Table of Contents

Introduction - "Don't you know there's a war on?"; the Royal Aircraft Establishment from 1945 to Concorde; rotary-wing aircraft; ground-based air defence and ABM systems; armoured fighting vehicles; aircraft carriers and submarines - naval R&D in Britain in the mid-Cold War; thermal radiation and its applications; open systems in a closed world - ground and airborne radar in the UK 1945-90; naval command and control equipment - the birth of the late-20th-century "revolution in military affairs"; laser research and development, 1960-80; chemical and biological warfare and defence; defence physiology; civil spin-off from the Defence Research Establishments; government management of defence research since World War II.