War Factories

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War Factories

Hiram Maxim developed the world's first fully automatic machine gun, but it weighed a whopping 136 lbs - until British company Vickers adapted the design.

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Series 3
The story of the GM Opel Blitz and the American-owned war factories that would produce them, putting business before country.
The Story of how car designer Ferdinand Porsche became one of the most influential engineers in all Nazi Germany.
The story of how Skoda's Czech factory became the cover for espionage, sabotage and the liberation of Jews from all over Europe in the 1930's.
The story of the rise of the aircraft carrier and how it changed the tactics of sea warfare.
The Spitfire, the Hurricane, the Lancaster and Wellington Bombers, and the P51 Mustang were all powered by the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine.
Series 2
The First World War led to a number of astounding war factories, which laid the foundations and paved the way for modern factories of today.
Long before Henry Ford, Samuel Colt is the true father of mass production. Ironically, it was the inadequacy of Soviet factory production which made the AK47 so effective.
How the Lancaster factory, one of the biggest buildings in Europe at the time, helped to create a truly war-winning weapon.
Japan would create arguably the greatest fighter in WW2 - the Mitsubishi Zero. But their failed War Factories would ultimately reduce the Zero to a Kamikaze plane.
The incredible story of the arms race to create America's nuclear arms factories.
While America had Ford or Chrysler or Buick, Hitler also wanted a car that would transform his nation: the 'people's car'- a Volkswagen.
Find out how Fiat didn't just make cars: they made trains, they made planes, and like modern-day kingmakers, they made and broke governments too.
The story of the discovery and exploitation of the Baku Oilfields in the Russian Caucasus, which forced Stalin and Hitler to face-off in the battle of Stalingrad.
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