Single weapon that had the greatest effect.

An Australian inovation.

 

My, my, taking all the credit eh? Penicillin was discovered by a Scottish scientist, Alexander Fleming. Its development for use as a medicine is attributed to Australian Nobel Laureate Howard Walter Florey, but together with German Nobel Laureate Ernst Chain and English Bio-Chemist Norman Heatly.

 

Well.....okay, them too.

 

Hah! Great response. You're a class act CAC!

 

Single weapon that had the greatest effect?

After reading all these great suggestions, I'll still have to go with America's Atomic weapon & its delivery system. Why?

1) Because estimates of the cost of invading the homeland of Japan was looking terrifying.
2) No other single system could inflict so much damage to the other side in a single use, that their capacity to wage war, or their willingness to continue, would be so reduced.
3) The other enablers mentioned made fantastic contributions (Bletchley park, radar, radio coms, but the Atomic weapon stands alone, in that even without all these other enablers, the atomic weapon and its delivery system would have been enough. It was a weapon system a generation ahead of anything else on the field.

 

Cant beleive your an Emu and left out the Australian Soldier...Defeated everyone first. Fair dinkum mate...!

 

Well, they really are just like the Me262; too few to make a difference. Now, those Kiwi flyboys however....

 

Rubbish...my dad stuffed em...with his mates...Gosport...44...not in history books, but lots of bloody Aussies in the gutter..

Royal Navy rules were used of course...rule one...there are no rules..

 

Cool... Onya Dad! That sort of stuff should be in a book somewhere...but we stuck all our small blokes in the navy...as did you.

 

Lwd gets my vote with the liberty ships..brings my welding not rivetting post into line...The shipyards were able to push many more boats from the slipway in a much quicker time.

 

"A batch of some 50 or 60 Australian prisoners were marched off close behind us, immensely big and powerful men, who without a question, represented an elite formation of the British Empire, a fact that was also evident in battle."
-Lieutenant General Erwin Rommel, Commander of the German Afrika Korps, Battle of Tobruk, 1941.

"We could not have won the battle in twelve days without the magnificent 9th Australian Division."
-General Bernard Montgomery, writing about the Allied breakthrough, the Second Battle of El Alamein, in North Africa, 1943.

"My God, I wish we had the 9th Australian Division with us this morning [D-Day]."
-Major General Freddie de Guingand, Chief of Staff, Allied Land-force Headquarters, Europe, 1944.

 

Hadn't read any of that...thanks!
No secret the Brits liked to use Australians as spear heads...smash a hole in a defence...Partly because we could, partly because they'd rather we died than their own.

 

Naw, that was the Canadians. Them Brits used everbody but their own...................

 

Not exactly.

"Rosie the Riveter" was an early moniker for the women who worked on aircraft construction. The women who worked in shipbuilding were nicknamed "Wendy the Welder." However, "Wendy the Welder" soon fell into relative disuse as "Rosie the Riveter" gained in popularity and wartime advertising. Thus "Rosie the Riveter" became a general moniker for any woman working in the wartime industry. Further, while welding did speed up construction, faulty workmanship and a poor design led to over 2,000 Liberty ships and T-2 Tankers suffering fractures of various degrees. Studies have indicated that faulty workmanship alone accounted for some 25% of these failures, while a combination of faulty workmanship and poor design accounted for another 20%.

This was all part of the "we need it now" war mentality where quality took a backseat to quality. Getting the ship in the water took priority whne no concern was given to time, money, and labor lost when the damaged ship had to be taken out of service at a later date to fix fractures when they occurred.

 

I feel better now Takao is human like the rest of us after all.

 

My Aunt Viola was a 'Rosey' in Bath Maine when the were building destroyers. At 5 foot even and 95 pounds, she would do the welding of ventilation ducts from the inside.

 

Everyone who got their hands on our troops used Australians as spearheads.
Britian did in WWI and WWII, America did in Vietnam. Only America used us as tethered goats, so honestly I'd rather stick with the British.

Now I'm all for rooting for my own beloved Australia, but I can't let you say that.
The British army suffered more casualties than any of the colonial states.
Here's some figures for reference.
Great Britian: 382,700
India: 87,000
Canada: 45,300
Australia: 39,800
New Zealand: 11,900

 

:headbonk: :headbash:

 

And to help put that in perspective:

Country: Population 1940: Percentage casualties
United Kingdom 48,220,000 (almost 0.8%)
New Zealand 1,633,600 0.72%)
Australia 7,039,490 (0.56%)
Canada 11,382,000 (almost 0,4%)
India; 280 million (rough estimated) (0,003%)

You'll not find many Ozzies or Kiwis with a chip. It was a war. Nasty stuff needed to be done. Those that served, deserve all respect. Kiwis fought hard against the FJ in Crete; Ozzies held onto to Tobruk, and met the IJA in New Guinea, Canadians suffered in Dieppe, and were needed again on D-Day. British lads braved the oceans, to keep the sea lanes open. Indians fought bravely in Burma, inspite of misgivings against the Empire. The Commonwealth stood strong. Of course there were rumblings, and misgivings.

Let's not forget those that also stood by us from the beginning; The Poles, fighting so bravely in Monte Casino, only to lose their nation; if someone gets to gripe its them (and the Finns for the stab in the back by Sweden).

Never met a Pole that bemoaned the Western allies.

How easy was it to send the Canadians into Dieppe? The Poles into Monte Casino? Who was sent to the bridge that was too far? After-the-fact Armchair Admirals have fantastic hindsight; but not all of the facts, none of the uncertainities, and never have to deal with political consequences.

 

if weapon is the subject, I would say the fighter-bomber