Fighters which did not make the cut – the Dassault MD.550 Mirage

Early in 1952, Dassault received a contract from the French air ministry – which was becoming concerned about the increasing cost of modern fighters – to study the feasibility of a lightweight fighter in the form of a delta-winged variant of its Mystère fighter. The company accordingly began preliminary work on such a concept under the …

Fighters that did not make the cut – the Sud-Est SE.5000 Baroudeur

France was occupied by German forces during a large part of World War II, and after the country’s liberation the first priority of the revived French air force was to rebuild its strength and overall capabilities with warplanes that were, for political as well as economic reasons, to be of French design and powered, wherever …

The US M16 self-propelled anti-aircraft mounting

The M45 quadruple machine gun mounting was a weapon mounting with four 0.5-in (12.7-mm) Colt-Browning M2HB (heavy barrel) L/90 heavy machine guns in the form of M2 Turret Type weapons mounted in vertical pairs on each side of the gunner’s electrically open cab. The M45 was developed by the W. L. Maxson Corporation in 1942 …