---
title: "History of military technology"
chunk: 3/6
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_military_technology"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:30:05.083851+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Following the first chlorine attack by the Germans in May 1915, the British quickly moved to recruit scientists for developing their own gas weapons.  Gas research escalated on both sides, with chlorine followed by phosgene, a variety of tear gases, and mustard gas.  A wide array of research was conducted on the physiological effects of other gases, such and hydrogen cyanide, arsenic compounds, and a host of complex organic chemicals.  The British built from scratch what became an expansive research facility at Porton Down, which remains a significant military research institution into the 21st century.  Unlike many earlier military-funded scientific ventures, the research at Porton Down did not stop when the war ended or an immediate goal was achieved.  In fact, every effort was made to create an attractive research environment for top scientists, and chemical weapons development continued apace—though in secret—through the interwar years and into World War II.  German military-backed gas warfare research did not resume until the Nazi era, following the 1936 discovery of tabun, the first nerve agent, through industrial insecticide research.
In the United States, the established tradition of engineering was explicitly competing with the rising discipline of physics for World War I military largess.  A host of inventors, led by Thomas Edison and his newly created Naval Consulting Board, cranked out thousands of inventions to solve military problems and aid the war effort, while academic scientists worked through the National Research Council (NRC) led by Robert Millikan.  Submarine detection was the most important problem that both the physicists and inventors hoped to solve, as German U-boats were decimating the crucial naval supply lines from the U.S. to England.  Edison's Board produced very few useful innovations, but NRC research resulted in a moderately successful sound-based methods for locating submarines and hidden ground-based artillery, as well as useful navigational and photographic equipment for aircraft.  Because of the success of academic science in solving specific military problems, the NRC was retained after the war's end, though it gradually decoupled from the military.
Many industrial and academic chemists and physicists came under military control during the Great War, but post-war research by the Royal Engineers Experimental Station at Porton Down and the continued operation of the National Research Council were exceptions to the overall pattern; wartime chemistry funding was a temporary redirection of a field largely driven by industry and later medicine, while physics grew closer to industry than to the military.  The discipline of modern meteorology, however, was largely built from military funding.  During World War I, the French civilian meteorological infrastructure was largely absorbed into the military.  The introduction of military aircraft during the war as well as the role of wind and weather in the success or failure of gas attacks meant meteorological advice was in high demand.  The French army (among others) created its own supplementary meteorological service as well, retraining scientists from other fields to staff it.  At war's end, the military continued to control French meteorology, sending weathermen to French colonial interests and integrating weather service with the growing air corps; most of the early-twentieth century growth in European meteorology was the direct result of military funding.   World War II would result in a similar transformation of American meteorology, initiating a transition from an apprenticeship system for training weathermen (based on intimate knowledge of local trends and geography) to the university-based, science-intensive system that has predominated since.

== World War II ==