cold war

The history of the bullpup in France began long before the famous FAMAS which certainly marked its time but it was born under the constraint of the international conflicts. as assault rifle France had its misadventure during years from 1945 to 1970 with various programs and much expenditure...

Greetings friends, Some time ago there was a site called apss.org.uk which contained information about the work a gentleman named Alex W. Duncan did whilst employed at Ferranti. It contained a fascinating essay titled "Ferranti and the Buccaneer S1 Delivery system". I have this essay saved on...

The mysterious and enigmatic Direx assault rifle 1956 "In the early 1950's, there existed a firm known as Rexim S.A., with offices in Geneva. While CETME, of Spain, was developing the unfinished German Sturmgewehr 45 (M) the Rexim company began an parallel development of another assault rifle...

Hello, I really like this forum so I decided to. Alternate history as a genre or subgenre, is one of my favorite things to read. Now, unfortunately, alternate history does require a lot of time, research and more which I can’t often or in deep as much as I want due to a variety of reasons : My...

A collection of various South African propulsion projects, prototypes and ideas. Bits and pieces of these projects have been scattered around this site, I think it's time to gather them into one place for easy reference. Starting with this article on Cape Aerospace Technologies (CAT) designs...

Digging through some old files, I came across a NAVSEA briefing from 1994 comparing a variety of frigate designs (both US and foreign). The purpose appears to have been a review the "state of the possible" for frigates in this timeframe, possibly with the intention to inform USN decisionmakers...

I have just heard, via the latest Hawker Association newsletter, that Roy Braybrook passed away last June. Another of the great authors who got me, and probably many on this forum, interested in aircraft has gone to the great aviation library in the sky. He was also, of course, a designer in...

We have a whole bunch of threads, alt-history or not. But no full blown TL so far. The POD: May 1972, common sense prevails: Convair Model 200 carries the day over Rockwell NAR-356. It becomes the XFV-12 interceptor for Zumwalt Sea Control Ship. Even after that one is canned, two prototypes are...

What would happen if the usaf f-15 project was canceled by congress and the usaf was forced to use the navys f-14 like what had happened with the f-4.

i found cute looking aircrafts that were small military planes that some were built some were projects only and here they are: the first one is the fouga cm195: was a 1950s franco-spanish light bomber/attack (based off the fouga cm170 trainer) made in france designed by spanish...

Hello, good afternoon. This is my second post. Thank you for reading. Russian old magazines on the Internet are a cemetery of romantic impractical futurism. I found absolutely unique magazines - a rarity even on the Internet. This is Knowledge-Power. Journals for students of polytechnic...

Bristol Britannia BEWARE: as pictured in Chris Gibson's books 'The Air Staff and AEW' and 'Battle Flight'. I followed the drawing, with one exception: after Chris mentioned the limitations of Britannia's electrical system, I added a large APU under the left wing root. Hawker Siddeley...

Does anyone know more about the Raketoplan designs in the background of the picture, which are on display at the Moscow Museum of Cosmonautics? To which OKB do they belong?

A previous thread suggested that Orange William fed into Swingfire. I am not sure how this might be. OW was a command-guided weapon using a complex two-sight system, a computer, and IR links to the missile to control its flight through rear-mounted control surfaces. The rest of the system was...

In Norman Friedman's US Amphibious Ships and Craft: An Illustrated Design History book (2002) mentions some interesting weapon systems: The wikipedia article mentions a 155mm/70 "Combustion Light Gas Gun" but no mention of the 127mm gun. The 5"/84 Pulsed-Powered and 8"/60 conventional guns are...

Ive seen the Blowpipe in its original configuration the one mounted on land rovers (as well as the submarine one), but this..? its a bit unusual! Could be just a concept/proposal, or even a prototype? The image was taken out of the MACH 1 magazine, where an article detailed the operation of...