November 2011 Articles (46)

During World War II, the Japanese Imperial Navy put to sea with a torpedo, the Type 93 known as the Long Lance, that was both hazardous to handle but extremely effective when put in the water. The nearly three ton torpedo sunk many an allied ship in the Pacific over the course of the war.

By late in the war, the Type 93 was proving its worth, but Japan was failing the…

Welcome to Two Fisted Tuesdays, Dieselpunks' weekly beat on the mean streets.

Starring Gerald Mohr and starting with the famous lines, "Get this and get it straight! Crime is a sucker's road and those who travel it wind up in the gutter, the prison or the grave." The Adventures of Philip Marlowe runs about 25 minutes without commercials. You can listen to this blast from the past in MP3 format for free at the link below.…

Lights out, everybody.

On Miskatonic Mondays, we celebrate the "weird" fiction of HP Lovecraft and the genre of otherworldly horror that it spawned.  This week, we're on the hunt for spooks in Cassadaga, FL.

L’Aldila restaurant (Italian for “the other side”, pronounced lal-de-la) recently opened its doors within the historic Cassadaga Hotel.  While not as blatantly Lovecraftian as  …

What's so special about this picture?

It was taken in Tokyo in July 1942. The trimotor aircraft is the Savoia-Marchetti S.75 GA RT (GA for Grande Autonomia, i.e. long range, RT for Rome-Tokyo). Its pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Moscatelli, was placed in charge of the flight operation, which in addition to providing Italy with propaganda about Italian aviation prowess was to carry new codes for communications between Japan and her Axis…

My MG

 My first automobile was a 1947 MG-TC Midget Roadster. The 1947 had skinny 19" wire wheels and my dad called it,"a coffin on four harps." It had sweeping mudguards with "top of the wing" mounted trafficators and Lucas headlamps mounted between the wings and the bonnet. It was British…

Believe me or not, this car was built in 1928:

The Martin Aircraft Company of Garden City, New York applied their talents and experience in aviation to building a road-going vehicle. Like so many other cars, it would never get beyond the prototype stage; in total, only three prototypes were ever built.

Using similar principles that would later be seen on the DeSoto…

In the Misty Skies of WWI France, History is written with flaming guns.

Yank airman Hugh McQuillen had smashed his way into those history books as “The Iron Ace.” Flying his deadly war plane adorned with the Laughing Skull, he was a grim and unrelenting instrument of war who killed Germans with such ruthless efficiency that he became known on both sides of the line as “The…

Light, man portable anti-tank weapons remain a constantly changing, evolving and eagerly sought infantry weapon development. These handheld munitions, used for not only tanks but also lightly armored vehicles as well as structures, are always being refined to squeeze the maximum punch out of a minimal envelope.

World War II saw several anti-tank weapons, but arguably…

Welcome to Two Fisted Tuesdays, Dieselpunks' weekly beat on the mean streets.

Starring Gerald Mohr and starting with the famous lines, "Get this and get it straight! Crime is a sucker's road and those who travel it wind up in the gutter, the prison or the grave." The Adventures of Philip Marlowe runs about 25 minutes without commercials. You can listen to this blast from the past in MP3 format for free at the link below.…

Lights out, everybody.

On Miskatonic Mondays, we celebrate the "weird" fiction of HP Lovecraft and the genre of otherworldly horror that it spawned. This week, we're bringing you a way to summon the Great Old Ones by way of your refrigerator door.

Do the words "Nyarlathotep" or "Shub-Niggurath" mean anything to you? Do your nightly prayers consist of "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn?" Would you rather be summoned for jury duty to…

Picture us in 1934 on the streets of St.Louis, Missouri. The most noticeable automobiles are works of art with massive pointy grills and huge engine compartments. The headlights are mounted between the radiator grille and the sweeping fenders. The most advanced design seems to be the 1934 Ford with a 60hp V8.

Suddenly we spot a bold breakthrough in design. It is our…

Au revoir, Paris, it was grand. The lights, the wine, the food, the music...but alas, all things must end. And with panzers rolling through the Ardennes there is but little time to make our retreat to sunnier climes. But first, one last toast to the France that was...

We kick back now on a streetside cafe in Nice with a cocktail and the sorrowful music of the great Edith…

On Saturday Matinee, we showcase full-length films from or about the diesel era.

Today, we giving a little sympathy for the devil with D.W. Griffith's 1926 version of The Sorrows of Satan.

What you need to know about The Sorrows of Satan

After completing a novel in his London garret, Geoffrey Tempest meets Mavis Claire, another struggling writer, and they drink to the success of his novel, in which he…

A lot of people ask me about dieselpunk fashion.

What does it look like?  Where do I find it?  How can I dress like a dieselpunk?

I normally recommend checking out old movies from the diesel era.  Hollywood stars love dressing their best, and the trick to dieselpunk is as easy (and as hard) as mashing those classic looks with today's styles.  Even if you like wearing clothes…

"There can be little doubt that the Farman organization was responsible for turning out some of the world's ugliest aircraft. "

"The tradition begun with the ghastly looking Jabiru and earlier…

The most amazing German streamline car ever:

Built just before the start of WWII, it is known as the Göttinger Ei ("an egg from Göttingen") or the Schlörwagen. Its designer, Karl Schlör, a Krauss Maffei engineer, proposed a bodyshell with extremely low drag coefficient as early as of 1936.…

Diesel City Fly Boy and what it takes for you to be a flying hero, too : the proper insignia…

American chapter of the multiplane saga is surprisingly "meaty". During the Great War, Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company designed numerous triplanes.

Here is an artist's impression of the Curtiss Triplane flying boat, published in the Flight magazine (UK) in 1916. The real thing was even more impressive. In 1915, the American businessman Rodman Wanamaker commissioned Curtiss to…

Since the Holiday Season now apparently starts sometime in August and I'm late, I might as well get this over with:

http://pilsnerspicks.blogspot.com/

Today, look at any firearms website or magazine and there are dozens of visible and invisible aiming devices for weapons. From visible flashlights to IR lasers, rifles and pistols have received lavish technological attention in the name accuracy. However, this idea of attaching a light to a weapon is far from new.

Wherever the spot of light was, the bullet would…