Patrick Blackett Operational Research

Patrick Blackett is known as the father of operational research and most of his work was done in and around Britain during the WWII era. During the years of 1940 to 1945, Blackett participated in many projects to aid the allied members in combating the axis powers. Some of his projects included creating the air-defense grid for Britain, improving ship convoy strategies, improvements to vehicle armor plating, as well as many other works. He was responsible for beginning the work that ultimately led to the study, application, and field of operational research. His assistance aided many areas of the war in minimizing death rates and optimizing resources/materials. During the war, the advancement of technologies was crucial to the war effort on both sides, as this was coined the "wizard war". The "wizard war" was what Winston Churchill termed as the Allied and Axis powers
striving for technological superiority during world war two.
The advancement of technology was essential for keeping the Allied and Axis powers in the war and there were certain technologies that aided them during 1940 to 1946. Britain had an important role in developing the radar, which became one of the most significant pieces of technology during the war. The radar provided the Allied militaries,as well as the Axis militaries, an advantage when it was fully utilized during combat situations by allowing them to identify where enemy positions were; ground, air, and sea. This in turn created a necessity for the use of the radar because of the importance it played on the battlefield. Britain even dedicated space in many of their vehicles to hold radar equipment because of the importance it carried. The radar was among many of the advancements in technology during WWII. The atomic bomb
and advances in jet propulsion are just some other examples of the technologies that aided the military efforts. Other events that aided the military effort during the "wizard war" were the social changes the Allies made during the war. These changes were the complete mobilization of the countries' resources for the war effort. America is one example of this mobilization, as the entire country's resources, manpower and materials were focused on the war effort. Women were hired all over the country for any job they could fill, especially in warehouses and manufacturing plants where equipment was being made. The use of operational research, otherwise known as Management Science in the US, helped aid the Allied countries in optimizing their resources in overproducing materials needed for the war. Problems that arose for operational research to help aid in were ship transportation and aerial combat. Patrick Blackett's team began working on new ways to devise plans for minimizing ships lost by german U-boats. They found in their research that larger convoys had a much higher rate of survival than smaller convoys. The data they collected showed that statistically the size of the convoy did not matter when it came to detecting german u-boats. The data did show that the slowest moving convoys were at the greatest risk. The recommendations Blackett's team made was for the convoys to have larger ship numbers and faster travelling convoys. This reduced ship losses because more warships could be deployed to german u-boats as well as kept the convoy moving at the fastest speed possible.
In aerial combat, one situation that Blackett's team aided the Allied command was through the Royal Air Force. Blackett's team analyzed the airplanes armor plating, after their night raids, and noticed the areas of the hull that were damaged from gunfire. His team made a counter-intuitative recommendation in putting extra armor plating on the areas that were not hit because these served as the vital areas of the plane that were necessary to save lives.