About Our Research

The Roof Over Britain project brings together archaeologists, military historians and computer scientists to apply geospatial technology to a hitherto unexplored subject area: anti-aircraft warfare.  The research  will use modern geospatial technologies to model, visualize, and analyse the effectiveness of anti-aircraft artillery in the context of the interaction between defensive artillery and attacking aircraft during actual combat. The scale and complexity of the modelling envisaged demands access to high performance computing resources, mathematical and spatial modelling software and substantial data storage facilities.  Our proposal builds on recent developments in the archaeological analysis of 20th century military landscapes that have adapted geospatial techniques to develop concepts, including the ‘fireshed’ to explore theoretical defensive landscapes.  The aim of our research is to better understand the strengths and limitations of the Second World War anti-aircraft defences of Great Britain, and to set this understanding within a wider strategic, cultural-historical, national and European framework.