You are right that the He 178 was the first jet to fly, and it could have been built as a fighter (although its Ohain-designed engines were...
Yes, but he can't use the sights....
The Russians generally took the view that the optimum military weapon was one which was made just well enough to do its job reliably, and to last...
? I read on another board that one had fallen victim to the rear gunner of a Ju 87 - firing a little 7.9mm MG!
The P-51 had one significant advantage over the Spitfire: its longer range, which made it better for escorting bombers. In other respects, the...
That would be weird indeed, since this was the Order of Battle: the planes available to Fighter Command: 1st July 1940 spitfires serviceable 198...
You missed the most important difference: that they use entirely different operating mechanisms, based on entirely different principles. The M60...
Well, there are various different issues here. One of them is the length of time for which the firepower is sustained; any more than short,...
The differences between weapons within each category of small arms were not significant enough to matter. The MP 44 introduced a new category...
I mostly agree with that. The real benefit of the assault rifles is that they provided each soldier who had one with a multipurpose weapon,...
I researched this some years ago when writing The Foresight War, which includes a Pearl Harbor in which the defenders are given an hour's more...
I suspect that there may be some confusion over the meaning of "diving shells". The Japanese heavy shells were (uniquely AFAIK) designed to...
The UK would probably have adopted the US .276 Pedersen semi-auto (it was extensively tested in the UK in the late 1920s, and ammo was even made...
Actually, they did. The Farquhar-Hill gas-operated rifle was developed during WW1, approved for service at the end of 1917, and the manufacture of...
Do you mean the specific locking mechanism? Quick-change barrels predated the MG 42 (the Bren and its predecessors, for instance).
It depends on what you mean by "like". As you say, they look similar but the only technical resemblance IIRC is the belt feed mechanism, which was...
An Italian friend of mine is writing a version of the The Foresight War, in which a modern Italian engineer wakes up in pre-WW2 Italy and...
The Comet's 77mm gun was not as powerful as the Panther's 75mm (which was about equal to the 17 pdr). The Comet could gain a penetration advantage...
Of course the Comet was a better tank, in absolute terms, than Matilda II. But it wasn't as good in comparison with the quality of the opposition...
I agree. The era of the Matilda II was the only time in the war in which a UK tank could knock out any enemy tank while not having to fear any of...
