The Worst Episodes of War Factories

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.

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The Spitfire, Hurricane, Lancaster and Wellington bombers, aircraft that undoubtedly won the Battle of Britain, had one thing in common, they were powered by the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine.

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When people think of Skoda, they think of cheap and efficient family cars. As early as the 1930s, their factory was a cover for espionage, sabotage and the liberation of Jews from all over Europe.

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Ferdinand Porsche was one of the most influential engineers in Nazi Germany.

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For the germans, the truck became the secret weapon that changed warfare. From the mountain passes of the Ardennes, across the deserts of Libya and the vast wilderness of Russia, the humble truck enabled the German army to conduct its lightning war with speed and efficiency it required. And the key machine in Blitzkrieg was the GM Opel Blitz. This episode tells the Story of the Blitz and the American-owned war factories that would produce them, putting business before country.

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The story of the rise of the aircraft carrier and how it changed the tactics of sea warfare.

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This episode looks at the the invention of the machine gun, and how weapon that changed the art of war was adopted and adapted by war factories around the world. The Maxim Gun was developed by a British based American inventor called Hiram Maxim and was the first fully automatic machine-gun. The only problem was that it weighed a whooping 136 ibs. British company Vickers aquired Maxim's company and moved on the design.

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The remarkable story of how Stalin's massive war factories were dismantled and moved east on one and half million railway trucks, to avoid being lost to the Nazis.

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How the Americans, once they were provoked into war, out-produced the rest of the world so quickly and by such a huge margin, including the likes of General Motors.

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Fiat didn't just make cars: they made trains, they made planes, and like modern-day kingmakers, they made and broke governments too.

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The story behind the Krupp company, who were responsible for the manufacture of two of Germany's most feared war products - the Panzer Tank and the U-boat.

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Long before Henry Ford, Samuel Colt was the true father of mass production. Ironically, it was the inadequacy of Soviet factory production which made the AK47 so effective.

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The role played by engineering giant Vickers during the Second World War, including the development of the Spitfire and how the Royal Navy recovered from losing so many warships.

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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.

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While America had Ford or Chrysler or Buick, Hitler also wanted a car that would transform his nation: the 'people's car' - a Volkswagen.

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The sabotaging efforts of Peugeot in Nazi-occupied France, where the bosses and workers cooperated with the Resistance to hinder the Nazis' use of military vehicles.

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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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How the Lancaster factory, one of the biggest buildings in Europe at the time, helped to create a truly war-winning weapon.

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The untold secret story of war production that shaped the Second World War, beginning with how the German aviation industry came to dominate the skies of Europe.

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Henry Ford's plan, with the help of Albert Kahn, to build a giant factory in Michigan, covering 3.5million sq ft and including an aircraft production line half a mile in length.

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The story of America's `Liberty Ships', which were produced in incredible numbers and became known as the Model T Fords of the ocean.

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The incredible story of the arms race to create America's nuclear arms factories.

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