Most or all of the illegal killing within Germany would likely have ended once the British food blockade had been lifted. Hitler would eventually have died, and would likely have been replaced with a milder man.
Revisionist garbage, Kurt. Where do you get this stuff from?
One day me and you will go to the Holocaust Museum in D.C. with lots of duct tape wrapped around your mouth and we’re going to learn a few things about what happened inside Nazi-controlled Europe.
Why don’t you hear it from Winston Churchill himself. Read his Pulitzer Prize winning History on the Conflict The Second World War, Vol 2 ALONE. Then you will discover just how un-prepared and at the mercy of the enemy Great Britain was. Second to the Military support received by the UK in the Early war from Canada was the Moral support that England was not Alone… Winston Churchill would not have been called to form a Government after the fall of Neville Chamberlain, but rather Lord Halifax, who was committed to a peace settlement with Germany in the face of what seemed impossible odds for victory and utter defeat and destruction.
Churchill also said, “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.” [the full version expounds this idea of ultimate determination in typical Churchillian speak.]
To say the absence of Canada’s military in the British effort against Germany would have led to Lord Halifax as prime minister is just too much speculation to argue on. How would that occur? Remember, Churchill became prime minister a month before the French surrender, so at that point Britain was not alone (if I recall right, Churchill was named prime minister on May 10, 1940, the same day as the German invasion). While the French Army was resoundly beaten in the first few weeks of battle, there was much hope on the British side that the French would invoke the elan that saved them from defeat two decades earlier. At least on paper the combined Franco-Anglo army possessed a numerical advantage in almost everything but aircraft, and some equipment, like the latest French tanks, were superior to what the Germans developed themselves and captured from Czechoslovakia.
In any case, I am not convinced that Britain would have capitulated or been captured without the military and moral support from Canada. Canada’s vast resources would still have been available (like Mr. Marachi said, there was money to be made by selling those resources and Britain was buying). Octospire said something about Britain losing all its money and America being lost, which doesn’t make any sense unless he thought this is an old AA strategy thread. Besides, Swedish armament companies supplied arms to all sides during the war, and made bank in the process. To the managers and factory owners and the people who needed the paycheck to survive, it didn’t matter who won or lost as long as they paid. :roll: Also, the cost of occupying Britain would have far outweighed whatever booty the Germans received, and would have left Germany spread even thinner in the approaching war against Russia.
Back to the topic, in those early pre-Pearl days the U.S. was still providing limited, but effective, convoy services for ships inbound for England, so the loss of the RCN in convoy escort operations would not have meant a West Atlantic devoid of Allied warships. Furthermore, it would seem unlikely for the U.S. to stand by as Germany mounted an invasion of Britain (which would not have been an easy operation to disguise). From all the determined and patriotic rhetoric heard in England during those days after the Fall of France, I don’t believe capitulation was even an option despite the loss of its official allies.
You must ask yourselves, could Germany have staged an invasion of Britain in the summer of 1940? To see even the slightest chance of success Sea Lion needed to commence right after the Dunkirk evacuation, when Allied forces were still licking their wounds in humiliation. Waiting any longer would have allowed the British to rearm and fortify the Island (as happened in real life). Since Germany had no strategic bomber capability, British factories were allowed to operate unimpeded and quickly made up the losses suffered in France.
Nor did Germany possess the dedicated landing craft or the innumerable support craft to aid an invasion fleet. How could the Germans land enough troops to matter? Would they swim?
The invasion would have required the Luftwaffe and the small Kriegsmarine to win superiority over both the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy - an impossible feat. Even if the transports made it thought, the Germans would face opposition from an enemy more numerous than themselves who were fighting on their own soil (or for some, like the French soldiers fighting to recapture theirs) and had nothing more to lose. Such an operation would have made the losses at Tarawa insignificant in comparison.
FM, you say the Allies could have lost in 1939-1940 (I assume you mean by losing England). Germany couldn’t have done this without knocking France out of the war, so 1939 is out of the question. In 1940 Germany did not possess the craft necessary to invade Britain or to supply its forces when it got there (any invasion would probably have been a one-way trip), and it would taken months at least to refocus the country’s factories towards producing the necessary equipment, and I doubt that would have even been a possibility. By then its probably 1941, Britain would be impregnable and the threat from the USSR could no longer be ignored. At that point, Sea Lion would be forever dropped from the war plans shelf and the conflict would progress much like it really did.
Italian infantry should only attack at a ‘0’. Italian tanks can only move two spaces if they’re moving backwards. All Italian boats should have glass bottoms so the rest of the fleet can be seen in all its glory.
I have yet to see a J1 attack on Russia in any game of Global A+2, though it has seemed interesting lately as something to try out, for several reasons.
First of all, I would only ever attack Russia if it amassed its 18 inf in Amur, and only if I planned to declare war on the Allies on J3. With 10 infantry stationed in Manchuria/Korea and two transports within striking range (as well as supporting BB/CR and aircraft) the Japanese could just about annihilate the Russian stack in one round of combat. With this force destroyed, there is nothing stopping Japan from sending a few units westwards to grab the Russian territories. They’re not worth much, but it would allow the Japanese player to about double its territorial gains during the first few rounds when Japan is only fighting China for 1 IPC a territory, and it doesn’t bring the Western Allies into the war. That little mech the Japanese start with could be very useful in eastern-central Russia.
This move would also prevent the mid- to late-game reinforcement of those 18 inf to the Western Front, where they could have a very decisive effect on the war Russo-German war. Russia could reinforce China in turn during the early turns, but a well-planned strike by the Germans would make every infantry sent eastwards a very tough decision for the Russian player.
Of course, I’ve never tried this strategy and don’t know if I ever will, since Japan has so many strategic options and can easily spread its forces thin.
To help steer this interesting topic in the right direction, let’s assume Germany was able to upgrade its fighter squadrons with Me-262As by as soon as late 1942, early 1943. This was a crucial and extremely bloody period for the Allied Bomber Commands, with losses on some raids reaching ten or more percent. Without fighter escorts (the drop tank-equipped P-51 still many months away) the bombers would have been easy prey to the new German jet. The bomber effort was already on the brink of collapse, so a determined resistance by numerous and skilled Schawlbe squadrons could have cleared the skies over Europe.
But then what? The effect of the Allied bombing campaign during the war is soaked in controversy and many believe it had little effect. Considering Germany production reached its peak during nonstop night and day bombing, the argument carries some weight.
The jet was designed to combat heavy bombers, how would it have fared in an air-superiority role - that is, the ability to suppress enemy fighters and air defenses to a point where your forces dictate the battlefield? The Me-262 would have had to fulfill the fighter-bomber and air-defense-suppression roles unless the Germans continued to field older models since no jet bomber was even close to operational.
How do you think the jet would have performed in Russia, where enemy strategic bomber forces were negligible? The Red Air Force was able to quickly outnumber the Luftwaffe in fighters and tactical bombers, including some models that were better than any of the German prop-planes.
How do you think the Me-262s would have been used, en masse, on the Eastern front, and to what effect?
Yes, yes, spare us the awful history lesson. Some of us have books on our shelves, too. Your arguments are familiar and are a frequent subject of debate, but when it comes down to it, we know that two wrongs don’t make a right. Despite a picture you and others paint of a desperate Germany with no other option for national survival than war (you even through poor Poland under the bus), Germany started that war on its own and fortunately was not able to finish it. This whole diatribe, though presenting some facts, does so in such a skewed and ridiculous manner that continuing it would be laughable.
“Nor was [the liberal West’s supposed pro-communism leanings] based on concern for avoiding future mass murders, as demonstrated by the fact that, in 1938, both Chamberlain and Daladier rejected Hitler’s offer to relocate Germany’s Jewish population to some remote British or French colony. (Hitler personally favored French Madagascar, but indicated he wasn’t picky.)”
By your line of reasoning, then, the Western democracies are just as much to blame for the Holocaust as Germany when they refused to accommodate an exodus of Jewish refugees from Germany? You won’t find many who will share those kind of views. Much of the rest of your post is similar revisionist gibberish. I would be careful who you share those thoughts with. In any case, morality in the time of war is way off topic and leads to some very diverse opinions, I am sorry I brought it up.
Your last couple of paragraphs kind of got us back full circle anyways. You keep saying, however, the Germans could have influenced the war’s outcome if they had those weapons sooner, but again, almost all were in such a state of infancy as to still be years and years away, even for the U.S. who suffered no destruction of its homeland and possessed the best scientists in the world.
I
m Canadian, my moms uncle flew Lancaster bombers, my moms cousins were killed and captured at Dieppe, Im long lost cousins with Winston Churchill so I am certainly not anti-Canadian. Canada didnt contribute a huge amount until 1942, the Canadian Navy had to be pulled from escort duty in the Atlantic until we got our act together. We did fight above our weight, we we were 22 lbs fighters in an area with 250 Lb giants.
Canadian military contributions were heroic and the resources the country provided proved of inestimable value, but the war was fought on such a global scale and, like you said, against the heavy weight powers of the time. So, Canada deserves every bit of WWII history it fought for, but it cannot be said that Britain would have fallen without the Canadian military contribution - the what-if scenario which this argument would inevitably boil down to.
It began and started in Berlin (of course this is another thing you could argue with so I suggest not hitting that post button 8-) ).
No, I won’t argue this point, it’s the one point you’ve made that makes perfect sense (that is, if you focus only on the ETO), though of course my five-year-old nephew could tell you the Germans started the war. :wink:
Now Zhukov what do you think would have happened if Canada hadn’t joined hmmm?
Um, the Allies would have won and the Axis lost.
I suppose without the diaster at Dieppe and the subsequent lessons learned from the failure, Operation Overlord would have hit a few more bumps. Not to ignore the Canadian contribution to the conflict, but it was the U.S. and USSR who won the war.
What if Bulgaria hadn’t partnered with the Axis?
Correction I think here? UK? The war would have been lost in 1940 without Britain and the Commonwealth.
No, no correction needed I think. I never said the war could have been won without Britain. The OP asked what would have changed if Canada had not contributed its military to the conflict, and I said very little. I believe most would agree with me. We are not talking about the numerous contributions made by other Commonwealth countries like Burma, India and Australia (and I never said anything about Canada’s resources, his post referenced Canada’s military contributions).
Without a military contribution from Canada, the UK would have still been able to hang on. Understand that undertaking Sea Lion is more complex than purchasing transports for seven IPCs on round two and loading them up with troops based in Normandy. Germany did not have the transports, the navy, the landing craft, the close-support vessels, or the air force to have successfully undertaken such an operation. Nor did it have a firm grasp of what kind of water separates the Isles from the Continent or the tenacity of the foe that opposed her, and that would’ve meant many German boats on the bottom of the sea.
It may be fun to play what-if, but it is a terribly misleading way of understanding the realities of WWII and you have obviously fallen into that trap. If this, than that, and this, and that, and then this again would have happened… well, that’s somewhat hard to say, wouldn’t you agree? You have a better understanding of the British mindset than I do. Would England have laid down its arms and just let the Gerrys walk over them if Canada had not supplied a few divisions and an RAF base?
Canada made some great contributions but again it’s kinda like if Bulgaria didn’t join the Axis. However if Canada hadn’t joined then I doubt Britain would have benn at war either. There both very close in history and in the game :-)
I believe you may be a little confused here. Canada was a member of the British dominion, not vice versa. Canada was in the war because England was, same with India (though many sided with the Axis), Burma, Australia and the rest of the Empire.
Also, Britain was brought into war by a mutual defense pact between her, France and Poland. You do remember that Germany started the European conflict, right? England would never have set idly by as Germany sunk her ships and bombed her cities.
As fun as AA may be to play, it’s not something on which you can base your understanding of WWII.
Um, the Allies would have won and the Axis lost.
I suppose without the diaster at Dieppe and the subsequent lessons learned from the failure, Operation Overlord would have hit a few more bumps. Not to ignore the Canadian contribution to the conflict, but it was the U.S. and USSR who won the war.
What if Bulgaria hadn’t partnered with the Axis?
Alright boys don’t bring polotics into this. I really don’t have time to type a massive response to your answer but I’ve got a life outside of board games and history. Saying that I wish the Germans had one has nothing to do with the conversation. I’m glad they didn’t. Hitler and his Nazis commited acts more horrible then perhaps anyone in history. However what of the German people. If I had a German grandfather in the Heer are you calling him a sick inhuman bas***d that deserves to be shot? What if the US or Australia or the UK or wherever your from invaded a poor defensless country? Then another nation declared war. What would you do? In my opinion anything other than defending your country, family, and home is unacceptable. Not all these men fought because they hated Jews, Blacks, and other “different” people. They did it to protect everything they held dear. So I don’t want any arguing or complaining about how this is completely irrelevent (because it is). I have only one question . Would you do the same?
Oh, man. For one thing, I was born in Germany, the same as my mother and father, their parents before them, their parents before them, and down the line for some generations, and I like to think I’ve shed my bias. My great-grandfather, an NCO in a Waffen-SS panzergrenadier division, was killed during the Battle of the Bulge (my dad’s grandfather moved to the U.S. when he was young and fought for the U.S. in the same battle - I like to think he shot my German great-grandfather :lol:).
Before this topic gets any more off topic, I would like to say, Pvt. Ryan, that the German people are not as innocent as you seem to believe. They watched as their Jewish neighbors were hauled off and they cheered like schoolgirls every time Germany invaded another country. No matter what German apologists say, the German people were arguably just as responsible for the atrocities their leaders committed.
Oh, CWO_Marc, I for one greatly appreciate the analogy. Not a huge hockey fan myself, but I couldn’t stop laughing when I read that.
More important than the Horten Ho 229’s stealth characteristics is the fact that it met or came close to meeting Goering’s 1000/1000/1000 goal.
Goering was a fat, idiotic drug-addict. Those goals as you call them came about during some morphine-induced braggadoccio to Hitler to regain his favor after a number of Luftwaffe disasters. They don’t mean anything except tremendous amounts of diverted resources and another ultimately worthless design.
The Horten was no stealth bomber. Come on, the whole term is a misnomer even with today’s tech and is only used in the media and on history forums. In Air Force parlance, these type of aircraft (that is, B-2s, F22s and F117s - not Horten Ho 229s) are called low radar observance aircraft. We probably wouldn’t even be discussing this topic if everyone referred to the Horten as the Ho 229 low radar observance aircraft.
In any case, I suppose it should be mentioned again that Allied radar was supreme by the end of the war and would have easily and quickly detected the Horten despite and I guess because of its extraordinarily-modest ability reflect radar.
You didn’t cite any source to support that claim.
Just a note: though everyone appreciates the linking of sources, wikipedia articles don’t always provide the most accurate information and should invoke some skepticism.
Ok IR score one for the US Yeah! Score a whole **** more for the Germans for getting Jets, Assault Rifles, Rockets Etc.!!!
The subject really isn’t that exciting. You must understand that a points-based competition based on rival technologies means nothing when you factor in the grotesque and disastrous realities of that conflict.
If these supposed German technological “wonders” had any effect on the war, it was to postpone an already bloody and lengthy war and cause the deaths of many more on both sides, civilians and soldiers. That’s hardly worth any kind of points.
Thats a horrible slam at the German army. Horses were pretty common and it didn’t help that the Americans bombed all the German factories. Please leave irrelevent things out of the conversation.
Um, the Germans lost the war and in the process perpetrated the most evil, disgusting and unforgettable atrocities in all the long and brutal history of mankind. Who cares if someone “slams” the German Army? Good God, man. You don’t wish the Nazis had won the war, do you?
Lazarus’ point isn’t that irrelevant. The German Army can hardly be considered technologically superior to the Allies when 90 percent of its forces were dependent on horses. Understand that even horses were running short by the end of the war. The big German horses of North European descent faired very badly on the Eastern Front and over 750,000 died during the first six months of the war. That meant most German soldiers had to travel by foot.
Perhaps you should look into Guy Sajer’s Forgotten Soldier, one of the best firsthand accounts of the German Army from 1942-on. The book details Sajer’s experiences fighting for the elite Grossdeutschland division on the Eastern and then Western Fronts. Sajer describes in great detail the desperation and material inferiority the German Army suffered during the second half of the war. When his unit surrendered to American GIs in 1945 and were forced to stand in the back of a deuce and a half, the American soldiers couldn’t understand why Sajer and his men were so happy. He eventually told them it was the first time he’d not been forced to march in a long time.
I’ll let Kurt take over as he’s one of the forums history buffs but first I’d like to say this.
I for one can say your infallible assertions will be missed.
But the fact that the Axis war effort had been doomed by the Allies’ sheer quantity doesn’t mean we shouldn’t respect the technological innovations which occurred. One good measure of a technology’s worth is the extent to which it became the basis for postwar weapons or other innovations. Using that as the basis, the Allies made good technological progress during the war.
You make a good point here, but the influence of Germany’s weapons on the post-war era is easily and often overstated, IMO.
Later, the problem of attacking bombers was considerably simplified when the jets were given R4M rockets (which had a much longer attack range than the 30mm cannon).
Practically useless against the opposing fighter planes of the time. Without knocking down the escorts, Germany was unable to even slightly weaken the Allied bombing campaign during the last years of the war. Perhaps the biggest aircraft-related RMA of WWII was that bombers by themselves do not win wars - they need escorts, and lots of them - and that escorts, with their ability to suppress enemy planes and other air defenses, were the true kings of the sky. But the reverse is also true - to attack the enemy’s bombing potential, you have to destroy his ability to escort those fighters. The Me-262 completely missed the mark as far as this military truism is concerned. With no ability to counter Allied escort fighters, the Luftwaffe was destined to lose the bomber campaign and any sliver of air superiority.
You mentioned the Essex class carrier as an Allied innovation. I’ll grant it was better than the German carrier under construction, or the Japanese carriers of the war. But how much of the superiority of the Americans’ design was the result of the fact that the U.S. could afford larger, more expensive, better carriers than could the Axis?
Well, if you grant this concession, you’ll be joining everyone else who knows anything about naval warfare in WWII. The German carrier, which if you’ll remember was never even completed, would have been a poor rival to the Essex and British Illustrious/Implacable classes, or for that matter, the Shokakus. Its aircraft complement would have been less than half of a fully loaded Essex, and in any case, what carrier-based fighters did Germany produce to compete against the Hellcats, Corsairs, and latest Seafires? The cruiser-caliber guns that would have armed the Graf and the associated role the Kriegsmarine envisaged for this carrier meant it probably would have ended up on the bottom of the ocean before too long.
Sure, the Essex was only made possible by America’s wealth in resources and labor, but you dismiss the technological feats apparent in the class’ design. With a speed of 30+ knots, the Essex could outrun almost any other warship. The C4ISR capabilities of this carrier were superior to any other combat ship of the war and set the way in design and tactics for future development of the U.S. Navy. The class survived until the early 1990s, testifying to the technological superiority and far-sightedness enjoyed by the U.S. during WWII (I apologize if far-sightedness is not a word, I couldn’t think of anything else!). The Essex is much more than a giant hunk of steel. It embodies the success of American society in producing and fielding the weapons that would win the war, from its able workforce and skilled designers to its first-rate scientists and to the competent sailors and fliers who were graduating from the world’s best military schools.
People are impressed with the late-war German research and weapons development not just because the weapons “looked cool,” but because it was clear that late-war Germany was in the midst of building a solid qualitative advantage over its enemies even as it was in the process of being destroyed. That is an impressive feat on a number of levels, especially considering the Allies’ advantage in population size and available funding.
It is wrong to assert that Germany had built any “solid” qualitative lead over the Allies. There were pockets of modernization but they were small and few between. By 1944 - the year in which Germany’s production capacity peaked - only one-tenth of the German army was mechanized. The rest were dependent on horses or by train, and were forced to fight a slightly refined version of the artillery and infantry battles of 1918. Germany’s efforts to introduce a new generation of aircraft (greatly stalled by Udet’s insistence that all aircraft - even four-engined planes - possess a dive-bombing capability) ended in a wasteful series of technical flops. The Luftwaffe was stuck throughout the war with proven but older planes. Allied planes only increased in sophistication and efficiency. I remember reading a famous order to German pilots to avoid any combat with the Russian Yak-3 because the Luftwaffe’s aircraft just couldn’t compete.
Germany developed some very sophisticated weapon systems (many of which were paralleled, though maybe not matched, by Allied research) but almost all were still in a stage of utmost infancy, despite tremendous allocations of resources and production. Many were second-rate and only marginally better than the systems they replaced, and in some cases were worse. The only reason many of these projects are even discussed is because they were thrown into combat, unfinished and untried, in a desperate attempt to clear the darkening clouds. Some German units were able to exploit the new systems to deadly use, but in most cases, the weapons were too underdeveloped to have any effect on the battlefield.
What is impressive to me is, during the second half of the war, how effective German soldiers could fight without support aircraft, short supplies, long marches on foot, a shortage of tanks and trucks, little ammunition and an enemy that only grew stronger.
My source for the 5:1 kill ratio of Me 262 jets is here. I’ve read that the ratio increased to 10:1 when the jets were equipped with the latest air-to-air missiles (though that ratio is based on a relatively small number of combat missions).
Compared with Allied fighters of its day, including the jet-powered Gloster Meteor, [the Me 262] was much faster and better armed.[6] . . . Luftwaffe test pilot and flight instructor Hans Fey stated, “The 262 will turn much better at high than at slow speeds, and due to its clean design, will keep its speed in tight turns much longer than conventional type aircraft.”[34] . . . Allied pilots soon found the only reliable way of dealing with the jets, as with the even faster Me 163 Komet rocket fighters, was to attack them on the ground and during takeoff or landing.
The kill/loss ratio in the Wiki article is referenced to William Green’s “Warplanes of the Third Reich,” a fantastic and exhaustive compendium on German aircraft of WWII. I have a copy at home but I’ve always been skeptical of many of the figures he quotes in the chapters dealing with Germany’s jets. He hypes up the effectiveness of the Me-262 without going into much detail on whether these figures describe certain Schwalbe units (like JG/7 or JG/44) or the entire Me-262 fleet.
Some units were able to achieve disproportionate results with the Schwalbe, but these squadrons (such as Galland’s) were comprised of the Luftwaffe’s best surviving pilots. Every loss (and they suffered many - both in combat and accidental) meant a drastic decrease in the unit’s effectiveness, and considering the attrition rate for German pilots starting 1943, there was little hope of receiving any well-trained replacements.
Also, I don’t know how much faith I would but in Hans Fey’s quote, considering he was a Luftwaffe instructor and has a bit of a bias. Imagine being a Me-262 instructor in 1944 Nazi Germany. The classroom is filled with young (including some Hitler Youth) men, many still boys, most of whom had only ever seen a plane, let alone flown one.
The war is closing in on Germany from all sides and any thoughts of victory are deluded. The Luftwaffe has just begun receiving sizable numbers of operational Me-262s and you’ve been put in charge of training a squadron of jet pilots. You’ve seen the decimation of Germany’s air force, its complete impotency against the Allied bomber fleets and the superior Allied fighters. You’ve trained countless men, excellent fliers, only to see them again on a casualty list.
Now, you see the scared looks on the faces of all the flight students. Air sirens whine in the distance, signaling another bomber raid and swarms of escort fighters looking for easy targets. You look around the room and see the nervous faces of each of those young men, most of whom, you know without a doubt, will die without ever shooting down an enemy plane.
What do you tell your flight students?
In any case, you say the Me-262 was faster and better armed than its UK equivalent. Both are true, but does it really make the Schwalbe superior? For one, as the Wikipedia article mentions, the Schwalbe’s speed (the only feature that kept more from being shot down by Allied fighters) made target acquisition difficult at best, if not impossible for the less experienced fliers. This drawback, and the Me-262’s habit of burning out its engines when the throttle was hit too fast (a problem never fully solved during the war, and one that was fairly common especially if you noticed a pair of Mustangs behind you) negates much of the speed advantage.
Now, the Mk 108 cannons. Powerful, yes, but totally inadequate for air-to-air combat. The short-recoil-operated weapon, with its short barrel and low muzzle velocity, made it a vary inaccurate weapon for air-to-air combat. Large aircraft like B-17s could be hit with a degree of accuracy, but Schwalbe fliers had to use the utmost discipline to prevent running out of ammunition when engaging Allied fighters. If I remember right, the Mk 108 was highly prone to jamming, especially under the stress put on it during high speed air combat.
The Meteor, on the other hand, was armed with four HS.404 20mm cannons, proven, tried and trusted air-to-air weapons that were the standard for most automatic cannons fitted on US/UK planes. While the 20mm lacked the punch of the 30mm Mk 108, it far surpassed the German gun in muzzle velocity (840m/s to 540m/s) which meant it was more accurate and could reach the target faster. The weight of fire (that is, the weight of all the projectiles fired in a given period of time) was pretty similar between the two planes.
Here is a great article (with accompanying discussions) compiled by the many experts over at the Tanks in World War II forum that highlights these and other deficiencies suffered by the Schwalbe:
http://www.weaponsofwwii.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=44
Whenever you manage to increase an aircraft’s speed you’ll generally lose some maneuverability. Despite that trade-off, faster aircraft were generally superior to slower aircraft (all else being equal). Jets were no exception to that rule.
You are right, with all else being equal. But, by the time the Me-262 entered service, there was nothing equal between the German and Allied air forces. Also, Allied pilots didn’t just give up every time they encountered a Me-262. They and their commanders developed tactics against the Schwalbe that obviously worked and largely neutralized the threat the jet posed. Again, the Schwalbe was not produced and operated in a vacuum. You can’t judge its efficiency by taking it out of the context in which it was developed and fielded. Just because the Me-262 should have been superior doesn’t mean it actually was.
You have correctly pointed out some of the flaws associated with the Tiger tank. But I feel you’ve overstated the case. In any case, Germany was in the process of creating replacement tank designs that were more powerful than its existing tanks, while also being much more easily mass-produced and far more mechanically simple and reliable.
To be honest, I thought I was going easy on the Tiger! Anyways, the “E” series of tanks were never anything more than than paper projects (besides that, no process to create these tanks ever began). They don’t really testify to the superiority of German tank design either, as the Allies were already producing simple, reliable and highly effective tanks. With the E series, German planners were again failing to realize the efficiency of a few reliable models. Why produce five for six models, as the E series called for, when the U.S. and USSR were able to do fine with just one apiece (ok, the Soviets armored divisions still relied on KV tanks in many battles, but these were largely mothballed when the T34/85 appeared)? In any case, those tanks would have done nothing more for Germany than add a few extra targets for circling Sturmoviks and P-47s.
You mentioned several Allied inventions. While some of them–such as the nuclear bomb–are indeed impressive, others are not. For example, the idea of ship convoys is hardly a stroke of technological genius. Back in the dinosaur age, brontosaurs had used a similar concept to allow the adults to protect the young from predators. Other Allied innovations–such as radar, sonar, and so on–were also employed by the Germans.
Those innovations may not have been impressive, but that does not take away from their decisive nature during the war. Convoys drastically reduced the u-boat menace by providing large groups of merchant ships with escorts (from frigates, destroyers, carriers and other escorts) and defense in numbers. The people of England, who feared the loss of their supply lines, sure thought the convoy system was impressive.
And yes, Germany fielded radar and sonar systems, but that’s not the point I was making. These were Allied innovations and though the Axis fielded similar systems, they were never as advanced as what the Western Allies possessed. By the middle of the war, Allied radar was advanced enough for a patrolling plane to detect the surfaced periscope of a German submarine from quite a distance away.
I believe you may have explained why Germany (in at least my opinion) receives too much undeserved credit for its “technological superiority”: Germany, in her sheer desperation, researched dozens and dozens of supposedly “war-winning” weapons and in the process created the prototypes for some pretty cool looking hardware. Allied innovations, which in my opinion were much more superior and effective than anything Germany produced or had near production, are often glossed over because they aren’t as cool looking as Schwalbes, Pzkw. VIIIs or Fritz flying bombs. Sonar and radar (as well as many other innovations like Ultra) aren’t terribly awesome looking devices, but again and again they allowed the Allies to out smart, out maneuver and out fight their enemies, and in the end, that’s all that mattered. This is part of human nature’s insistence on rooting for the underdog, I suppose; the Allies won, so who cares how they did it? Now, the Germans lost, but they developed some cool looking hardware along the way. If only they had more of it, they would have won, right?
So, let me submit to you one Allied innovation that not only had a decisive effect on the war, but was one mean, badass piece of machinery: the U.S. Essex-class CV (I would mention the Midway-class as well, but it was commissioned in the closing months of the war and, IIRC, never saw any action in WWII, though the class survived until its last carrier was decommissioned in 1992 (which, considering the class’ longevity, testifies to the level of technological superiority the U.S. had reached by 1945).
I’d like to debate a few more items with you right now, but my wife tells me its too beautiful outside to sit at the computer all day!
Yeah, three hours is a good approximate time. The cost of gas, well, that’s the real variable!
The Me 262 achieved a 5:1 kill ratio, and I don’t see why the (very fast) Horten flying wing couldn’t have done the same.
Could you provide a source for these figures? Almost everything I’ve read states the Schwalbe as having a pretty poor loss/kill ratio. JG44 and some other small, elite units may have reached a ratio of maybe more than 1:2, but on the whole, the jet was too plagued with problems, too short of spare parts, too wasteful in fuel and piloted by too many inexperienced fliers to have had the kind of history you say. Approximately a hundred Allied planes were shot down by Me-262. Compare that figure to the 1,400 or so Me-262s that actually reached an airfield, you’ll see the jet’s history wasn’t so impressive, with a kill/produced ratio of approximately 1:14. Given time, the Me-262 could have had a larger impact, but remember, German military technology wasn’t created in a vacuum. The Allies were taking notes and had their own designs in the work. They had the scientists and the industry to surpass in quality and quantity anything the Germans could put up. Besides, what good are jet aircraft when your soldiers holding the front line are running out of ammunition and food, or when your infrastructureis being bombed day and night?
And the Horten, well, it would have crashed just as easily as any of Germany’s other rushed, untested and largely ineffective wonder planes, whether at the guns of an Allied pilot or by accident. :wink:
Hmm, seems like a few have been watching too many History Channel specials on German technology, or basing too much info on achtungpanzer.com (which is known for not being the best source of info on German armor and other tech).
For instance, the OP’s article claims the Ak-47 was a direct copy of the Stg.44. While the design of the Stg. 44 undoubtedly had a bearing on how Kalashnikov would style his rifle (and all other assault rifles developed in the future), the internals of the two rifles couldn’t be much more dissimilar. The bolts and locking systems in the rifles are different, and though both use similar methods of working the action (gas-operated) neither rifle pioneered this system. Both are select fire but use completely different selector systems. I would say Kalashnikov probably copied the use of intermediate rifle rounds in the Stg.44 (7.92 kurz) for his rifle (7.62x39), but others suggest he could have gotten the idea from the .30 carbine used in the U.S. M1/M2 carbines.
While it may seem a trifle subject to debate, it is a good one in demonstrating that many of Nazi Germany’s “high-tech” weapons weren’t really that innovative and didn’t have the kind of bearing on the post-war world that many today believe.
Take Germany’s wartime rocket program. Despite almost endless funds into the V1/V2 missiles, these weapons were barely more than glorified bottle rockets and when they managed to hit their target, did little damage. Around 5,800 of these weapons were fired at Britain and some 500 of them actually hit, killing around 9,000 Britons. Compare this with the round-the-clock bombing by the Allies, which killed tens of thousands of Germans and severely damaged the country’s infrastructure, and you can’t help but see that the whole program was a waste of time - as some in this discussion have already mentioned.
The American Bombing Survey, studying Germany’s defense industry and research programs after the war, concluded that Germany could have built at least 24,000 extra planes with the resources dumped into the missile programs. In any case, when captured German scientists were taken to the U.S. to help develop its own rocket program, U.S. scientists quickly realized the Germans weren’t all that far ahead.
I’ve seen the Me-262 hyped up considerably on this forum. For one, the fuel consumption of the Schwalbe and other jets was beyond Germany’s ability to meet. Furthermore, while the Schwalbe could out race Allied prop-fighters for a period of time, it was no match for the maneuverability or endurance of the latest Allied planes, the Spitfire Mk IX+ and P-51s and Lavochkin-7s. Most damning, however, was the state of German pilot training from 1943 on. By the end of the war, young German pilots left flight school with just a few hundred hours of flight time and were easy prey for crack Allied pilots. Their skills were barely adequate to get a prop plane of the tarmac, let alone operate a Me-262.
Another example , the Pzkw. VI, or Tiger. While the Tiger’s gun could take out most Allied tanks beyond their own range, and its armor not easy to crack, the tank was a logician’s worst nightmare. Besides the outrageous fuel consumption, a Tiger had to have its engine replaced about every 100 miles or so (and, since the German war industry inexplicably failed to produce adequate numbers of spare parts for any of its machines, there were never enough engines to go around). The Tiger’s interleaved suspension system, which gave the best ride of any tank of WWII, proved to be more of a liability than an asset on the Eastern front, where mud and water froze in between the outer and inner road wheels and prevented the tank from moving. The Russian T34 and U.S. Sherman were much better amalgamations of those three basic, but interdependent, characteristics of armor development: mobility, armor and firepower. The Tiger and other German heavy tanks were barely more than semi-mobile pillboxes.
The list really goes on and on. As one poster mentioned below, inadequate sources for fuel drove Germany to develop synthetic fuels. By the middle of the war, Germany was getting about three quarters of its fuel from synthetic sources, including from acorns and grapes in captured French vineyards. This fuel increased Germany’s ability to stay in the war (oil was their Achille’s Heel) but much of it was developed from low-grade lignite and other sources mentioned above, so the quality was subpar at best. It took German pilots far too long to realize their 87-octane fuel was no match for the pure aviation fuel used in U.S. and British planes, which gave Allied aircraft sudden bursts of power and overall much better performance.
I’m not saying Germany didn’t produce high tech weapon systems, but none (besides a German a-bomb) nor any combination of those wonder weapons could have had any major impact against the Allied steamroller to victory. The one German device that could have possibly changed the war’s outcome, the submarine snorkel, was developed by a Dutchman.
Now, take some Allied innovations that actually had a tangible, incredibly decisive effect on the war, like ASDIC and sonar, cavity magnetrons and radar, Liberty ships, convoy systems, Ultra, the atomic bomb, B-29 strategic bomber, and the list keeps going, all the way down to the superior infantry weapons used by Allied (especially American) soldiers.
The most important Allied innovation, however, was the American and Russian systems of mass production. Hitler and many German industry planners eschewed mass production, and felt every piece of equipment should be handmade - a piece of art, one of a kind and with all the latest features. Speer turned much of this around, but it was far too late to save Germany. Germany understood far too late the kind of industry total war requires, and this is arguably the country’s biggest war time mistake.
Richard Overy put it best in “Why the Allies Won”:
“The war accelerated the technical threshold, and brought the weapons of the Cold War within reach, but no state, even the most richly endowed, was able to achieve a radical transformation of military technology before 1945. The war was won with tanks, aircraft, artillery and submarines, the weapons with which it was begun.”
Edit: Sorry for the extremely long post. This is a controversial issue and one that’s always fun to argue over! If you are seriously interested in what made the German military in World War II so impressive, at least during the early part of the war, you have to look into German innovations that are less glamorous than Fritz flying bombs,“stealth bombers” and curved barrels (shakes head): military training in which NCOs and junior officers were taught to take the initiative and make their own tactical decisions; a superb doctrine of combined arms; and simple radios which, when provided to platoon leaders, tanks and aircraft, allowed unprecedented communication and coordination between different assets on the field. These are the innovations that made the German military so successful in the early years (these and the fact that Germany choose to fight Continental countries which were much weaker than itself, that is, until Barbarossa).