This replica of the U.S. Civil War submarine HL Hunley sits outside the Charleston Museum. The HL Hunley (named after her inventor, Horace Lawson Hunley) was a Confederate State submarine, built in Mobile, Alabama in 1863 and launched in July 1863. She had a crew of 8...
This was one of the 26 sections destined to be part of Saddam Hussein’s ‘Project Babylon’ Iraqi supergun project started in the late 80s. The project was the brainchild of Dr Gerald Bull, a Canadian artillery expert who had been involved in the US-Canadian HARP project (High...
The Biber (“Beaver”) midget submarine was not Germany’s most successful weapon in WW2. Designed hastily in Feb 1944 in a bid to compensate for the horrendous losses in the U-boat fleet, and in anticipation of an imminent Allied invasion, the Biber was a cheap, one-man submarine, capable...
By the time the Carro Armato M15/42 ¹ came into service in 1943, the scenario it had been designed for – fast moving desert warfare in North Africa – was over, and by October that year Italy had switched sides in the war. Just as well really....
The ZSU-23-4 Shilka is a Soviet self-propelled anti-aircraft system. I thought the Shilka was an old piece of Cold War kit, but it turns out that, while it may be old, many countries have developed upgrade packs and are still using it. The ZSU-23-4 (Zenitnaya Samokhodnaya Ustanovka...
I’d always been aware of the Messerschmitt 410 but had ‘parked’ it in my mind as a mostly developmental aircraft with low numbers going into production for specialised roles, and that’s the way I still thought of it when I found this one a few years ago...
This week the 25th annual Festival of Speed was held at Goodwood House in West Sussex – a major motorsport event featuring the latest racers, championship drivers and incredible displays of classic cars… like these Porsches. For these 25 years, British artist and designer Gerry Judah, has...
This is an interesting standalone exhibit in one of the outbuildings on the Beaulieu estate (site of the National Motor Museum) in the New Forest. It’s a Welbike – a small, parachuteable, motorbike designed for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in WW2. As the blurb in the...
This clock in Salisbury Cathedral is thought to be the world’s oldest… that is still working! Once again it was the Dutch who were working at the cutting edge of technology (remember, their engineers were all over the UK at the start of the middle ages building...
This is one of the latest variations of Supermarine Spitfire and this particular one was built right at the end of WW2, in June 1945. Spitfire TE462 can be found on static display at The National Museum of Flight, Scotland. Truthfully, she’s my least favourite version of...
I love a good view from a hotel window or balcony, but I especially love interesting views where you can watch activity – on the street, in the harbour, on the ski slope, etc. This is a great view for a geek like me. It’s from our...
Here’s an interesting and puzzling piece of history that I stumbled across recently. It makes me think it might be time for a return visit to Malta! I came across the anecdote in Stuart R. Scott’s 1996 book: Battleaxe Blenheims – 105 squadron RAF at war 1940-1 *...
This audio detection set, now in the Swedish Army Museum in Stockholm, is billed as a Listening Device M/1928 manufactured by a British company, Barr & Stroud Ltd. Sweden bought a number of these ‘ear trumpet’ devices in the 1920s to detect and pinpoint aircraft. Barr &...
I had heard of the Japanese WW2 balloon bomb campaign, but until I was reading David Hambling’s new book, Swarm Troopers – How small drones will conquer the world *, I hadn’t been aware that there had been civilian casualties. In fact these were the only deaths...
This is a niche blog about technically-minded travel. It reflects my own interests in the mechanical, technical, historical, engineering, transport and military world.
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