions. Through the close examination of six case studies of military transformation during the industrial age, the contributors to this volume demonstrate how the employment of emerging information systems was critical to realizing a major boost in military effectiveness. The most successful adaptations to the new environment were made by the most skillful users of information. This volume draws upon the expertise of leading military historians, political scientists and defense practitioners to craft a set of original essays that provide the first retrospective examination of how information affects the process of military revolution. This book was previously published as a special issue of the Journal of Strategic Studies.

Download or read book Information at Sea written by Timothy S. Wolters and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2013-11-01 with total page 494 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.