1930s

These are the companion websites to 'Railway Wonders of the World' and like the site I posted about earlier are archives of a 1930s partwork series. 'Shipping Wonders of the World' (1936 - 1937) https://www.shippingwondersoftheworld.com/ 'Wonders of World Engineering' (1937 - 1938)...

A website I've stumbled across that is dedicated to archiving a mid 1930s part-work encyclopedia covering various aspects of railroading as they existed at the time. Amongst topics covered are the various attempts to create steam turbine powered locomotives and other experimental projects such...

Proposal to increase the speed of Zeppelin travel up to 150km/h+ by utilizing one or multiple towing aircraft. Alternatively, a "Zeppelin train" consisting of multiple Zeppelins and unpowered balloons being towed by the combined propulsion of both the Zeppelins and the fixed-wing aircraft. This...

Today it marks 90 years of the first flight of the Boeing Model 299 (dubbed "Mistery Ship") that represented the true forerunner of all the other Flying Fortress that came later. Here it is my tribute, let's celebrate!!

The biplane fighter reached its peak during the 1930s. Czechoslovakia built the Avia B-534, Belgium the Fairey Firefly, Italy the Fiat CR.32, The Netherlands the Fokker D. XVII, France the Spad 510, England the Hawker Fury Mk. I, United States the Grumman F2F, Germany the Heinkel He 51, Japan...

Hi all, labeling secret farm barn projects correctly may be a hard job to be done. This here is one more sample to this. Nobody yet could name it. Can you? If so, please do so. Some hard stuff is still to come. Thank you, and best regards, RT

I need some information and maybe make this a dedicated discussion on the Lockheed model 44 Excalibur etc can someone find a three view blueprint of this image thanks

hesham mentioned that he was considering creating a Bolkhovitinov designations list. So, I thought I'd make a start with my list. I'm sure there are plenty to add ... Aircraft Projects of Viktor Fyodorovich Bolkhovitinov Bolkhovitinov BDD - (Project) 1936 high-speed heavy bomber - BDD : More...

This came to mind in a thread about US ship production, and I thought it should be spun off into its own thread for proper discussion. While Armored Cruisers were overtaken by Battlecruisers leading up to WW1, I suspect that is largely because the existing (Armored) Cruisers were all still...

I'd like some input on the fictional deployment of several Polikarpov I-17 fighter aircraft to the Spanish Republican Air Force. How do you think that plane would have done against the Condor Legion and Italian monoplanes?

Hi everyone, I am currently finishing to upload my early 2025 research in the French archives to my Google Drive repertories. Yesterday, I completed the upload of archive number GR 9 N 281, which contains notices of various developments between 1933 and 1938 (mid 1938 tops); including the...

Hi everyone, As previous threads on French interwar-1940 vehicles, I am creating a new one centered on unbuilt Char B projects. This will deal with pretty obscure vehicles, which we presently have few or no illustrations of. B2, B3 and BB: It is possible to go all the way back to October 28...

Hello, I have some files from NARA to share. These are a selection of sketches and tables taken mostly during the conference itself in 1930, which were kept in a miscellaneous folder at NARA. There were also battleship and aircraft carrier sketches mixed in the "light cruiser" papers which I...

Recently found this 203mm/96 gun from 1939. Likely a long range siege or test gun. https://archivio.fondazioneansaldo.it/s/1/media/10662 Pressure curve for a 203/96 gun. Massa proietto (shell mass: 102 Kg), Massa carica (charge mass: 100 Kg (NAC idk what it means)). Velocita’ iniziale...

In the 30s, the French Air Ministry never launched official competition for High altitude planes. This is mainly due to the fact that the purpose of technical programs was to allocate funding for research, studies, prototypes in some cases, but above all to put manufacturers in competition to...

Hello everyone! Despite being a prototype fighter, the Northrop 3A was not successful, and I didn't find much material about it. I think it would be interesting to have a topic about it. The Northrop 3A was powered by an air-cooled, supercharged, 1,535.387-cubic-inch displacement (25.160...

Stefano Sappino's blog has information on these battleship studies: https://stefsap.wordpress.com/2015/10/13/regia-marinas-bb-design-p1-by-general-barberis-navy-corps-of-engineers/ In the post, he says: In his posts, he only provides information about 4 of the Group 3 designs. Does anyone...

Hi! Competitor Focke-Wulf FW.57. http://www.airwar.ru/enc/fww2/fw57.html

Hi everyone, Just like my previous threads in the same section, talking about French antitank weapon projects in development in the interwar period or up to 1940 that didn't get to enter service, based on my archive findings. I'm gonna start with the ones that caught me completetely off-guard...