Sonar, Wireless Telegraphy and the Royal Navy: Scientific Development in a Military Context, 1890–1939

Abstract

The development of sonar and wireless telegraphy (W/T) in the Royal Navy are prime examples of institutional research directed to specific short-term goals — research which the Americans call ‘mission-oriented’. Sonar, or asdics as it was known by the Royal Navy until the early 1950s, has never caught the public imagination to the extent that radar has.1 Both have a common origin in electronics, and their development was governed by an intricate web of factors: scientific, bureaucratic, tactical and political. In turn, these new technologies have had a profound impact on modern warfare. As this study will attempt to show, research in a military context is nearly always a mixture of research and development (R & D); the goal is not the elucidation of a basic principle, but an operational device. In this kind of activity, which is intensely complex, once it has been shown that the principle will work, nontechnical factors begin to predominate. If it were an industrial invention, market considerations would take over, but in our present case it will be the military planners who will define the exact need.2