Although Vasa was designed and built by an experienced Dutch shipbuilder, Henrik Hybertsson, she was larger than any vessel he had previously worked on.
BTTDB
Back to the Drawing Board: Rifled muzzle-loading artillery (RML)
The mid 19th century saw a revolution in naval weapons technology – smooth-bore muzzle-loading artillery, which had changed little for over 300 years, was suddenly supplanted by far larger rifled guns firing steel armour-piercing shot and explosive shells to ranges far beyond anything achieved even 50 years earlier.
Back to the Drawing Board: the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter
It was a futuristic-looking aircraft, which Lockheed publicised as ‘a missile with a man in it’.
Back to the Drawing Board: the T-64 Tank
Although its ‘high-tech’ features, such as an auto-loader for the main armament and its ultra-compact multi-fuel engine, were superficially impressive, they proved to be complex to maintain and highly unreliable.
Back to the Drawing Board: The Supermarine Nighthawk
One of the oddest inventions was the Supermarine Nighthawk, a massive twin-engine quadruplane night fighter designed to fly patrols of anything up to 18 hours at a time, with a fully-enclosed heated cockpit and even a small sleeping berth.
Back to the Drawing Board – Aunt Jemima
The brief was simple: create an explosive device which is easy to carry and innocent in appearance. No sticks of dynamite, no ticking time-bombs.
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