Any self-respecting dieselpunk needs to take on board the Napier Nomad. Two stroke. Ten or so cylinders. With a turbocharger. And an afterburner. Stick that in yr Bristol Brabazon and smoke it.

URL! URL! URL!

Okay, see here. Eek. "The Nomad design was increadibly complex, essentially two engines in one. One was a supercharged Diesel similar to the Culverin. Below this was a complete turboprop engine, based on their Niaid design. The output of the turboprop was geared to a shaft running inside the Diesel's, driving the front propeller of a contra-rotating pair. As if that were not enough, during takeoff additional fuel was dumped into the rear turbine stage for additional power, and turned off once the plane was cruising."

Wow.

For alternate history freaks to think about:

The Suspension system used in the T-34 tank was the American Christie design, also used in some British cruiser tanks.

The engine in the T-34 was a development of a French V-8 aero engine (and a diesel).

The British 3-inch AA gun was shoved into a few tanks, such as the Churchill, as an anti-tank SP-gun.

So all the essential tech for the T-34 was available to Britain and France in 1940.

But don't forget the Covenanter, a cruiser tank that might have been quite decent, if the Consett steel plant had been able to make armour plate to specification. They all ended up being used in England for training.

Read the history, and thank God for the Sherman.

Even if it did catch fire too easily.

(Most of the Shermans with a Cat diesel engine went to Russia, and were shipped to Siberia to face the Japanese.)

(But it was the ammo storage that was the big fire problem.)

The Independant is my favorite interwar tank design. I've no idea what the hell they were thinking when the designed this multi-turreted beast, except for possibly "The fuzzy-wuzzies won;t know what hit them".

http://www.arthurwyatt.co.uk/images/photos/bov04.jpg

If you can lay hands on it, check Jane's Armoured Fighting Vehicles, specifically the Baker Jumping Car - my favorite WW II American experimental tank. I believe only one functional prototype was built, which worked perfectly. It was an articulated, wheeled car with massive springs and hydraulic assists on all wheels. Sadly, the Army wasn't interested, so nothing was ever done with the concept. On a side note, the net is strangely devoid of references to the Baker; all I could Google up were cites to print articles and patents.

There are quite a few books on tanks between the wars. One I saw in the library was a recent reprint of a book from the late seventies, which tried to have photos of every tank up to 1945. Can't recall the title, but some weird stuff.

The Russians had some multi-turreted monsters.

At least three tanks were devised based on Caterpillar-style tractors, either as a cheap alternative for small countries, or as an expedient (New Zealand after Pearl Harbor).

There were a couple of American companies making and exporting tanks between the wars.

It doesn't cover stuff like the German assault guns, though it does deal with the many turretless tankettes that were tried pre-WW2.

Glad you liked the Independent pic. Plenty more pictures of tanks here:

http://www.arthurwyatt.co.uk/photos/bovington.html

All these tanks are at the Bovington Tank museum, which is definatly worth a visit

http://www.tankmuseum.org/home.html

Look out for a Cthuloid tank in this week's 2000AD...

Nice to see the Nomad getting some attention...

For the best lead-in to aero-engines, baroque or otherwise, check out a book (how low-tech is that?) by LK Setwright, called: 'The Power to Fly'. Setwright's love affair with the Napier company is apparent in the prose. Napier's designs, unlike the more utilitarian output of Bristol and RR, appear to have largely been dominated by the "Why are we arranging the cylinders like this? Because we _can_." principle.

Gary -- and a T.E. Lawrence reference for good measure I see.

Talking of odd Russian planes...

The Antonov AN2 is a 12 passenger and cargo carrying biplane. The largest single-engined biplane in the world in fact. A plane for Real Men!

This one has been, well, modified...

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/415797/L/

...And talking of international rescue:

http://www.workingtitlefilms.com/film67/67image5_2_movie.swf

I can just see it now... "Communist International Rescue", with the Trasiov brothers (Yuri, Gherman, Andrian, Pavel and Valeri) arriving in their amazing CIR machines at the scene of flood/fire/meltdown of decadent imperialist pressurized water reactor (so much less reliable than the Heroic Soviet Engineering RBMK design) to snatch grateful members of the proletariat from certain death...

Chris: Thanks for the recommendation; I just sent in an interlibrary-loan request for a copy. It seems the name would be "Setright", not "Setwright", though.

I also find myself thinking that it would make an excellent problem for the Thermodynamics class final that my advisor is working up -- he was wondering whether to do a piston-cylinder cycle problem or a continuous-flow cycle problem; clearly, the right answer is "both!"