Post cool photo's of WW2 Machines/Engineering

[BLUETHUNDER]

BruceV8 said:

BLUETHUNDER said:

Always had a soft spot for the Chaffee.Surely the best looking tank of WW11.

Possibly. The later tanks were all much better looking than the early ones. For example a Bitish Mk 1 Cruiser tank from the start of the war looks like it was invented in a shed by a mad bloke with wild hair wearing a brown coat:



whereas six years later the Comet actually looks like it was designed, rather than lashed up from old washing machine parts:



I think the Comet can also lay a fair claim to being one of the best lookng tanks of the war. And it would eat a Chaffee for breakfast!

T.B.H all allied tank design during the war was woefully inferior to what the Germans were producing.If only the Britsh could have got the Centurion out a couple of years earlier,then i think the battle of the Falaise gap would have had a different outcome.

[Bushmaster]

Although developed much earlier, this was still being used in WWII and is one of the iconic shapes associated with the war:

[Howitzer]

That's the one

Dave!

[BLUETHUNDER]

I cant believe know one has mentioned the Browning .50 HMG.Although developed before the war,it served well.And as a testement to its design is still in widespread use today.LandRover even developed there WMIK around it.

[Bushmaster]

The WW2 style German helmet:



Offered much better protection that the shallow British soup-bowl and the neck-snapping American helmet.

Kind of proved by the design issued to US troops today:

[FourWheelDrift]

Bushmaster said:

The WW2 style German helmet:

Used in WWI as well.

[Pesty]

Bushmaster said:

Although developed much earlier, this was still being used in WWII and is one of the iconic shapes associated with the war:

yep along with the 1911 and BHP

again both developed earlier edited to add, both still used today

Edited by Pesty on Thursday 1st January 15:42

[Cafe Racer]

Bushmaster said:

At the other end of the scale from the A-bombs:



Sykes-Fairbairn fighting knife, made famous by WWII Commandos.

I've got an original one of those somewhere Very nicely balanced although mine is now as blunt as a butterknife.

[Bushmaster]

FourWheelDrift said:

Bushmaster said:

The WW2 style German helmet:

Used in WWI as well.

Similar, but the design is a bit different. In British WW2 war films actually made during the war, you can sometimes see the 'Germans' are wearing WW1 helmets.

[BruceV8]

Lets not forget the Russians, who always tried to fit the biggest gun possible to their tanks. While we and the Germans were fannying around with guns between 75 - 90mm, the Russian JS-2 had a 122mm gun in 1944:

[Mr_B]

Typhoon armed with rockets.




Deployed...



Radar countermeasures. Small strips of black papaer backed with aluminium foil.Simple,cheap and very effective.

[D-Angle]

The Russian T-35 5-turreted monster:

[FourWheelDrift]

I wonder where they got that idea from

The British 5 turreted tank the Vickers A1E1 Independent of 1926.



We thought it was silly before them and decided to build rubbish lightweight tanks until those big nasty Germans hove into view and we found our tankettes could be put out of action with a spoon. Well apart from the Tank Infantry Mark I A11 which was built like a brick outhouse and moved like one as well.

Edited by FourWheelDrift on Thursday 1st January 16:15

[Beyond Rational]

Who made that german truck with the massive wheels for crossing minefields? Was it Skoda? I'm trying to find images but no idea where to start.

[BruceV8]

German Electrical Condensor Resistance aircraft bomb fuzes. Very simple and clever piece of engineering.

[funk odyssey]

as a testament to design and production, the Liberty ship has to be up there with the best

for a type of ship that was designed and built in such a short time, it's amazing how many survived for so long

this snapshot of mine shows the one in San Francisco - it's the only one in more or less wartime condition that still sails --

[BigLepton]

falcemob said:

BigLepton said:

falcemob said:

BLUETHUNDER said:

My very own piece of WW11 machinery..................

Can you count that as WW11 engineering? It was designed before WW11 by the Bantam Motor Co. and evolved into the Ford GP and Willys MB in 1941, before the US were in the war.
Yours does look nice, looks like it's a Ford GP

Edited by falcemob on Wednesday 31st December 21:51

The first meeting between Bantam and the US military took place on June 19th 1940, the tender was accepted on July 22nd and the first prototype was delivered in September of that year. Just coz the yanks were still hiding under their beds at the time hoping Hitler would go away, doesn't mean WW2 didn't start until they joined in!

That's not what I was led to believe, I thought it was 1938, but I'll trust you know more than me about it.
Seeing that one makes me wish I'd never sold mine, what are they like for getting parts now?

Edited by falcemob on Thursday 1st January 07:50

Pretty easy I'm told as they were manufactured largely unchanged for so many years.

Of course as Bantam was essentially Austin Cars USA, the Jeep is really a British invention, not an American one!

http://4wheeldrive.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.ht...

[BigLepton]

cazzer said:

ZR1cliff said:

A flail tank, used for finding and detonating mines. Alegedly first used by the British in WW2.

No allegedly about it.
I have the war diary of the 41RTR (Oldham) who, a couple of days after El Alemein were denuded of their Shermans to replace losses from the 1RTR.
They were then issued with brand new flail tanks. First regiment to have them in the field.
There are lots of interesting pages in the diary of them testing these tanks out and finding out the best way to use them, in column or three abreast or whatever.
They decided that the porciupine roller (an original attachment that trundled along behind) was useless and then it got dropped.
Also, there's lots of discussion about the weight of the chains for effectivness vs the strain on the drive engine mechanism etc.

That's a picture of the sole survivng Sherman Crab as displayed at the Borden Military Museum in Ontario. It was one of a range of odd-looking but highly effective engineering vehicles designed by Percy Hobart and known as "Hobart's Funnies". Many were used to great effect on D-Day saving many lives on the British and Canadian beaches. A few months before D-Day they were all demonstrated to the American top brass who laughed at them and walked away saying they didn't need them. Many historians hypothesise on how much less carnage would have been wrought on Omaha beach if the US generals had taken them a bit more seriously.

[Rocky Balboa]

[BigLepton]

funk odyssey said:

as a testament to design and production, the Liberty ship has to be up there with the best

for a type of ship that was designed and built in such a short time, it's amazing how many survived for so long

this snapshot of mine shows the one in San Francisco - it's the only one in more or less wartime condition that still sails --

They were pretty fragile though and had a tendancy to break in half. One of them still threatens to destroy northern Kent to this day!

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.ph...