Post cool photo's of WW2 Machines/Engineering

[Wacky Racer]

The Fairey Swordfish or " old stringbag" as she was often referred to. Top speed around 90mph.

My dad was a young fitter/mechanic, working on these, (and Albacores) on HMS Formidable, mainly in the Pacific, between 1942-45....Got many photos up in the loft...the spirit of cameraderie with his workmates was very evident, despite being subjected to frequent Kamikaze attacks in 44/5...........

[funk odyssey]

BigLepton said:

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 --
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2258/2800949358_8b8...

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...

considering how quickly they were built they weren't bad.

plenty of Shipping magnates built their fortunes, post-war, uaing surplus Liberty ships!

[coanda]

Livid said:

jollygreen said:

coanda said:

geek-mode/

Not got any pics of an mp-44 then? Thats where the AK-47 started - as did all modern assault rifles!

/geek-mode

Actually, wasn't it called the STG then renamed the MP44?

I seem to recall reading that Mr K used a similar design to the trigger mechanism from an M1 too in his first prototype.

I thought it was the mp44 was a submachine-gun, and it was the Sturmgewehr 44 that was the first assault rifle

From what I have read, the MP44/43 and the STG44 are the same weapon, but with a different naming convention. Somthing to do with Hitler....

Are you thinking of the MP42? the 'classic' german submachine gun.

[Callan.T89]

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!

Nah... this has to be the best looking WW2 Tank:




King Tiger w/ Porsche Turret

Also have to mention the 'legendary' 88mm



Russian PPS-H Submachine Gun



German workhorse - Panzer IV (late spec) w/ Schurzen




Over 8000 made but no-where near enough to compete with the 40,000 General Shermans.

[FourWheelDrift]

BigLepton said:

That's a picture of the sole survivng Sherman Crab as displayed at the Borden Military Museum in Ontario.

There are 6 in the world including one at the famous Bovington Tank Museum in Dorset and even a working example in Jacques Littlefield's collection.

For the Bovington Collection see here, click D-Day for the Crab - http://www.tankmuseum.org/veh_plan_search

Edited by FourWheelDrift on Thursday 1st January 18:45

[timbob]

HAB said:

Type XXI Uboat. First submarine capable of operating entirely submerged, and the revolutionary design was the influence for all modern submarines.

Not quite - it still ran normal diesel engines and a schnorkel, but it could run on batteries for days at a time, and recharge in a matter of hours, compared to the running for only hours on batteries, and taking many, many hours to recharge them on the more conventional type VII and IX U boats.

It's a shame (from Germany's point of view) that they took so long to develop and build, I think only 2 of them ever went on a wartime patrol, and no enemy ships were ever sunk.

It may be a Das Boot cliche, but the Type VII boat has to be the iconic U-boat of the war, especially the early VIIA models early in the war, when the U-boats were still the hunters, rather than the hunted:







All pics shamelessly nicked from the pictures thread on subsim.com - I've been getting quite into Silent Hunter 3 recently!

[anonymous-user]

TheEnd said:

http://www.track-link.net/gallery/119

"When the designers complained to Stalin that the insistence on three turrets made the vehicle too long to have an acceptable turning radius, Stalin's answer was: "It doesn't need to turn, it will drive straight to Berlin."

That's fascinating. I'd love to have seen that.

[thinfourth2]

Callan.T89 said:

The SturmTiger - 380mm anti submarine Mortar attached to a tiger chassis

Okay what possible use would a antisubmarine tank be. Seeing as one is known for its floaty abilities and the other is pretty much not a floaty thing

[bleesh]

D-Angle said:

The Heinkel HE-162 Volksjäger, the Luftwaffe's last-ditch attempt to recover its losses with large numbers of competitive jet-powered fighter aircraft. Potentially a formidable opponent were it not for it's rushed development. Also a rather modern-looking aircraft for 1945, in my opinion.

Designed to be made from wood and other non-tactical materials, using only a single jet engine rather than the ME-262's twin motors, and fitted with an ejector seat as the pilot was to be considered more valuable than the aircraft, it was intended as a 'throwaway fighter', to be discarded and replaced rather than sat on the ground awaiting spares.

Not a lot of people will know this - perhaps Eric will though - an HE162A operated by RAE Farnborough crashed in Aldershot 0n 9th November 1945. Flt Lt Peters, the pilot, was unfortunately killed.

Also an Arado 234B-2 Blitz (the world's first operational jet bomber) crashed at Farnborough (I assume at the airfield) some time in November 1945.

And also on 18 January 1946, a Dornier 335 Pfeil (Arrow), a twin piston engined "push-pull" aircraft, had a fire whilst in flight and crashed in Cove, killing 2 people.

All captured German aircraft being evaluated by the RAE.

Steve

[rhinochopig]

MG42 - 800-1600rpm. A late friend of my fathers who faced them during WWII, described it as sounding like tearing linoleum when it fired.

[Eric Mc]

bleesh said:

D-Angle said:

The Heinkel HE-162 Volksjäger, the Luftwaffe's last-ditch attempt to recover its losses with large numbers of competitive jet-powered fighter aircraft. Potentially a formidable opponent were it not for it's rushed development. Also a rather modern-looking aircraft for 1945, in my opinion.

Designed to be made from wood and other non-tactical materials, using only a single jet engine rather than the ME-262's twin motors, and fitted with an ejector seat as the pilot was to be considered more valuable than the aircraft, it was intended as a 'throwaway fighter', to be discarded and replaced rather than sat on the ground awaiting spares.

Not a lot of people will know this - perhaps Eric will though - an HE162A operated by RAE Farnborough crashed in Aldershot 0n 9th November 1945. Flt Lt Peters, the pilot, was unfortunately killed.

Also an Arado 234B-2 Blitz (the world's first operational jet bomber) crashed at Farnborough (I assume at the airfield) some time in November 1945.

And also on 18 January 1946, a Dornier 335 Pfeil (Arrow), a twin piston engined "push-pull" aircraft, had a fire whilst in flight and crashed in Cove, killing 2 people.

All captured German aircraft being evaluated by the RAE.

Steve

I knew of teh 162 and 335 crashes but have never heard of a 234 crash at Farnborough. Also, as far as I was aware, only the pilot (Group Captain Hards)was killed in the 335 crash (caused by a rear engine fire). The plane crashed into the playground of Cove Junior School. The 60 anniversary was in 2006 and our local paper ran an article on it - including interviews with some of the then pupils who still live in the area.

[Callan.T89]

thinfourth2 said:

Callan.T89 said:

The SturmTiger - 380mm anti submarine Mortar attached to a tiger chassis

Okay what possible use would a antisubmarine tank be. Seeing as one is known for its floaty abilities and the other is pretty much not a floaty thing

They weren't used as anti-submarine weapons. They were used for bunker/building/base demolition due to the explosive power of the large rocket round. Only 18 were built though and and only used for specialist purposes.

Here is a YouTube vid of one firing at a building:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb-oXaaWqXk

[DKMsport]

coanda said:

Livid said:

jollygreen said:

coanda said:

geek-mode/

Not got any pics of an mp-44 then? Thats where the AK-47 started - as did all modern assault rifles!

/geek-mode

Actually, wasn't it called the STG then renamed the MP44?

I seem to recall reading that Mr K used a similar design to the trigger mechanism from an M1 too in his first prototype.

I thought it was the mp44 was a submachine-gun, and it was the Sturmgewehr 44 that was the first assault rifle

From what I have read, the MP44/43 and the STG44 are the same weapon, but with a different naming convention. Somthing to do with Hitler....

Are you thinking of the MP42? the 'classic' german submachine gun.

Correct: the MP-44 is indeed the same as the STG-44.

Wrong: the MP42 is not the 'classic' german submachine gun, what you are thinking of is the MP-40.

I spend far to much time playing WWII games and watching war films

[Monkey boy 1]

Not forgetting this piece of simple engineering. The Anderson Shelter

[bleesh]

Not a lot of people will know this - perhaps Eric will though - an HE162A operated by RAE Farnborough crashed in Aldershot 0n 9th November 1945. Flt Lt Peters, the pilot, was unfortunately killed.

Also an Arado 234B-2 Blitz (the world's first operational jet bomber) crashed at Farnborough (I assume at the airfield) some time in November 1945.

And also on 18 January 1946, a Dornier 335 Pfeil (Arrow), a twin piston engined "push-pull" aircraft, had a fire whilst in flight and crashed in Cove, killing 2 people.

All captured German aircraft being evaluated by the RAE.

Steve

[/quote]

I knew of teh 162 and 335 crashes but have never heard of a 234 crash at Farnborough. Also, as far as I was aware, only the pilot (Group Captain Hards)was killed in the 335 crash (caused by a rear engine fire). The plane crashed into the playground of Cove Junior School. The 60 anniversary was in 2006 and our local paper ran an article on it - including interviews with some of the then pupils who still live in the area.
[/quote]

Cheers Eric - I'm sorry to say I didn't even know about the 335 crash - or the article in the paper - was that in the News & Mail??
I'm in Aldershot and if I'd have seen this I'd definitely have picked up on it.

234 crash details came from here....an interesting site
http://daveg4otu.tripod.com/hancrash.html

I also stumbled across the Test Flying Memorial Project site here
http://www.testflyingmemorial.com/1946-70.htm, which had different pages for year ranges.

Quite amazing just how many accidents there were round our way.

Oh, and when I was talking to my mother about where I stood to watch this year's Farnborough airshow ("the hill" to the west end of the runway, with the trig point at the top) she tells me that she was stood up there with her father on the day that the DH110 with Derry flying it crashed at the 1952 airshow. In all these years that she's known I'm interested in aircraft, she'd never told me this before....

Steve

[cptsideways]

digimeistter said:

The steam catapult, a British invention still used to this day

And for a bit of a PH type connection developed at what is now Bedford Autodrome, the 4x4 course drives right round the test bed which was a mock up of a ships deck.

The ships deck is now the Caterham Slalom section
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?sourceid=navclient&a...

Edited by cptsideways on Thursday 1st January 20:00

[Fruitcake]

rhinochopig said:

MG42 - 800-1600rpm. A late friend of my fathers who faced them during WWII, described it as sounding like tearing linoleum when it fired.

Not quite.

Edited by Fruitcake on Thursday 1st January 20:04

[rhinochopig]

Fruitcake said:

rhinochopig said:

MG42 - 800-1600rpm. A late friend of my fathers who faced them during WWII, described it as sounding like tearing linoleum when it fired.

Not quite.

Edited by Fruitcake on Thursday 1st January 20:04

It was taken from Wiki - # Rate of fire: Variable, from 850 rounds/min to 1,600 round/min or more depending on installed bolt weight (different weight bolt components introduced to regulate rate of fire, lighter assemblies providing faster rates of fire). Throat erosion and component wear also introduced significant variation.

[bleesh]

Fruitcake said:

rhinochopig said:

MG42 - 800-1600rpm. A late friend of my fathers who faced them during WWII, described it as sounding like tearing linoleum when it fired.

Not quite.

Edited by Fruitcake on Thursday 1st January 20:04

Apparently so, with the lightest bolt assembly....
"Rate of fire: Variable, from 850 rounds/min to 1,600 round/min or more depending on installed bolt weight (different weight bolt components introduced to regulate rate of fire, lighter assemblies providing faster rates of fire)."

[Bushmaster]

bleesh said:

Fruitcake said:

rhinochopig said:

MG42 - 800-1600rpm. A late friend of my fathers who faced them during WWII, described it as sounding like tearing linoleum when it fired.

Not quite.

Edited by Fruitcake on Thursday 1st January 20:04

Apparently so, with the lightest bolt assembly....
"Rate of fire: Variable, from 850 rounds/min to 1,600 round/min or more depending on installed bolt weight (different weight bolt components introduced to regulate rate of fire, lighter assemblies providing faster rates of fire)."

Doesn't matter....it's a repost!