Interesting reading about priorities of bombing efforts changing from oil refineries one day, shipping the next, V-2 fuel depots the next, and all of them taking second spot to the invasion of Normandy.
Just not enough planes and bombs to do it all.

I'm with your mother...I don't like to re-new old pictures of those death camps either. There's a special museum, operated by the Jews, here in Houston, that is filled with all that history. People are constantly going there to keep all that stuff alive in their heads. I suppose they have their reasons.

No tour. They did offer headsets that worked when you entered a specific area.
Also the whole museum is in 4 languages; English, Dutch, German, and French. And with lots of high quality and very large pictures along with actual gear from the war. Although the death camp pictures were a bit too much for my mum (especially the corpses).

>>32812 I forgot to mention that the entrance of the museum was one of the railroad entrances.

I don't have any more pix but they had beautiful before and after pictures of aerial recon done by the British, to locate the dome and then bomb it. None of the bombs, even the one you mentioned, hit the dome but it did caved-in the mines. This you could see clearly inside. The limestone mines are very weak.

Another interesting read, and there was a plague of it too in the museum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_of_Mimoyecques
Also related to Iraq..https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Babylon

another interesting pic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Crossbow#/media/File:Spitfire_Tipping_V-1_Flying_Bomb.jpg

>>32812 If that was a long tour, I would have needed a coat. It's usually around 35C in Houston.

>>32810>>32811 Interesting. The railroads were of top priority in bombing runs but in the early days of the war the Allies didn't control the skies either. Had Hitler stocked these things at that time, it would have been curtains for England.

Wikipedia mentioned the huge bomb invented just to bomb these shelters. It has pictures. Big damn bomb.

The entrance of the mines that eventually leads to the dome. Freaky cold and wet, outside 24 dg Celsius, inside not even 10.

How the V2's would have been launched.

cross section of a plaque of La Coupole

Got to reading the Wikipedia article La Coupole. Very interesting. Also interesting was the fact early development began away back in 1936. Had it not been for Hitler's non-interests in rocketry, that site or other rocket sites could have wiped out England and hopes for any invasion of Normandy. He only became interested too late in the war and by that time Allied bombing pretty much stopped everything.

I learn something new every time I visit this site. Sometimes it's just a good look at a pair or knockers but what the hell...I'm still learning!

>>32802 I suppose it hasn't that many changes other than being able to fly in a vacuum. Luckily, the development of their jet engine and rocket came close to the wars' end.

>>32803 We had a gun bunker to guard the coast of Galveston that I went thru when I was small. The guns soon came out and everything was leveled. It was good history that a lot of folk missed out on. You get to see things I don't, Grim. It would cost me a fortune, which I don't have, to take a real good tour of countries over there. Pictures are good but walking thru, touching and smelling those old places brings it all home to real history.

The bunker is called: La Coupole (the Dome) and is located near St. Omer in France. Pretty awesome and gruesome at the same time. Damp and chilly tunnels were thay stored the rockets and a very impressive dome. Very informative museum with lots of pictures about the first and second world wars, from artillery to medicine to the camps, all bits are covered. Although informative I didn't find it as impressive as Blockhaus d'Éperlecques or the Atlantic Wall or the coast of Normandy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Coupole
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockhaus_d%27%C3%89perlecques
http://www.losapos.com/francebunkers

>>32801 I went to a WWII bunker in France (forgot the name) and it housed the V1 & V2 rockets. Was also designed to launch them, but the pesky allied forces put a stop to that. Anyway they had this V2 rocket engine on display. I bet it hasn't changed that much, compared to >>0.

>>32798 I take it that this is just a standard rocket engine, as we know it, and not the newer one the Brits are working on?

It's still a beautiful piece of work not matter what it is.

V2 Nazi engine for comparison

>>32785 I think I'll need to do extensive research on that first :D

>>32782 Could the U.K. afford the 'cheaper model'?

Latest secret pictures of inside the actual ship.

>>32782 Always good to have a laugh, J.C. Keep 'em coming.

>>0 Pretty sure that's actually Flesh Gordon's spaceship XD

Interesting stuff though, but given uk levels of funding for such things it'll be lucky to ever get done.

>>32776 New wing design would be the next step to keep it from being ripped off. That's for sure. What I like, and most important, is the initial launch wouldn't be so dangerous considering what we now have (a controlled bomb on a launching pad).

The payload (included in the video) is 15 tons. Not as much as we now have but since it's 80% cheaper, more trips would be involved.

If the development were to be kept to commercial airlines and space craft, I could readily see it would pay for itself. Let the Air Force develop their own damn plane. Commercial planes and space craft can fly in a straight line and not have to worry about dog-fights.

Mach 5? Better hope they don't have to turn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m-oiO_ZwZI

Seems as though the heat exchanger is the key to this new invention. It will push the plane, either inside or outside our atmosphere to a speed of mach 5. An airplane would get to its destination much faster and space admission would become much easier.

The information is too extensive to quote here but the U.S. Air Force has invested in it! Hmm. New fighters on the horizon? More tax dollars?

All in all....Go you Limeys! Go!