french third republic

Hi everyone, I noticed that no thread seemingly existed on French artillery projects. I am thus creating this one so that we can eventually gather everything we know. I will start with some of the projects I identified in my archive research on interwar-1940 work, for now >155 mm calibers as...

Hello all, I was recently looking through Ruelle's numerical repertoire of naval gun plans and found something almost too fantastical to believe on page 11: The years on the right side appear to indicate that the project dates back to the 1920s. Have I misread things, or is this a mistake...

This is an appeal to anybody with knowledge of French ironclad design concerning a mystery model which I describe below... There is a French online antiques seller which, for some considerable time, has advertised a mysterious and intriguing model of an unknown French barbette ironclad. The...

A friend of mine shared me these few images showing Schneider et Cie Gun designs of 305, 351 and 381mm or 12", 14" and 15" calibre from likely the WW1 era.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg1z42pkj8o https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2025/0318/1502596-hemingway/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/18/john-paddy-hemingway-last-pilot-battle-of-britain-dies-105/...

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...

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...

Hi everyone, This thread will be dedicated to the discussion of French cavalry vehicles in the intended 1940-1942 period, namely: - AM 39 Gendron-Somua - Laffly heavy/powerful armored car - Bucciali heavy/powerful armored car - AMX-40 heavy/powerful armored car - late Panhard AMD 178...

Hi everyone, New topic based largely on my research in the French archives, this time on one of the more elusive prototypes of late 30's France: the ARL self-propelled gun, also sometimes called the ARL V 39. Preliminary history: The story of French self-propelled 75mm guns date back at least...

Inspired by this thread https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/the-franco-belgian-front-holds-1940-consequences-for-the-raf.44388/ In WW1 the Sea war and associated air and coastal aspects were pretty stale, at best the Germans could 'assault their jailer, but remained in jail'. What If the...

Hi everyone, I tend to be quite interested in discussing the details of a scenario where the Entente holds the front near the Franco-Belgian border in 1940 (mostly in other forums). I was now wondering what the impacts would be for the RAF. Obviously we may see fewer American aircrafts in...

Ight so I'll keep this quick, but I was scrolling on navweaps.com and founds something very interesting. Apparently, there was a french 45 CM gun designed in the 1920's. Now, perhaps that may not sound correct but what really made me curious was the article itself. It discussed plans for a...

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...

MAK-10 was made by a russian aviator designer who moved to France. This plane have many designideas influenced by typical typical russian designs of the earlyer times. But had a very unique style anyway. It doesnt have a very wide body, rather a bit thin one vs. the length. That gave some...

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/library-and-archive/archive-hidden-treasures/first-military-forecast

Hi everyone, This thread is about the French tanks designed or contemplated for the new tank program drawn up by the French Inspector of Tanks in December 1939-February 1940, Général Keller. This wartime program was intended to organize development of tanks in control of the infantry branch...

Société Dyle et Bacalan - 1924-1929 In 1924, shipbuilders Société de Travaux Dyle et Bacalan of Bordeaux established an aeronautical division to design and build aircraft of all-metal construction. This shipbuilding firm went bankrupt in 1928 and was bought by the Ateliers et Chantiers...

i did a quick search of this site for the above mentioned vehicle and found nothing so if there is a preexisting topic i am sorry for failing to discover its thread i was looking for any info and/ or pics about this vehicle or these vehicles ( i know of the DP-2 ( the one which almost...

Everybody and his brother were trying to have as good as aiforce/air-service as possible, and especially in the specified time frame, but many times the available budget was a serious brick wall between the desires and reality. What kind of aircraft should a not-rich, but a reasonably developed...