Hey all,

Here's a thread to discuss all questions about 1940s era stuff. I can answer most of the questions from small arms to bombers and tanks with about 10 years under my belt of devoted study on the subject as a hobby. I'm not discounting the expertise of others that have already answered questions, I just think it would be better if we got them all together in one thread. Sound good?
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i can help answer too... I have a book with all the weapons of WWII
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I am pretty knowledgable myself. ;-)
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Ok, so just some things I saw from the other thread:

Q: How fast did 1940s prop-jobs fly?
A: That depends. US, British, and German high-end fighters (as well as Japanese) topped out at about 446 mph. That's from the Vought Corsair, the fastest non-jet, non-rocket fighter with one engine. The average speed, though, was closer to 390 mph. Bombers were much slower, however, about 215-300mph for a 4-engined aircraft. The British Mosquito holds the bomber speed record at 415mph with two engines.

I'll give some average aircraft stats here as a ground-work: (fighters)
Speed: 300-446 mph
Service ceiling: 25-36,500 feet
Armament: A mix of 7.7 mm guns to 37mm cannon with a maximum of about 4 mgs and two cannon. Some fighters (P-47s) had up to 8 12.7mm mgs.

Bombers:
Speed: 250-415mph
Service ceiling: 20,000-35,600 ft
Armament: Up to 20 MGs for self defense and about 17,000 lbs of bombs (4-engines).


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Not exactly on topic, but can you also give speed measurements in km/h, cuz here, in eastern Europe, we're not familliar with miles per hour. Also, I can provide accurate answers about aircraft from that era, since I am very interested in WW2 planes.
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1 mph is 1,6 km/h and 1 foot is 30 cm.
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Thanks a lot. :)
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I know about tanks and artilery, so just ask.
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How long and wide could an MBT be back then? Please answer in meters or studs. If studs then minifig-scale.

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Any size, they even had super huge tanks that were practically useless.
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To be perfectly technical, there weren't such things as main battle tanks. There were light, medium, and heavy tanks. I'll give you an example of each.
Air-transportable-M22 Locust: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M22_Locust

Light tank-M3 Stuart: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M3_Stuart

Medium tank-M4 Sherman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_Sherman

Heavy tank-M26 Pershing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M26_Pershing

Hope that helps! Of course, those are US tanks only. Other countries had varied and interestingly shaped tanks of all those sizes. You have quite a bit of wiggle-room when it comes to building in those classes because practically anything went in those days.
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If you build a light tank the hull should be 6 studs wide with 1 stud wide treads. Medium tanks' hull should be 6 studs wide with 2 or 3 stud wide treads. Heavy tanks should have 8 stud or wider hulls with 3 stud or wider treads. Hope this helps.
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I really need to do some bricklinking, get me more treads. And tiles. And wing plates.
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I dont know how you guys do it, It would take me all day to get what I needed. To many diferent sellers to buy from, it would help if the had a universal cart like amazon.
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The key is to find one store with the maximum amount of things you need, even if it means compromising distance. I try to buy from sellers west of the Rockies to keep shipping down, but if some guy in Ohio has all that I need to get, I go all in.
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can anyone help me with the specifications of a bomber? you know, how many studs long it should be. wing span. that kinda stuff
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Bigger than a fighter, smaller than a continent. Your choice, Broski.
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I'm just going to say build it until it looks proportionate to what you want. There's no hard & fast rule. It all depends, are you talking light or heavy? Tactical or strategic?
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I have a question about landing gear. I've almost finished a fighter plane, and because of my countries snowy-ness, I want to know if I would be able to use ski landing gear instead of standard wheels. Was ski landing gear in use in 1940's and were they used for fighter planes? I want to know since it would be helpful for my planes since they could use open snow fields for runways and such.
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Ski landing gear was used in the 1940s, many Soviet and Finnish planes had it.

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Great! I couldn’t find too much by searching on Google--so it's great to be able to use them.
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So I've recently finished a creation--a micro scale Zeppelin--and I've been having a very hard time finding statistics about it. Does anyone know how high they could fly, how many bombs they could hold, etc?
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According to Wikipedia:

"By 1914, state-of-the-art Zeppelins had lengths of 150 to 160 metres (490 to 520 ft) and volumes of 22,000–25,000 m3, enabling them to carry loads of around 9,000 kilograms (20,000 lb). They were typically powered by three Maybach engines of around 400 to 550 horsepower (300 to 410 kW) each, reaching speeds of up to 80 kilometres per hour (50 mph)."
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Thanks. I actually think I found that--but I wanted a more updated set of numbers (Like near the end of WW1). I'll just increase the numbers to compensate--as well as make Zeppelins more useful, since I think it would be really cool if everyone used them.
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Um, if you wanted more updated stats for them, look up the USS Macon, one of only two US aerial carriers.

Fair warning, they are rather vulnerable to flak & fighters. However, it would be amazing to see a properly rendered one with proper defenses and armor. So if you do it right, you might be good to go.
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Thanks for the link--Its hard to find info on them. I won't be launching aircraft from them (Though that makes me want to)--just dropping bombs. I could give it better stats for armor--and it has many AA guns (It's complete, I'm just writing the text now).

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Not really a 40s question, more about economics in general. Long story short, I was playing Company of Hero's and pretty much killing the enemy team with two Panthers and a King Tiger, driving all over the place. This got me thinking- "Wait a second, this couldn't happen in real life, they'd use all the oil for miles around!"

So now I wonder, how are we going to deal with resources? In C&C it's no problem, we know where all the oil and metal is, but not on this map...
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That's a good question, actually. However, even in C&C, D&L, & 21st, it really didn't matter. Could you imagine the player controlling the Middle East cutting off the oil supply? He'd be gone within a week. However, it was sort of handled by not handling it, you know? Even people who didn't have much were not told that they couldn't do what was below their GDP regardless of what their economy was based on.

Why don't we just say that you have the ability to do what you want to do, as long as it isn't absurdly outrageous. How's that? Anyone who wants to could claim that they have the most of whatever, but that's not going to alter the production tables one bit.
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Got it. We can just say everyone's getting oil shipments from underwater robot refineries with ray shields or something. That way, the only method of cutting off supply is to destroy shipping and other transportation methods.
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I thought it was WW2 tech.
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Sounds good by me. Ye olde blockade method, the way it ought to be.


Robot vampire zombie aliens are timeless.
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I thought it was too, otherwise we wouldn't be questioning what would otherwise be a joke.
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I liked my answer better...
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