NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Brad Morris
Date: 2018 Oct 17, 22:49 -0400
David,
You wrote:
"Such is the spirit of competition in the armed forces, that there might be, not quite secrecy but, certainly a reticence to communicate promising techniques between, ships, regiments, commands, wings, squadrons, and even individual crews. Was this secrecy, or was it just everyone thought the method they’d got used to best, and did this attitude stifle true innovation?"
Do you [or does anyone] think that this spirit of competition outweighed the possibility of becoming "famous" (albeit in a very limited way) by having one's name attached to a particular innovation? I ask this with devices such as the Rude star finder and Weems watch in mind. Also, did sailors, soldiers, marines or airmen such as them stand the chance to profit from their inventions? I heard that Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of probably the most proloific rifle in history, died a pauper. Are innovations made by servicemen generally considered property of the various governments under which they serve?
