Allied technological cooperation during World War II
The most extreme example of the shortages were found in the quickly improvised Local Defence Volunteers, later renamed the Home Guard, who were forced to train with broom handles and makeshift pikes using lengths of piping and old bayonets until weapons could be supplied.
In addition to those produced in Britain, small arms and ammunition were obtained from Commonwealth countries and also purchased from U.S. manufacturers until they were supplied under Lend-Lease beginning in 1941.
It had a versatile reliable design and was easy to produce, thus huge numbers were made and provided to both Britain and the USSR by the United States under Lend-Lease.
Unfortunately, the fairly short-barreled 75mm gun most Shermans came equipped with did not offer very good armor penetration even with specialty ammunition, especially against the then-new Panther and Tiger.
The combination of British and American weaponry proved desirable, although despite the United States building a few 17-pounder Fireflies from new, it never went into mass production and did not see action.
The Soviet's opinion of the Matilda and Churchill was less favourable as a result of their weak 40-mm guns (without HE shells) and inability to operate in harsh rasputitsa, winter and offroad conditions.
Soviet industry produced few armoured personnel carriers, so Lend-Lease American vehicles were in great demand for fast movement of troops in front-line conditions.
In addition, a large part of the Red Army truck fleet was American Studebakers, which were highly regarded by Soviet drivers.
The American P-51 Mustang was originally designed to a British specification for use by the Royal Air Force and entered service with them in 1942, and later versions were built with a Rolls-Royce Merlin aero-engine.
In addition Bristol Beaufighter served as night fighters in the Mediterranean, and two squadrons of de Havilland Mosquito equipped the 8th Air Force as its primary photo reconnaissance and chaff deployment aircraft.
The United States supplied several aircraft types to both the Royal Navy and RAF - all three of the U.S. Navy's primary fighters during the war years, the Wildcat, Corsair (with the RN assisting the Americans with preparing the Corsair for U.S. naval carrier service by 1944), and Hellcat also served with the RN's Fleet Air Arm, with the Royal Air Force using a wide range of USAAF types.
[7][8][9] In 1942, the British nuclear weapons research had fallen behind US and unable to match US resources, the United Kingdom agreed to merging their work with the American efforts.
When the Atlantic convoys of war material from the US to the UK came under serious threat from U-boats, considerable encouragement and practical help was given by the US to accelerate the development of code-breaking machines.
Other technologies developed by the British and shared with the Americans and other Allies include ASDIC (sonar), the Bailey bridge, gyro gunsight, jet engine, Liberty ship, RDX, Rhino tank, Torpex, traveling-wave tube, proximity fuze.
Technologies developed by the Americans and shared with the British and Allies include the bazooka, LVT, DUKW, Fido (acoustic torpedo).
However, the demonstration of British Hydrogen bomb, and the launch of Sputnik 1 by the Soviet Union, both in 1957, resulted in the US resuming the wartime co-operation and led to a Mutual Defence Agreement between the two nations in 1958.
