Sources For The Interwar Gamer

I have been meaning to add some content here for a long time, apparently three years of a long time in fact, how time flies. So with this post I hope to kick-start some interest in the Interbellum once more.

Sources for the Interwar period continue to grow as content is added and I thought I would contribute a few that I have found useful at various times and for various things.

Historical

France at War

French Ministry of Defence Archive of photos of the French and Vichy French forces in WWII

Militaria Française

Blog covering 20th Century French Militaria in the main.

Chars Français

Nice site covering French armour of the 20th Century.

War Establishments

Really useful site which has a series of War Establishment tables for Britain, Australia, Canada, the U.S.A. and some 'colonial' forces in WWII. Some nice Pre-WWII tables hidden away here too!

Interwar Tank Development

A blog devoted to the photographic records of Vickers Ltd. Some rare and unique photos of Vickers vehicles and those of their subsidiaries in the '20s and '30s. The same gent who created this blog has a Vintage Wargaming Blog too, which is also worth a look for its 'Old School' wargaming content.

Non-Historical

The Abyssinian Crisis Blog
My sometime partner in crime, who we shall call the 'Happy Wanderer' and to a lesser extent myself, created a fictional scenario where Britain and subsequently France intervened in the Abyssinian Crisis of 1935 (albeit on different sides).

Besides our ramblings on the 'ifs', 'buts' and 'maybes' of the scenario, there is a fair bit of information on the colonial forces of Italy, France and Britain into the bargain, some of which has application outside of the colonial sphere of the 1930s.     

The Chaco War - Resources on YouTube

Having watched part of today’s football match between Paraguay and Slovakia (which the Paraguayans won by two goals to nil) prompted me to do some online research into the Chaco War. What surprised me was how much there was available on YouTube!

By using the simple search request ‘Chaco War’ I found the following :

• Chaco War – Paraguay-Bolivia 1932-1935
• La Guerra Del Chaco, Petróleo?
• Guerra del Chaco
  • Part 1
  • Part 2
  • Part 3
  • Part 4
  • Part 5
  • Part 6
  • Part 7
  • Part 8
  • Part 9
  • Part 10
  • Part 11
• The Chaco War (N.B. It is worth noting that this was produced by a High School pupil!)

The quality of some of the film used is quite poor, but this does not detract from the fact that these are a very useful source of inspiration to anyone interested in the Interbellum period.

There are probably a lot more such resources out there; it is just a case of finding them!

Interbellum sources and resources

I have continued to add both fiction and non-fiction books to my Interbellum website.

So far all the fiction books I have added are ones that were written during the inter-war period, but I expect to include non-contemporary ones is due course. In the case of the non-fiction books I have selected those which were either written during the inter-war era or which mainly deal with wars, campaigns, and/or weapons from that time period.

The website is still in its early stages of development, and I still have lots of stuff that I can add to it in due course. At some time in the future I also intend to add pages that cover films that were either made during the inter-war era or that cover incidents from the 1920s and 1930s.

Interwar Tanks

One of the books I found on my shelves whilst I was searching for sources to add to my Interbellum website was THE FIGHTING TANKS 1916-1933. It was published in 1933 and its authors were Major Ralph E Jones (Infantry, US Army), Captain George H Rarey (Infantry, US Army), and First Lieutenant Robert J Icks (Infantry Reserve, US Army). Besides containing lots of interesting data (including the approximate numbers of tanks in the World's armies) and photographs, it had a diagram that showed the comparative size of several different interwar tanks.

Interbellum sources and resources

I have begun to add some more pages to my Interbellum website.

These new pages will deal with fiction and non-fiction books that people interested in the interwar era might find useful. The fiction books will hopefully inspire ideas for new imagi-nations (or the development of existing ones) and the non-fiction books will cover data about various real armies, equipment, and weapons as well as some of the more obscure wars.

The website is still very much in its early stages of development, but I hope to add stuff as and when I can.