I always thought that the British metallurgical quality that was in early british bikes was due to gun barrel developments being applied to the barrels on cyclinders - hence B.S.A's movement into making small-bore engines post-war.

That's right Henry. BSA (Birmingham Small Arms) started up around WW1 or thereabouts. I'd have to look up the exact year when they started making bikes, but I do know they go back to the 1920's at least.

Edward Turner made huge strides in engine R&D while at Triumph in the 1930s. Later, many motorcycle companies in the UK borrowed from aircraft industry alloy research in metalurgy during WW2.

By the end of WW2 the Germans had really figured a few things out...as we all know. Atom bomb tech came from Germany....the Ruskies got half their engineers and US got the other half. Lots and lots new, unheard of technologies were "appropriated" from the Germans... and the Germans have never been paid for any of it to this day. (to the winner, the spoils of war)

Everything from breakthrough chemicals and medicines (Dow and ICI benefited greatly), to film and magnetic tape tech (Agfa) where 3M and Kodak benefited, to supercharging and turbo tech which US/UK aircraft companies benefited from, to the development of Jets, which mostly the US military kept to themselves. Many of these areas had to depend on advanced Alloys, which the Germans were into in the 30's. By the 50's the US military had put some of this to use. (see reference to SR71 Blackbird above)

In most of these areas the Germans where probably 10 to 15 years ahead of the US and UK and Japan.

After WW2 much of what the US occupation of Japan was about was re-building the country. This is where the tech sharing came in.

Patrick

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Patrick passed Dec 2018. RIP Patrick!

BSA started in the 1860s by independant gunmakers wanting to standardise production .Produced their first motorbike in 1903 and their first car in about 1907 .They owned Daimler cars and also produced bicycles .They had over 60 factories during ww2 making guns ,motorcycles and other things .
They are still around and make a Yamaha engined bike , the name BSA is still seen on air rifles and gun scopes although I think it is a seperate company .

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Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light. - Spike Milligan
"When you come to a fork in the road ,take it ! When you come to a spoon in the road ,take that also ."