pre-world war ii

Grigorii Ivanovich Bakshayev was interested in the concept of variable geometry aircraft, where the size and/or shape of wings are altered according to the stage of flight, or desired characteristics. There are many methods of achieving this but one of the simplest is the telescopic wing, where...

A big Surprise, here is a drawing and all Info about Bellanca C-24-100-P and C-24-100-M,generally it was a single or two-seat fighter,observation,light bomber and attack airplane Project,developed from Model 28-90. I don't know for which competition it was purposed,and if it was estimated to...

Hello there! I've been trying to find data on French aircraft carrier designs between the Joffre and the Clemenceau (PA-54). I've found plenty of data on the PA-28, but I'm very interested in the supposed PA-25 design from Vichy France and the PA-27, PA-29, PA-31 designs from 1945 onwards...

There is already a thread on what might have been in the 1930s. I want to focus on the land forces. Britain and France in 1940 had some tanks (Somua and Matilda 2) which could match the Germans. If the French and British General Staffs had understood the importance of armoured units in a...

What if the United States Army Air Corps was limited to Ford Tri-Motor transports until the onset of World War 2? For the purposes of debate, Bill Stout is allowed to update the basic Ford airframe to 23,000 pound gross weight and up to 725 horsepower per engine, but is still limited to the...

This is a take-off from Anthony Williams "Foresight War." What if you time-travelled back to the 1930s and gained access to the ears of engineers, politicians and generals? What would you suggest? You are not allowed to "predict" World War 2. To keep this thread "alternate" please do not repeat...

Note: I know there already exists a thread about SAAB designations etc but that thread also includes other companies besides SAAB. Link to thread. While i understand why those companies were included i personally think we should have a thread dedicated to each of them separately as they designed...

Hi, looking for something else I found some references to the "Żywe torpedy" (Living Torpedoes, i.e. Human Torpedoes), an idea of Polish military to create a suicide unit in 1939 to attack the ships of the Kriegsmarine. The project is briefly mentioned in Covert Shore here, with a couple of...

Hullo all! Attached are a few images of a 1930s Goodyear-Zeppelin proposal for a large passenger airship based on the ZRS scout airship. All items are held in the collection of the University of Akron Archives, from which permission to post has been obtained. If there's any interest, I have a...

The Royal Navy's second 16" armed battleships history was a long and bumpy road of large number of designs and the inability on the Admiralty's side to actually start and continue it's work on them or choose a design to produce. First I present the 1938 designs: Design 14A-38 This is the first...

Taiho was ordered as part of Maru 4 fleet expansion program. She was a compromised design, mating an armored flight deck to a Shokaku size hull, resulting in lower freeboard an reduced hangar capacity. The first, prewar, draft of the subsequent Maru 5 plan included 3 more armored carriers of a...

Hello everyone. Today I wanted to share one of Japan's heavy tanks, the Aichi 96. Designed sometime after the Type95 heavy tank, Japan delved into producing new tanks in an attempt to fielding them across China. Multiple companies are listed to have taken part. This tank had at least unit built...

Here's one to identify, photo taken at Almaza, Cairo, in November 1933. Hesham, this is your territory, can you provide a name?

http://3dhistory.de/wordpress/warship-drawings-warship-blue-prints-warship-plans/french-submarine-drawingsplan-sets/french-submarine-surcouf-as-build-1929/ It's the sous marin de croisière type Q5 concept for the Surcouf.

If you read French and you like weird tank projects, the latest issue of GBM Magazine (number 124) has a feature on the various French projects before WWII with multiple sets of tracks. Typically these would be two front tracks and two rear tracks, moving indepedently. The more spectacular are...

I'm putting this here under the thin justification that some of the cars were to be defensively armed, there were plans to transport small warships with it, and it could fill a logistics role similar to the Reichsautobahnen. However, I really just wanted a thread somewhere to discuss this. Some...

Hi! Arsenal VG-30 variants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_VG-33 "The Arsenal VG-33 was one of a series of fast French light fighter aircraft under development at the start of World War II, but which matured too late to see extensive service in the French Air Force during the Battle of...

Hi! https://www.warbirdsforum.com/topic/366-additional-raf-might-have-beens/ "The B1.39 spec was to carry 9,000lb over 2,500miles cruising at least 280mph. Maximum bomb load was to be 10,000lb and some could be carried externally if necessary. Provision was made to stow 20 x 250lb or 500lb...

Couldn't find a thread on this so here goes: In March 1938 the Air Staff put together a paper that described an ideal bomber, and then a few months later specification B.19/38 was produced which indicated that the bomber would have a strong defensive armament of eight 20mm “shell-firing gun”...