#Citroën “Traction avant”

[tecnologia-automovil]

Coches con algo que decir

Coches con algo que decir

A finales del siglo IXX empezó el automóvil a desarrollarse y durante el XX llegó a ser el sustituto con enormes ventajas de los carruajes de tiro animal. Durante su desarrollo y evolución el automóvil ha ido aportando soluciones para mejorar su uso en todos los aspectos. Algunas evoluciones han sido trascendentales por su aportación y ser creadas por una marca determinada. También ha habido…

[les-belles-mecaniques]

1952 Citroën Traction Avant

[carsthatnevermadeitetc]

Citroën Traction Avant Big 15 11CV, 1954. On display at Bill Richardson Transport World in Invercargill, New Zealand. Bill's son Harold was a Citroën enthusiast and was given this car, unrestored, for his 15th birthday (you can get a driver's license from age 15 in New Zealand). He restored the car himself and owned it until he was tragically killed in a car accident, aged 29, in 1995. The Traction Avant was the first car to combine unitary construction with front wheel drive when it was introduced in 1934. It was replaced by the DS in 1955.

[alfaromeole]

Non! Si! Oh! (Louis de Funès in „Jo", 1971)

This post-1952 Citroën Traction Avant has eaten 70 years of French dust without losing any of its appeal.

[philoursmars]

Je reprends ma série de vieilles photos. Ici les vieilles voitures, qui ne l'étaient pas à l'époque !

Une 2CV - Mostaganem, 1955. Mon oncle et ma tante

une traction avant Citroën - Bussières (Auvergne), 1938. A gauche, mon grand-père maternel CORRECTION : merci à @tsakkiemgbgt qui me précise que c'est en fait une Citroën Rosalie !

idem (je pense ) - Oran, 1951 - Mon père au volant

Une 4CV (je pense) - Mostaganem, 1956. Ma grand-mère et mon grand-père paternel.

[automundoarg]

Citroën Traction Avant: Pionero de la innovación en la industria automotriz

Con su combinación única de tecnología avanzada, diseño vanguardista y comodidad excepcional, este modelo ha dejado una huella imborrable en la industria automotriz.

Con una historia que se extiende a lo largo de 105 años, Citroën ha sido sinónimo de innovación, diseño audaz y tecnología puntera. Entre sus creaciones más legendarias se encuentra el emblemático Citroën Traction Avant, un modelo que marcó un hito en la industria automotriz y sigue siendo admirado décadas después de su lanzamiento. Presentado en abril de 1934, el Citroën Traction Avant no fue…

[about-everything-around-me]

Retro style look at Citroën Traction Avant. 

[elvis2130]

Citroën Traction avant

[frenchcurious]

Citroën Traction Avant 1955. - source Victor Dos Santos.

[qs63]

Amestris Military Real world Influence

This is the third of my series of long posts about the Amestrian Military. This is the post for the history nerds. There are plenty of real world references in Fullmetal Alchemist, especially pertaining to the first half of the 20th century. While Amestris and its military have often been compared to Nazi Germany (especially when it comes to the anime), the references in the manga are very diverse. Disclaimer, this is by no means an exhaustive list, there are too many for me to cover in one post, and I'm not a historian. So let me know if there's any reference I might have missed or if I got something wrong!

To see the rest of this meta series check out the Main Post..

Names

Probably the easiest reference to the real world is in the names of the military personnel. Almost all of them are named after military vehicles and equipment, mainly from World War II. Some examples:

Roy Mustang — P-51 Mustang (USA WW2 aircraft)

Riza Hawkeye & Grumman — Northrop Hawkeye E-2 Grumman (USA 60s aircraft)

Maes Hughes — Hughes aircraft series (USA aircraft company)

Black Hayate — Nakajima Ki-84 Hayate (Japanese WW2 aircraft)

Jean Havoc & Henry Douglas— Douglas A-20 Havoc (USA WW2 aircraft)

Heymans Breda — Breda M37 (Italy WW2 Machine gun) or HMS Breda (UK WW2 Yacht)

Kain Fuery — Hawker Fury (UK 30s aircraft) 

Vato Falman — Farman aircrafts series (French aircraft company) 

Armstrong Family — Armstrong Whitworth Whitley (UK WW2 aircraft)

Weapons and equipment 

The weapons used by the military are also based on real world weaponry. Arakawa herself admitted to using references for weapons as well as for the vehicles.[1] Not all of them are a direct copy of a historical weapon, but all of them are at least inspired by one or more of them.

Pistol — Colt M1911A1 (USA 1924)

Hawkeye's pistol. [1]

Colt M1911 & M1911A

Rifle — Mauser Karabiner 98k (Germany WW2)

Hawkeye's Rifle. [1]

Mauser Karabiner 98k rifle

Hand grenade — Stielhandgranate M24 aka the potato mashers (Germany WW2)

Team Mustang's and their weapons. [1]

Stielhandgranate M24

Briggs' Tank

The Briggs' tank isn’t modeled directly after any specific tank, and rather takes inspiration from different WW1 to WW2 tanks. The manga and Brotherhood tanks take after different inspirations, with Brotherhood being more German coded than the manga tank. There's an excellent article in the tanks encyclopedia analyzing the Fullmetal Alchemist tanks if anyone's interested.

Military Cars —

We see a few military cars throughout the story. Once again the cars we see in the manga and Brotherhood are quite different, and they appear to be based on models from the late 1910s to the late 1930s.

The manga’s standard issued military car looks at least partially inspired by the American Ford model A of 1927.

Mustang's military car(manga).[2]

1927 Ford model A.

The Brotherhood art sketches have two different drawings of military cars. The first one, the one we see Mustang use, is based on the French Citroën traction avant 11CV of 1935.

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood military vehicle version 1.

1935 French Citroën traction avant 11CV.

The second car seems to be inspired by the Italian Fiat Tipo 5 of the 1910s. Perhaps even inspired by one of the American made Fiat models.

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood military vehicle version 2.

Fiat tipo 55.

Ranks and insignias 

With the exception of the Führer-President, the Amestrian military ranks appear to be a mix of the USA WW2 officer ranks: 

General, 

Lt. General, 

Major General, 

Brigadier General, 

Colonel, 

Lt. Colonel, 

Major, 

Captain, 

1st Lieutenant,

2nd lieutenant;

As well as the Imperial Japan NCO ranks: 

Warrant officer (Special Sergeant Major),

Master Sergeant, 

Sergeant, 

Corporal.

The history of the Imperial Japan  Warrant Officer rank is a bit confusing and complicated. In the 79 years that the Empire lasted, the Warrant Officer rank saw a lot of changes, being its own category at times, a Senior NCO at others.  The NCO Warrant Officers seem to have been specialized Sergeant Majors (also translated as Master Sergeant) that basically functioned as the most senior of the NCO ranks. Aside from this the one modern country, I could find, that has Warrant Officers as NCO is Malaysia.

The rank of Führer-President (大総統 - Daisōtō in Japanese) replaces the rank of General of the army in the USA officer classification. While the English translation is a direct reference to Nazi Germany, the Japanese word is a lot more nuanced. 

The word Daisōtō actually refers to the president of the 1912-1924 Republic of China, and if you Google it, all you will get is images of Bradley himself. The term used for “Führer” is 総統 (Sōtō), without the 大 (Dai) which is instead used in the word president 大統領 (Daitōryō), this is probably the inspiration for the Führer-president title of the official English translation. 

However, Sōtō isn't used to refer just to Nazi Germany's Führer, but rather to any fascist associated head of state. As such Germany's Sōtō is the Fuhrer, but Italy's Sōtō is the Duce (Mussolini).

The effect is technically the same (you still think of Hitler and fascism), but the Japanese word is not a direct translation of Führer, nor a direct reference to Nazi Germany, it's more subtle than the English translation. I imagine Führer was used in English (in absence of a more subtle unifying word) as it is more recognizable to the English speaker than other fascist titles like: Duce, Caudillo, Generalísimo, etc.

The WW2 imperial Japan ranks also included superior private, first class private, and second class private, but they were their own class, called soldiers, below the NCO ranks, and were mainly composed of men serving their conscripted time. This might explain their absence in the Amestrian official ranks as Amestris doesn't seem to have conscription. 

The rank insignias themselves are pretty much a copy of the imperial Japan ones. 

Amestris rank insignias.[3]

Imperial Japan ranks insignias.

Uniform

In terms of the uniform there's not one single reference or perfect match for the design, but the closest to it is probably the WW1 French infantry uniform.

Amestris military uniform. [1]

Early WW1 French uniform

Late WW1 French uniform

Aside from the color of the French uniform, the long skirt, flaps and boots are very similar to the Amestrian uniform.

The Amestrian short jacket itself seems to be inspired by the WW2 USA Ike jacket.

USA WW2 Ike jacket.

Furthermore the white lining of the Amestrian uniform reminds me of the Imperial Japan formal uniform jacket, which is itself Prussian and French inspired.

Imperial Japan Major General formal uniform.

The Briggs uniform is very much WWII winter gear inspired.

Briggs uniform.[3]

Soviet WW2 winter uniform

Finnish WWII sniper.

Out of every uniform variation, the one most German coded is, to no one's surprise, the Führer-president’s. His trench coat looks similar to the WW1 Prussian one.

Bradley in uniform.

WW1 Prussian soldiers.

In general the uniform has a very World War I vibe to it, down to the impractical, decorative parts of it like the skirt. This is an uniform that obviously predates modern warfare, very apt for the time period the story is “set on”. This makes an interesting contrast with the weaponry which seem to be mostly World War II inspired.

Other references

Ishval war of extermination 

First of all trigger warning for genocide and human experimentation. Just skip this section if you're sensible to these topics. 

Just like the Ishvalan are an amalgamation of many cultures and ethnicity, the Ishvalan civil war seems to reference multiple conflicts and events. 

Plenty of comparisons have been made with the Jewish genocide in the hands of the Nazi (and the 03 anime leans especially hard on this). There are also similarities with the Herero war and genocide at the hand of the German empire which just like the Ishval Civil war ended in 1908. Another possible reference is the Armenian genocide at the hands of the Ottoman empire, which also involved a minority living at the border of a nation the country was at war with and being suspected of colluding with the enemy. Both the Armenian and the Ishvalan soldiers serving in the army were dismissed, incarcerated, and eventually executed.

Another more clear cut reference made in the Ishval civil war is Mustang's and Knox’s experimentation. This would be a reference to the horrendous experiments done by both the Nazi and Japan's infamous unit 731. Both which included burning people to test treatments and the limits of the human body.

I am sorry to end up on such a hard note, but I think it's best we move on to other — less traumatic — topics.

Source

Fullmetal Alchemist Manga

Chapter 38: a counter attack signal [2]

The Complete art of Fullmetal Alchemist [1]

Fullmetal Alchemist perfect guide 3 [3]

Training Regime post

[jadrbo]

It has been quite time since my last post, moving from India to China taken me some effort 💥

But passion has no limits and boundaries, so here he comes “bitter sweet 🍋 ” game changer and of its times auto industry challenger “the Citroën Light 15 1952 Traction Avant 11CL”.

Before WWII 1934 he came with technology the others started to use 2 decade after. Produced 1934 till 1957.

This one, quite rare of 26.500 pieces out of 760.000 total produced volume. With right site steering and UK origin - Slough. Wooden dash and rich chrome, cozy leather was the Britain streets traction throne. Or on the streets of Australia and South Africa shown.

So welcome street master 🍋 to your new home.

[les-belles-mecaniques]

1951 Citroën Traction Avant 15/6 (modified)

[carsthatnevermadeitetc]

Citroën 2CV Super Prototype, 1974. A project to rejuvenate the 2CV with a retro-style version that referenced the grill of the Traction Avant. The roof was fixed and the Super was powered by the 1,220cc flat 4 engine from the GS. Created around the time that Citroën was facing bankruptcy and was taken over by Peugeot (PSA), the 2CV Super went no further than prototype stage

source

[philoursmars]

Nouveau retour à mon projet de présenter la plupart de mes 55500 photos (et des brouettes).  Plus trop loin du présent….  

2016. Marseille en été. Le défilé du 14 juillet avec les marins-pompiers et une belle traction avant rouge

[t-skizzenbuch]

Citroën Traction Avant, 1949