Recent content by ForceA1

Hydrofoils are very weight and weight distribution sensitive, so I seriously doubt they'd be useful either for freight or as warships, they might be viable as mail packets. Then again modern hydrofoils have retracting foils to minimise draft, and so the number of harbours useable by a...

Every coastal city having its own fortifications doesn't seem too far from the Taft-Endicott system, or planned First and Second World War expansions.

Combine the Soviets fear of the Space Shuttle being used as suprise first strike nuclear-delivery vehicle with this:

The extent of the modernisation of the Sére de Rivières Fortress system is overstated. The vast majority were not updated to modern standards in the aftermath of the Torpedo-Shell Crisis, and even then many of these improvements did not take place until the 1890s or later, and were not fully...

Unbuilt French Compound Locomotive Designs http://thierry.stora.free.fr/projets_chap.htm

The UK did sustain an air bridge for Zambia from December 1965 to October 1966, so there was some airlift capacity. In the 1960s there was a requirement for the capability to airlift an Infantry Brigade to Singapore within 7 days, which was the main driving force behind the procurement of...

@Sulemain specialises in this subject, I'd be interested to hear his views on it.

In the house I grew up in we had a combined lounge/dining room, which went across the entire length of the house, front-to-back, which we referred to as the sitting room.

My family still uses it.

I absolutely don't know more than you about Dahomey, pretty everything I know about the country comes from reading your articles (and the discussions on them in this forum).

I'm sorry but you're wrong, Viola Davis should not have a scene where she fires a machine gun whilst jumping. She should instead have a scene where she dual-wields both of Dahomey's two Maxim guns, with their tripods, filled water jackets, ammunition boxes still attached whilst jumping (don't...

The Thompson Submachine gun is many things, but it is not cheap. In fact none of the machined, wooden stock 1930s submachine guns are. Wartime submachine guns made from stamped components of welded tubes like the M3 Grease Gun, Sten or PPS-42 are vastly cheaper and probably would be within the...

Every single Iowa was under construction by the summer of 1942. You can convert ships under construction, but it's always better to build a clean sheet design.

By the time the decision to cancel the Montana class was made in 1942, the Iowa class were under construction and were about to be launched.

I wouldn't say peak in terms of speed and firepower and protection, the Treaty system artificially restrained all these, and the outbreak of the Second World War meant that the vast majority of Battleship-building countries never progressed beyond 35,000 ton Treaty Battleships. Even having...