pre-world war ii

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...

Japanese Wikipedia entry on Akizuki class DD stated that IJN started in 1936 to study dedicated AA vessels following the example of Dido class. They contemplated anything from a 1000 ton torpedo boat armed with a single 10 cm or 12.7 cm AA gun to a quite large cruiser equipped with 12 double...

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?

Hi, here is an odd design for oblique canard aircraft Project,designed by M. Billioque with SFAN (as I understand),all details are in Ailes 13/4/1946,if I translate wrong,please anyone can correct it.

Hello! I'm currently searching the data about this little guy: This is BHT-38 (Bombe Hurel-Turck) radio-controlled glide bomb, designed for French military shortly before World War 2. It was supposed to have a weight about 160 kg. Some examples were tested in 1940, but Fall of the France...

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”...

One of the great what-ifs is the failure of Britain and France to stop Hitler from unilaterally re militarising the Rhineland in 1936. On paper the French were still superior to Germany in military forces and Czechoslovakia was still intact. Britain's navy was able to blockade Germany even if...

Hi, in 1938,Parnall designed a twin boom heavy bomber Project,with no supporting tailplane or structure between the booms,how we can find a drawing or a more Info about it ?.

Does anyone have any more or better information about the Saurer FLB 2000 engine from the 1940s? Some of the information indicates maybe 2 stroke, fuel injection, opposed pistons, rhombic drive? http://www.saurer-romandie.ch/La%20maison%20Saurer/les%20dates%20et%20faits%20importants.htm