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Rudolf Gundlach
Rudolf Gundlach (1892–1957) was a Polish military engineer, inventor and tank designer. He headed the design division of the Armored Weapons Technical Research Bureau (''Biuro Badań Technicznych Broni Pancernych''). He held the military rank of major in the Corps of Engineers of the Polish Army. He was the chief designer of the '' Ursus wz. 29'' armored car and supervised design work for the ''7TP'' light tank and the '' 10TP'' fast tank prototype. Early life Rudolf Gundlach was born on 28 March 1892 in Wiskitki, Russian Empire (now Poland) into an Evangelical family. His father was a pastor. From 1903 to 1911, he attended a classical gymnasium in Łódź, and then entered the Riga Technical University where he studied until his conscription into the Russian Army in 1916. He graduated from a non-commissioned officers school of artillery and served in the 8th Heavy Artillery Brigade. In mid-1917, he became a member of the Union of Military Poles in Tartu. He organized an art ...
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Tank
A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engine; usually their main armament is mounted in a turret. They are a mainstay of modern 20th and 21st century ground forces and a key part of combined arms combat. Modern tanks are versatile mobile land weapons platforms whose main armament is a large-caliber tank gun mounted in a rotating gun turret, supplemented by machine guns or other ranged weapons such as anti-tank guided missiles or rocket launchers. They have heavy vehicle armour which provides protection for the crew, the vehicle's munition storage, fuel tank and propulsion systems. The use of tracks rather than wheels provides improved operational mobility which allows the tank to overcome rugged terrain and adverse conditions such as mud and ice/snow better than wheeled vehicles, ...
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Interwar Poland
The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 1918 and 1939. The state was established on 6 November 1918, before the end of the First World War. The Second Republic ceased to exist in 1939, when Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and the Slovak Republic, marking the beginning of the European theatre of the Second World War. In 1938, the Second Republic was the sixth largest country in Europe. According to the 1921 census, the number of inhabitants was 27.2 million. By 1939, just before the outbreak of World War II, this had grown to an estimated 35.1 million. Almost a third of the population came from minority groups: 13.9% Ruthenians; 10% Ashkenazi Jews; 3.1% Belarusians; 2.3% Germans and 3.4% Czechs and Lithuanians. At the same time, a significant number of ethnic Poles lived outside the country's borders. When, after several regional conflicts, the b ...
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Gundlach Periscope
The Gundlach Periscope, usually known under its British designation as Vickers Tank Periscope MK.IV, was a revolutionary invention by Polish engineer Rudolf Gundlach, manufactured for Polish 7TP tanks from the end of 1935 and patented in 1936 as the ''Peryskop obrotowy Gundlacha''. It was the first device to allow the tank commander to have a 360-degree view from his turret with a single periscope. By rotating the periscope and allowing the tank commander to look backwards through the second eyepiece, he no longer had to change position to look behind the turret. Early tanks had small turrets and fixed seating, without an independently rotating cupola, and so the commander wasn't easily able to move himself to another rear-facing periscope. On 14 June 1935 it was officially adopted by the Polish Army, as reversible periscope G wz. 34. The design was first used in the TKS tankette, then in 7TP light tank. Shortly before the war it was given to the British and was used in almost all ...
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Colombes
Colombes () is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. In 2019, Colombes was the 53rd largest city in France. Name The name Colombes comes from Latin ''columna'' (Old French ''colombe''), meaning "column". This is interpreted as referring either to a megalithic column used in ancient times by a druidic cult which stood in Colombes until its destruction during the French Revolution, or to the columns of an atrium in a ruined Gallo-Roman villa that also stood in Colombes. History On 13 March 1896, 17% of the territory of Colombes was detached and became the commune of Bois-Colombes (literally "Colombes Woods"). On 2 May 1910, 19% of the (reduced) territory of Colombes was detached and became the commune of La Garenne-Colombes. Thus, the commune of Colombes is now only two-thirds the size of its territory before 1896. The population data in the table and graph below refer to the commune of Colombes proper, in its geography a ...
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Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of the world's major centres of finance, diplomacy, commerce, fashion, gastronomy, and science. For its leading role in the arts and sciences, as well as its very early system of street lighting, in the 19th century it became known as "the City of Light". Like London, prior to the Second World War, it was also sometimes called the capital of the world. The City of Paris is the centre of the Île-de-France region, or Paris Region, with an estimated population of 12,262,544 in 2019, or about 19% of the population of France, making the region France's primate city. The Paris Region had a GDP of €739 billion ($743 billion) in 2019, which is the highest in Europe. According to the Economist Intelli ...
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Le Vésinet
Le Vésinet () is a suburban commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It is a part of the affluent outer suburbs of western Paris, from the centre of Paris. In 2019, it had a population of 15,943. Le Vésinet is one of the wealthiest suburbs of Paris, known for its wooded avenues, mansions and lakes. It contains many public gardens designed by French landscape gardener Paul de Lavenne, comte de Choulot. History The commune of Le Vésinet was created on 31 May 1875 by detaching a part of the territory of Chatou and merging it with a part of the territory of Croissy-sur-Seine and a part of the territory of Le Pecq. Geography Le Vésinet is located in a bend of the Seine, but has no access to the river. It is 16.4 km (10.2 mi) west of Paris and 4 km east of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. The surrounding communes are Chatou on the east, Croissy-sur-Seine on the south, Le Pecq on the west, and Montesson on the north. The ter ...
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Barbier, Benard, Et Turenne
Barbier, Benard, et Turenne (BBT) was a French company founded in 1862, specializing in the manufacture of spotlights, Fresnel lenses for lighthouses, and lighting systems. It was the world's leading producer of lighthouse beacons from the end of the 19th century onwards. It dissolved in 1982. History The company was founded in 1862 by Frederic Barbier and Stanislas Fenestre as Barbier and Fenestre. It was renamed Barbier et Cie in 1887 and Barbier and Bénard in 1889. It became Barbier, Benard, et Turenne early in the 20th century, and became a public limited company in 1919.École des Ponts ParisTech, enpc.fr website,/web-BBT.pdf "Barbier Benard Turenne (BBT), historical note"Thobie, Jacques. '' Administration General beacons of the Ottoman Empire and the Collas and Michel society, 1860-1960 '' (L'Harmattan, 2004), p. 12. Production Lighthouses Barbier, Benard, et Turenne began with a specialty in the production of equipment for lighthouse beacons, such as Fresnel lenses. I ...
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United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City. Paleo-Americ ...
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Vichy France
Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the fascist French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its territory occupied under harsh terms of the armistice, it adopted a policy of collaboration with Nazi Germany, which occupied the northern and western portions before occupying the remainder of Metropolitan France in November 1942. Though Paris was ostensibly its capital, the collaborationist Vichy government established itself in the resort town of Vichy in the unoccupied "Free Zone" (), where it remained responsible for the civil administration of France as well as its colonies. The Third French Republic had begun the war in September 1939 on the side of the Allies. On 10 May 1940, it was invaded by Nazi Germany. The German Army rapidly broke through the Allied lines by bypassing the highly fortified Maginot Line and invading through ...
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Fall Of France
The Battle of France (french: bataille de France) (10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign ('), the French Campaign (german: Frankreichfeldzug, ) and the Fall of France, was the German invasion of France during the Second World War. On 3 September 1939, France declared war on Germany following the German invasion of Poland. In early September 1939, France began the limited Saar Offensive and by mid-October had withdrawn to their start lines. German armies invaded Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands on 10 May 1940. Italy entered the war on 10 June 1940 and attempted an invasion of France. France and the Low Countries were conquered, ending land operations on the Western Front until the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944. In ''Fall Gelb'' ("Case Yellow"), German armoured units made a surprise push through the Ardennes and then along the Somme valley, cutting off and surrounding the Allied units that had advanced into Belgium to meet the German armies there ...
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Polish Government In Exile
The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile ( pl, Rząd Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej na uchodźstwie), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Poland of September 1939, and the subsequent occupation of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union, which brought to an end the Second Polish Republic. Despite the occupation of Poland by hostile powers, the government-in-exile exerted considerable influence in Poland during World War II through the structures of the Polish Underground State and its military arm, the Armia Krajowa (Home Army) resistance. Abroad, under the authority of the government-in-exile, Polish military units that had escaped the occupation fought under their own commanders as part of Allied forces in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. After the war, as the Polish territory came under the control of the communist Polish People's Republic, the government-in-exile remaine ...
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