Steampunk News

Dieselpunks.org | April 6, 2013

WAR!!

The kerfluffle over the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand has set Europe aflame!  Will this madness spread to the entire world?

[from peterboroughimages.co.uk]

What a mess!  To attempt to summarize this amazing cluster of alliances and enmities that are happening here, Austria declared war on Serbia, so Russia declared war on Austria, so Germany declared war on Russia, so France declared war on Germany, so Germany invaded Belgium, who just wanted to be left alone, so Great Britain declared war on Germany and managed to piss off the Ottomans who threw in their lot with Germany & Austria!  And meanwhile the ever-mercurial Italy is sitting on the sidelines, apparently holding out for the best offer.

So far, with their end-run through Belgium, Germany looks likely to repeat their lighting victory of the Franco-Prussian War from your pappy’s time.  There seems to be a running fight in the Marne valley as the Kaiser’s boys and the French troops race to outflank one another.  Folks are starting to dig in for the moment as some of these new weapons of war, like machine guns and quick-fire cannons, seem to be making quite a mess of the poor SOBs in the fields. Casualties are horrendous!

Meanwhile in the east the Russians seem to be overrunning Prussia and Hungary with waves upon waves of ill-equipped soldiers.  Both sides are saying the war should be over by Christmas, though, so with luck this stupid slaughter won’t last forever.

The stakes are high, though, as whoever winds up on top should be able to pretty much dictate terms in Europe for the next century.  This could easily degenerate into the type of mess we thought everyone had left behind after Napoleon. 

Here in America we’re thankfully mostly spared the immediate violence, though ethnic tensions between those of English or French or Russian background and those with German or Austro-Hungarian background are increasing, and the Kaiser’s U-boats are making their presence felt on the high seas.  It’s only a matter of time before some fallout happens there.  Already, eager young American men are flocking to their old world nations’ armies or running off to Canada to join the fight.

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Tags: Austria, Germany, Old Pal Cocktail, WAR

Dieselpunks.org | January 23, 2013

Allied airmen had to face every manner of threat when penetrating the skies over the Reich. From Focke Wulf fighters to deadly German “88s” the air over Europe was filled with threats a plenty. But as the Reich crumbled and the Allied moved deeper in the lands of Germany, a series of last ditch weapons were fielded, including the Hs 297 Fohn.

As low tech a weapon as there was, the Fohn was a five layered metal rack that held German 7.29cm rockets. These rockets were loaded, 35 total, as a group and fired as a group as well. Volley fire of the small, high velocity unguided rockets was designed to take out an aircraft with a wall of aggression.

The launcher was a simple affair, traversing 360 degrees towards airborne threats. The operator would stand to the left of the rack, launching a mass of rockets or single munitions. It was reloaded by pivoting the rack vertical and the replacement rockets were slid into the base of the assembly.

Reaching out to just over a kilometer, the Fohn was a close in defense of strategic fixed targets like bridges or airfields. Only about 50 were ever produced and fewer still fielded. Interestingly, the name Fohn, means ”hair dryer.” A volley of these rockets speeding upwards is more hair raising than anything.

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Tags: Europe, Focke Wulf, Germany, World War

Dieselpunks.org | January 1, 2013

I learned of the following article through a link posted on the Western PA Dieselpunks Facebook page. It’s an article posted at the web site Jalopnik.com titled, “Why A German Pilot Escorted An American Bomber To Safety During World War II” by Benjamin Preston.

As we begin 2013, let’s remember this story of universal brotherhood during this war that so defined the Diesel Era and the genre of Dieselpunk. May it serve as a beacon of hope for a peaceful new year. – Larry Amyett, Jr.

Once in a while, you hear an old war story that restores your faith in humanity. Usually it involves a moment of quiet in the midst of chaos; some singing or the sharing of a few condiments. But how many of them take place in mid air?

This is the remarkable story of a crippled American bomber spared by a German fighter pilot. After the two planes’ pilots had a mid-air moment of understanding, it didn’t seem likely that they’d ever see one another again. Only they did, and became closer than brothers.

Here’s how it all went down.

It was a few days before Christmas in 1943, and the Allied bombing campaign in Germany was going at full tilt. Second Lieutenant Charlie Brown was a freshly minted bomber pilot, and he and his crew were about to embark upon their first mission — to hit an aircraft factory in northern Germany.

Brown’s B-17F Flying Fortress, dubbed Ye Olde Pub, was typical of American heavy bombers of the time. Along with an 8,000-pound bomb capacity, the four-engine plane was armed with 11 machine guns and strategically placed armor plating. B-17s cruised at about 27,000 feet, but weren’t pressurized. At that altitude, the air is thin and cold — 60 degrees below zero. Pilots and crew relied upon an onboard oxygen system and really warm flight suits with heated shoes.

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Tags: Germany, PA, Sweden, World War

Dieselpunks.org | October 6, 2012

This Saturday, your air mail is brought to you by a flying boat called “Wal” (Whale) and designed by no other than Claudius Dornier.

The Do J was a fairly modern (compared to World War I types) flying boat with a high-mounted strut-braced monoplane wing. Two piston engines were mounted in tandem in a nacelle above the wing and in line with the hull; one engine drove a tractor propeller and the other drove a pusher propeller. The Do J made its maiden flight on 6 November 1922. The flight, as well as most of the production until 1932, took place in Italy because military aviation in Germany was prohibited after World War I under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Dornier started producing Whales in Germany in 1931, with the production lasting to 1936.

In the military version (Militärwal in German, shown above with Soviet naval markings), a crew of two to four rode in an open cockpit near the nose of the hull. There were one MG-position in the bow in front of the cockpit and one to two amidships. Beginning with Spain, military versions were delivered to Argentina, Chile, the Netherlands for use in their colonies, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and to the end of the production Italy and Germany. The main military users, Spain and the Netherlands, manufactured their own versions under licence. Several countries, notably Italy, Norway, Portugal, Uruguay, Great Britain and Germany, used the Wal for military raids.

The civil version (Kabinenwal or Verkehrswal) had a cabin in the nose, offering space for up to 12 passengers, while the open cockpit was moved further aft. Main users of this version were Germany, Italy, Brazil, Colombia.

The Do J was first powered by two 265 kW (355 hp) Rolls-Royce Eagle IX engines. Later versions used nearly every available engine on the market from makers like Hispano-Suiza, Napier & Son, Lorraine-Dietrich, BMW, and even the Liberty Engine. The 10 to-Whales used by Deutsche Luft Hansa for their mail service across the South Atlantic fom 1934 to 1938 had a range of 3,600 km (2,200 mi), and a ceiling of 3,500 m (11,480 ft).

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Tags: Germany, Luft Hansa, Plus Ultra, R4 Superwal

Dieselpunks.org | October 3, 2012

Light machine guns have for the past 40 years been primarily belt-fed. While in the first half of the last century magazines were just as common, if not more, in light machine gun designs. Every nation seemed to come up with its own indigenous light machine gun design. From Sweden we have a magazine fed light machine gun that was a cleanly design and rather attractive dealer of death.

With its fine, wide wooden stock and pistol grip, the Kg m/40 was reportedly birthed from a pair of German minds, but went into widespread production in Sweden during the World War II period. Five thousand Kg m/40s were run off of Swedish production lines, each chambered in the country’s proprietary 6.5 x 55mm round. This round was used in the Swedish version of the BAR and the Kg m/40 was fed from the same magazine, holding 20 rounds of ammunition.

Differing from other light machine guns of the time, which fed from the top or bottom, the kg m/40 was fed from the left side and could push a steady stream of rounds out at 480 rounds per minute. While fully automatic, the slow rate of fire did allow a practiced operator to quickly squeeze off single shots.

At 18 pounds, the Kg m/40 wasn’t a light weapon, but a touch lighter than the Browning Automatic Rifle of the same period. While some LMGs were overloaded with heavy forearms or oversized carrying handles, the Kg m/40 has a clean, skeletonized look.

The heavy rifle could be disassembled into three main components: the gas tube which was attached to the lower receiver and pistol assembly. The upper assembly and stock could be split off, with the barrel and gas siphon disassembled alone. Hanging from above the barrel were two forward folding long adjustable legs with anchoring spikes on the feet.

The gas system of the Kb m/40 ran longitudinally above the barrel and tapped propellant gases from near the muzzle and flash hider of the weapon. The light machine gun instead of having a single port encased in the stout front sight assembly, instead tapped gas via a pair of curved ports. These dual chambers then pushed gases against the long piston, which then actuated the tilting block, extracting and ejecting a spent case and cycling in a fresh round.

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Tags: BAR, Browning Automatic Rifle, Germany, Sweden

Dieselpunks.org | October 2, 2012

Swing, Heil!

Hamburg, Germany, 1939. Hitler is practically at his pinnacle of power and popularity, having recently annexed Czechoslovakia. And as his power grows any opposition – or perceived opposition – is being violently shut down. It’s a hard life for any teenager anywhere at any time, but for Peter (Robert Sean Leonard), Thomas (Christian Bale), and Arvid (Frank Whaley) life is even harder, seeing as they happen to be “Swingjungend” (Swing Kids, or fans of Jazz and Swing music). And in Hitler’s Germany such “Neger-kike” music is increasingly Verbotten. Peter, Thomas, and Arvid openly flaunt their long(-ish) hair and musical taste and disdain the party and their Hitlerjungend (HJ) classmates, stopping to urinate on propaganda posters after an underground swing concert and taunting the authorities with their own cries of “swing, heil!” At one point, acting on a tip from Peter’s younger brother Willi (David Tom), the trio even saves a Hasidic Jew from the HJ, thinking him at first to be another swing kid.

Peter, whose father died a broken man after crossing the Nazi authorities, wants nothing more than to live the swinging night life of a Jitterbug until this whole Nazi situation blows past. He spends a lot of time at a record store and loves to show off his dance moves to the girl he likes (a love interest story that quickly fades into total obscurity) and works part time delivering books for a friend of his father’s in what may be a front for the Resistance. Thomas, a cocky hot head with a verbally abusive father, seems interested only in the moment and often finds himself in arguments with Arvid, a talented swing guitarist with a club foot who retreats further and further into his music. After a violent spat between the two, Peter and Thomas decide to “re-steal” a radio (confiscated by the HJ from Jews) as an apology gift for Arvid, but Peter is caught and faces time in a work camp. However, his mother’s new beau, SS Sturmbahnfuhrer Knopf (Kenneth Branaugh), gets the charges dropped in return for Peter joining the HJ as a boy of his age “should.” As he enters the HJ he is surprised to see Thomas there as well. Thomas joined to be with him, rationalizing that they could be “HJ by day, Swing Kids by night.” Arvid, meanwhile, has suffered a violent attack by HJ, including one Emil Lutz (Noah Wyle); a “treasonous” former swing kid turned true believer HJ.

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Tags: Germany, HJ, Sturmbahnfuhrer Knopf Kenneth Branaugh, Swing Kids

Dieselpunks.org | July 29, 2012

 Bienvenido a Cabaret, mis amigos!  It’s another lazy day in Spain for the Cabaret, lounging by the pool, drinking zurracapote, and having impromptu music sessions.  And after a gruelling train ride exit from Nazi Germany across the broken-spirited French countryside, with many delays due to “heat-related track repairs” (news flash: tracks don’t spontaneously explode from the ground, however hot it might be) we arived in beautiful old Madrid.  It’s been about three weeks of legal limbo here awaiting passage back stateside.  About two of those weeks have been holed up in a luxurious manor in splendid arrest where we can’t be too undue of an influence over the locals anymore. 

Shown: sun, trees, traditional art, architecture, and productivity.  Not shown: stiffling oppression, crushed modern artistic freedom, residual trauma of a long, bloody civil war

Needless to say, however, some of the locals continue to come to see us.  In a nation where jazz and swing aren’t the regime’s favorites due to their “African influences” (this oppressive but neutral nation owes its existence to Hitler and Mussolini, and all three were none too polite about making it happen, as ol’ Pablo’s nice paintings can attest), the lovely native style of Flamenco lives on as something the regime can consider Pure Spanish (no one tell Franco about the obvious Moorish, Jewish, and Gypsy influences, please!).  Many of the local stars have even come to visit, including Flamenco master Manuel Vallejo, who has agreed to perform for us tonight:

And because Flamenco is as much a feast for the eyes as for the ears, here’s a lovely Flamenco dance:

As lovely as it is here, however, the crew really want to get home, particularly our new crew of “not Jewish at all baggage handlers” we picked up in Germany, who live in constant fear they’ll be deported back into Nazi hands.  Franco’s thugs seem suspicious given that most of them speak only Yiddish and Polish, but with a signed afadavit from Reichsmarshall Goering himself attesting to their legitimacy as US citizens they let it pass…for now.

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Tags: Cinnamon Peel, Germany, Lemon Presoak, Rioja Handful

Steampunk Tribune | June 2, 2012

Category: Steampunk, Steampunk Tribune | No Comments »
Tags: Germany, Grimm Brothers, New Babbage, Wheatstone Waterways

Steampunk Tribune | June 2, 2012

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Tags: Germany, New Babbage, Piermont Landing, Wheatstone Waterways

Dieselpunks.org | May 5, 2012

The Saturday Air Mail brings you the breaking news – again!
Last week, we talked about the unsuccessful Transatlantic flight attempt of Messrs. Sikorsky and Fonck. Today, quite another story – a story of success.

Very few people are familiar with the historic flight of the Bremen, but it was front page news in the spring of 1928.

On April 12-13, two Germans and an Irishman – Hermann Köhl, Günther Freiherr von Hünefeld and James C. Fitzmaurice – flew a Junkers W. 33 monoplane from Baldonnel Airdrome near Dublin, Ireland to Greenly Island, just off the coast of Labrador. At a cruising speed of 95 to 100 miles per hour, the crossing took 36 hours.

Flying west over the Atlantic was more difficult than flying east due to the prevailing wind conditions—three planes carrying seven crew members had recently disappeared while attempting to cross—and gale force winds were forecast for this trip.

The western destination was actually New York City, but the plane was forced to land on Greenly Island during a blizzard, several hours after its lighting system had failed. The plane, almost out of its special benzol fuel, suffered a bent propellor and damaged undercarriage during the landing.

The Bremen was temporarily repaired on Greenly Island by a mechanic flown in by Junkers but it was severely damaged during an attempted take-off on May 21st. Abandoned and pillaged until July, then displayed at a Quebec Exhibition sporting a set of locally made rubber tires, it finally found its way by steamer back to Germany in October – just in time for the Aviation Exhibition in Berlin:

The restored aircraft is currently on display in the “Bremenhalle” of the City Airport Bremen in Germany:

A few more pictures of the Bremen and its fearless crew:

Köhl, von Hünefeld and Fitzmaurice

Sources: Industrial Artifacts Review, Rare & Early Newspapers, Bundesarchiv

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Tags: Germany, Greenly Island, Quebec Exhibition, Saturday Air Mail

Dieselpunks.org | May 2, 2012

Since starting Weapons of War I’ve profiled a number of World War II anti-tank or anti-material rifles, usually beasts of weight, size and power. Not truly anti-tank calibers by the late war, more effective against soft-skinned vehicles or lightly, these weapons were essentially oversized shoulder fired weapons. Germany fielded one such anti-tank rifle, the Panzerbuchse 39.

Chambered in 7.92 x 94mm the hefty rifle pushed a bullet at a blistering 3,540 feet per second, the first sign of effectiveness. However, if the wrong bullet type goes downrange, it doesn’t mean the target will be destroyed or incapacitated. Initially the P.z.B. 39 fired a hardened steel core bullet with a small tear gas capsule seated in the rear of the bullet. When the round penetrated the tank the tear gas capsule was supposed to break and force out the crew. The idea was overly complicated and didn’t work so well. So after 1940, based on a Polish design, Germany introduced a tungsten cored penetrator that increased its effectiveness. At 300 yards the 7.92mm tungsten round could penetrate one inch of armor, with increasing penetration rates at closer ranges.

Weighing in at 27 lbs the P.z.B. 39 was a single shot rifle with a folding stock that cut down the length from just 60 inches to 42 inches. Being a single shot weapon, the rifle was outfitted with a pair of removal ten-round ammunition carriers to improve the speed of reloading. 

Firing the P.z.B. 39  was achieved not by rotating out a traditional bolt-action assembly, but rather titling the pistol grip. A dropping block breach layout mean the pistol and trigger assembly acted as the bolt unlock mechanism. The grip was pulled down and forward, dropping the breach block and exposing the chamber. A fresh round was inserted, grip tilted up, raising the blocking and fully seating the round before the grip locked into place.

Allied testing of captured rifles showed it was almost an easy firing weapon, due to its weight absorbing much of the felt recoil.

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Tags: Germany, World War

Dieselpunks.org | April 10, 2012

On the subject of rare variants of Georg Luger’s pistols, consider his flashlight assisted pistol. Today there are two of these known to exist. They were used by the personal bodyguards of Adolph Hitler and were called the “Night Pistols.” Besides illuminating the darkness, they were loaded with tracer rounds which made them an awesome and terrifying night weapon.

This custom made Luger is accompanied by a unique & very unusual, precisely machined, anodized brass flashlight made to slip over the end of the barrel with about 3/4″ ears that fit over each side of receiver & rest on receiver rails.

This flashlight has its lens directly below and aligned with the axis of the bore with battery pack in a rectangular base at rear with a clip attachment for a wire to plug into a brass socket that is connected to a brass plate at top front of right grip. There is another brass plate riveted in place at bottom of right grip, all of which are connected with brass plates fitted into milled recesses inside grip so that when a person grips the pistol the skin conductivity makes a connection & illuminates the flashlight.

It is believed that the flashlight & battery pack were carried separate from the pistol, probably in its own leather pouch.

In Peter Hoffman’s book “Hitler’s Personal Security,” he mentions the existence of these 30 cal night pistols with tracer ammunition & flashlight used by an RSD officer in constant patrol around the Fuehrer’s bunker. How rare? Two of these flashlight pistols are known to exist. One is in the hands of a private collector and the other is on display in a military museum in Munich, Germany.

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Tags: Adolph Hitler, Germany, Peter Hoffman, RSD