Reviews for Terrors and Marvels: How Science and Technology Changed the Character and Outcome of World W...

The average rating for Terrors and Marvels: How Science and Technology Changed the Character and Outcome of World W... based on 2 reviews is 1 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-09-17 00:00:00 Andrew Shelton An interesting idea done poorly. It's largely a rehash of material better covered elsewhere (including ultra code breaking, radar, proximity fuzes, anti-submarine improvements, and the atomic bomb project). Worse I noticed a number of errors, omissions, or misleading material. Here are a few examples: 1) It managed to misplace the port of Antwerp into Holland 2) imply the proximity fuze was primarily intended to generate fragments for the purpose of detonating unstable explosive carried by the target 3) erroneously refer to "huff-duff" (high frequency radio direction finding) as radar 4) misleadingly juxtapose a discussion of the V3 supergun with a picture of what appears to be an ordinary ex-battleship turret captioned "Long-barreled gun capable of shelling Great Britain from France" 5) Said the reason the Nordon bombsight was "so unreliable in battle that it was useful only in daylight [...] and when the bombardier had the target in visual sight" (it was so unreliable it could only be used in the conditions it was designed for :rolleyes:) Less importantly the book also missed a chance to contrast the failure or delays in applying science or scientific testing to the various nations' torpedo problems; especially the magnetic influence detonator. Sadly a book in want of better research and editing. I wouldn't bother with it.

Review # 2 was written on 2007-07-01 00:00:00 Shawn Gravelle don't waste your time. this book is terrible.