War Factories

The Spitfire, the Hurricane, the Lancaster and Wellington Bombers, the P51 Mustang – all iconic aircraft which arguably won the Battle of Britain - were all powered by the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine.

In a time of war, factories need to mass produce. Rolls-Royce, with its slow and careful production methods, could not keep up with demand despite running factories in Derby, Crewe and Glasgow, and was compelled to license the Merlin engine to the Packard Motor Company in Detroit.

The story of the rise of the aircraft carrier and how it changed the tactics of sea warfare.

Back in the 1930s, Skoda's Czech factory was one of the biggest arms producers in Europe and became the cover for espionage, sabotage and the liberation of Jews from all over Europe.

This episode tells the story of how car designer Ferdinand Porsche became one of the most influential engineers in all Nazi Germany, and by inventing the slowest war machines in the world, created the blueprint for the muscle cars that would make his name.

For the Germans, the truck became the secret weapon that changed warfare. From the mountain passes of the Ardennes, across the deserts of Libya and the vast wilderness of Russia, the humble truck enabled the German Army to conduct its lightning war with the speed and efficiency it required. And the key machine in Blitzkrieg was the GM Opel Blitz. This episode tells the story of the Blitz and the American-owned war factories that would produce them, putting business before country.

This episode looks at the invention and evolution of the machine gun, and how the weapon that changed the art of war was adopted and adapted by war factories around the world. The Maxim Gun was developed by a British-based American inventor called Hiram Maxim and was the first fully automatic machine-gun. The only problem was that it weighed a whopping 136 lbs. British company Vickers acquired Maxim's company and moved on the design.