Lists of British Inventions - Military

Military

• 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.
• Fighter aircraft - The Vickers F.B.5 Gunbus of 1914 was the first of its kind.
• Congreve rocket - William Congreve
• High explosive squash head - Sir Charles Dennistoun Burney
• Shrapnel shell - Henry Shrapnel
• Harrier Jump Jet
• Bullpup firearm configuration - Thorneycroft carbine
• Puckle Gun - James Puckle
• The side by side Boxlock action, AKA The double barreled shotgun - Anson and Deeley
• Dreadnought Battleship
• Bailey Bridge - Donald Bailey
• Chobham armour
• Livens Projector - William Howard Livens
• H2S radar (airborne radar to aid the bomb targeting) - Alan Blumlein
• Bouncing bomb - Barnes Wallis
• Safety fuse - William Bickford
• Fairbairn-Sykes Fighting Knife - William Ewart Fairbairn and Eric A. Sykes
• Armstrong Gun - Sir William Armstrong
• Depth charge
• Stun grenades - Invented by the SAS in the 60s.
• Smokeless propellant to replace gunpowder with the use of Cordite - Frederick Abel
• Torpedo - Robert Whitehead
• The Whitworth rifle, considered the first sniper rifle. During the American Civil War the Whitworth rifle had been known to kill at ranges of about 800 yards - Sir Joseph Whitworth
• The world's first practical underwater active sound detection apparatus, the ASDIC Active Sonar - Developed by Canadian physicist Robert William Boyle and English physicist Albert Beaumont Wood
• The first self-powered machine gun Maxim gun - Sir Hiram Maxim, Although the Inventor is American, the Maxim gun was financed by Albert Vickers of Vickers Limited company and produced in Hatton Garden London
• Steam catapult-Commander Colin C. Mitchell RNVR