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Still reading the book, I found two very interesting passages regardig the sinking of Lusitania (one of the reasons that caused America's entry to WW I):

Quote:

Originally Posted by Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea by Robert K. Massie

Danger to British trade, the Admiralty believed, would come from fast German liners converted to armed merchant cruisers. Accordingly, the Admiralty subsidized the building of Lusitania and her sisters; in return, Cunard agreed to make the vessels available to the government upon request; their obvious use would be as fast British armed merchant cruisers assigned to hunt down their German equivalents.
The Cunard ships, therefore, were designed to carry as many as twelve 6-inch guns; the necessary magazines, shell elevators, and revolving gun rings in the deck were installed during construction.
When war broke out, Mauretania and Aquitania were requisitioned but Lusitania was left in Cunard service.
On September 24, 1914, the Admiralty officially informed the ship line that Lusitania’s role would be to continue running a highspeed
service between Liverpool and New York with the Admiralty having first priority on her cargo space

Quote:

Originally Posted by Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea by Robert K. Massie

In fact, there was reason for concern, but it was one of which Lusitania’s passengers were unaware. The ship’s cargo space was—just as the Germans claimed—being used to carry American munitions to Britain.
As Lusitania prepared for her last voyage, 1,248 cases of 3-inch artillery shells—four shells to a case—and 4,927 boxes of rifle ammunition—each case containing 1,000 rounds and the total weighing 173 tons, which included ten tons of explosive powder—had been placed in the liner’s cargo.
Whether this cargo exploded when a torpedo hit the ship has been the subject of many years of passionate, highly technical, and still unresolved debate.

Over 170tons of high explosives on a passenger ship! Good example how little significance "collateral damage" has, since...

And the "juicy" part:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea by Robert K. Massie

Two British publications, the 1914 editions of Jane’s Fighting Ships and Brassey’s Naval Annual, were standard issue aboard every German U-boat, and both publications placed Lusitania in the category of “Royal Navy Reserved Merchant Cruiser”—in effect, an armed liner.
U-20 also carried a German merchant marine officer whose duty was to help identify any merchant ship targets whose nationality was in doubt. Watching the approaching steamer through the periscope, this civilian officer became increasingly certain of what he saw: “Either the Lusitania or the Mauretania, both armed cruisers used for carrying troops,” he told Schwieger. (In fact, at that moment, Mauretania was 150 miles away at Avonmouth, taking aboard 5,000 soldiers for the Dardanelles.)
Schwieger had in his sights what he considered a legitimate target.

And the rest is history.

~S~

I didn't see this link posted anywhere in this thread.... many more photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/1146825...at=directlink#

A very good book!

I bought it, when I started to play "Jutland" from Stormeagle Studios. If you are interested in WWI Naval warfare, I recommend also Campbells "Jutland - An Analysis of the Fighting".

I tend to buy books for my games, when I feel I don`t know enoguh about the period of time. F.e. I have the whole "Black Cross Red Star" series because of Il-2.

That's great, thanks for sharing. Too bad there is nothing in there to sqpecifically identify plane and pilot. I pray this treasure falls into the right hands.

Quote:

Originally Posted by palker4 (Post 413989)

Whatever I guess you are the expert. What idiot would used stressed skin construction on supersonic jet makes no sense.

I guess I am yes ;-)

Seriously, to be 100% accurate what we have on WW2 and modern fighters is a semi-monocoque construction, where the combination of stringers, bulkheads and stressed skin makes for the shape and robustness of the aircraft.
The reason is mainly because you save a lot of weight and material by doing things this way: whilst it's unthinkable to do a supersonic fuselage on a traditional Warren truss & canvas method, the use of an all metal structure needs to be thought after in a practical and weight saving manner.

There are interesting transitional hybrids, which were a good compromise between performance and structural ruggedness, such as the Hurricane and the S.79 Sparviero. They both sported a mixed solution of tubular frame covered with canvas/metal and semi-monocoque parts, like the semi-monocoque metal wing of the Hurri or the wooden box construction of the Sparviero's wing.

Some other designs weren't particularly happy, but proved to be very rugged, like the Vickers Wellington's geodetic structure.

Another fantastic example of non hortodox aeronautical engineering is the structure of the DeHavilland Mosquito, almost completely made of a wood sandwich which can be imagined as a sort of pre-historic carbon fibre.

Quote:

Originally Posted by smurf-oly (Post 414241)

I didn't see this link posted anywhere in this thread.... many more photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/1146825...at=directlink#

thanks for the extra link! A lot more pictures and interesting details coming up! Unfortunately they've already tampered enough with that poor relic, let's hope it finds a home soon before it gets vandalised for good..

Great images in that link... How about this:

Original image:
http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/1815/obraz151pk.jpg

Edit to show the possible hints of HS-B
http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/9...z151edited.jpg

And a 260 sqadron desert P-40... Wrong type though (no Allison):
http://www.aviationartstore.com/imag...40_edwards.jpg

Speculation ;) It definately is a B though... But we want the squadron letters and my HS feels more vague :)

He he, doing more web research, naturally someone did an IL2 skin for this AC:

http://asisbiz.com/il2/P-40-RAF-SAAF...0-Edwards.html

And someone restored it or painted another one ;)
http://www.airfighters.com/datas/pho...f_a29_414_.jpg

And it was scrapped in 1944 as I understand it :) More theories?

And in this thread at some forum more people speculate on HS-B (and the pilot "Stocky Edwards" is obviously still alive - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Francis_Edwards - someone got to ask him if he ditched a plane and forgot about it ;))

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?p=1882370

well at least we know it's 100% a Hawk 87A-3!

Historians will have their good work to do, needless to say it would help to know the exact location!

*prepares lorry just in case...*

I think mazex is prob right with the ID letters it really does look like HSB, theres a pic of a battery label with a date of 1941, could this be an HSB from before the referenced picture dated 1943?

it's a bit of a long shot, they should have taken pics of data plates in the cockpit really.