Weapons and Inventions – Page 3 – Old Magazine Articles

The Japanese Death Ray?
(Quick Magazine, 1949)

An odd dispatch from W.W. II appeared on the pages of a 1949 issue of QUICK MAGAZINE declaring that the weapons laboratories of Imperial Japan had been developing a ray gun throughout much of the war. When they realized that the jig was up they tossed the contraption in a nearby lake.

What worked considerably better than the Death Ray was hi-altitude hydrogen balloon-bombs that the Japanese let-loose on the Western states at the end of the war – click here to read about them…

The German M.G. 34
(U.S. Dept. of War, 1945)

Two black and white photographs of the World War II German M.G. 34 (maschinengewehr 34) as well as some fast-stats that were collected by President Roosevelt’s Department of War during the closing days of the conflict.

The German M.G. 34
(U.S. Dept. of War, 1945)

The Pershing M26 Tank
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

Although the the Pershing M26 didn’t get into the fighting in Europe until very late in the game (March, 1945), it was long enough to prove itself. This new 43-toner is the Ordnance Department’s answer to the heavier German Tiger. It mounts a 90-mm high-velocity gun, equipped with a muzzle-brake, as opposed to the 88-mm on a Tiger.

The M26 Pershing tank was the one featured in the movie, Fury (2014).

German Armor: Panzer III and IV
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

The attached two articles report on what the U.S. Army came to understand following the close examination of two German tanks: the Panzer III and Panzer IV.

The Panzer III was first produced in 1934 and the Panzer IV two years later; both tanks were used with devastating effect during the opening days of the Blitzkrieg on Poland, France and later the invasion of Russia. The developed a close and personal relationship with both during the North African campaign in 1943.

Click here to read about the German King Tiger Tank.

The P-47N
(Collier’s Magazine, 1945)

A printable one page article that expounds on the evolution of the P-47 Thunderbolt through varying stages of development into the fuel-efficient juggernaut called the P-47N. Remembered in the World War II annals as the dependable escort of the B-29 Super fortresses that bedeviled the axis capitals during the closing months of the war.

No sacrifice was made in ammunition, guns or protective armor to provide the P-47N with this long range. It still carries eight 50.-caliber guns, four in each wing. It also can carry 10 five-inch rockets which pack the destructive power of five-inch artillery or naval shells.

Buzz-Bombs Over London
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

Launched by air or from catapults posted on the Northern coast of France, the German V-1 Buzz-Bomb was first deployed against the people of London on June 12, 1944. Before the V-1 campaign was over 1,280 would fall within the area of greater London and 1,241 were successfully destroyed in flight.

Accompanied by a diagram of the contraption, this is a brief article about London life during the Buzz-Bomb Blitz. Quoted at length are the Americans stationed in that city as well as the hardy Britons who had endured similar carnage during the Luftwaffe bombing campaigns earlier in the war.

The Grumman Hellcat
(Collier’s Magazine, 1943)

An enthusiastic piece that informed the folks on the home front that the days of the Japanese Zero were numbered:

Hellcat, daughter of battle, answers all the prayers of Navy pilots. She’s a low-winged Navy fighter; F6F, the Navy’s newest and the world’s best…F6F is a ship that can fight the Jap Zero on the Zero’s own terms, a plane that can stand up and slug, that can bore in with those terrible body blows.

The Tiger Tank at the Aberdeen Proving Ground
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

The American army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground rests on 72,962 acres in Aberdeen, Maryland. Since 1917 it has been the one spot where the U.S. Army puts to the test both American and foreign ordnance and in 1944 the gang at Aberdeen got a hold of a 61 1/2 ton German battle-wagon, popularly known as the Tiger Tank (PZKW-VI). This is a nicely illustrated single page article that explains what they learned.

For further reading about the Tiger Tank, click here.

A Study of the German Tiger Tank
(The U.S. War Department, 1945)

Attached is the sweetest conte crayon illustration ever to depict a Tiger tank is accompanied by some vital statistics and assorted observations that were recorded by the U.S. Department of War and printed in one of their manuals in March of 1945:

This tank, originally the Pz. Kpfw. VI, first was encountered by the Russians in the last half of 1942, and by the Western Allies in Tunisia early in 1943…

Click here to read about the German King Tiger Tank.

Click here to read a 1944 article about the Tiger Tank.

The VT Radio Fuse
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

Its been said that World War Two was the first high-tech war, and a passing look at many of the military tools used between 1939 and 1945 will bare that out to be true. It was not only th the first war in which jet engines and atomic bombs were used, but also the first war to deploy walkie-talkie radios, rockets, and radar. This article concerns what the U.S. Department of War classified as a weapons system just as revolutionary as the atomic bomb: the VT fuse artillery shell (a.k.a. the time proximity fuse). It was used with great success in various theaters: anti-Kamikaze in the Pacific, anti-personnel in the Ardennes and anti V-1 in defense of Britain.

This is a short article that goes into greater detail outlining the successes listed above and explains how the system worked; it also is accompanied by a diagram of the shell.

Click here to learn about the timing fuses designed for W.W. I shrapnel shells.

The American 4.5 Multiple Rocket Launcher
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

To the American G.I.s serving along the Italian Front, the presence of rockets was like a page out of a Buck Rogers comic book. They had grown accustomed to seeing them mounted on the wings of quickly speeding American fighter aircraft, but to see and hear them up close and personal when fixed to the turret of a Sherman tank (pictured) seemed altogether too bizarre. This article, Rockets in Italy, will allow you to learn about the use and deployment of the U.S. Army’s ground rocket-gun and how it amazed all the men who ever came near enough to see one.

Click here to read about one of the greatest innovations by 20th Century chemists: plastic.

Fresh Meat Delivery System for Italian Troops
(Click Magazine, 1938)

This is a highly amusing collection of photos depicting the seldom remembered Para-Sheep of the Italian Army during their adventures in Ethiopia. It would seem that Italian grunts simply would not stomach canned food the way other infantrymen were able to do at the time and so it was decided that sheep would be individually rigged with parachutes and tossed out of planes, where they would be butchered and cooked by the Mussolini’s finest. The accompanying paragraph explains that even a bull had been air-dropped for the same purpose.
Take a look.

The German Portable Pillbox
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

No doubt about it: for the fashionable, young Deutchen Soldaten on the go, the preferred choice in pillboxes is the portable variety! And you’d best believe that when those slide-rule jockeys back in Berlin lent their lobes to what the trendy book-burning crowed in Italy and Russia were saying, they jumped to it and created this dandy, 6,955 pound mobile pillbox that was capable of being planted almost anywhere. Better living through modern design!