WW2 Article: Advanced German Technology

Ha still 200 more post to go! :smile: Maybe I might even beat Yanny to 500 though I doubt it.

Well maybe I’ll set my standards higher and go for 550…

Yeah, you’re right. But as my quote says, I only have so little time in which to do so much.

Havent read down this far in the thread, but 500 is mine!

Uh what’s a Mossad? I heard of them before. But I can’t quite attach a definition to the word.

Oh, that’s right. Now I remember. I don’t care what other people say, but Israel has by far one of the great intelligence branches especially considering the size of the country.

@HortenFlyingWing:

A very nice guy once emailed me a while back, seeing my name in achtungpanzer.com’s guest book.  I used the name “HortenFlyingWing” and he asked me to proofread an article about it. (remainder snipped)

Very good post–and definitely worthy of a bump. I encourage anyone who hasn’t yet read the first post in this thread to go ahead and do so! Definitely bump-worthy. (It’s been a few days since the last time someone posted in this thread.)

(It’s been a few days since the last time someone posted in this thread.)

its been a decade

A couple of comments on the original article:

“Although It is obvious that The first operational A-bomb was dropped by the U.S. on Hiroshima, the U.S. found it desirable to imply that the Germans were far from being close to having an atomic weapon at the end of the war in 1945. Recently revealed information shows that this was not true and helps to explain why the Reich ordered the fighting to continue even into the streets of Berlin when it seemed obvious to everyone there simply was no hope.  Its not a stretch to say that the top-secret project was actually only weeks away from completion, and even a casual study of Hitler shows he would not have hesitated to use it.”

The three links posted in that part of the article don’t work, so I couldn’t check the sources, but I wonder abour the statement that “its not a stretch to say that the top-secret project [to have an atomic weapon at the end of the war in 1945] was actually only weeks away from completion.”  As far as I know, Germany never even got as far as having an operational nuclear reactor, let alone manufacturing enough fissionable material for an atomic bomb.  The U.S. devoted massive resources to its Manhattan Project (whereas Germany did not), and even then it took America about two-and-a-half years to get from the first operational reactor to the first operational atomic bomb.

“For example, the battleship Bismark was sunk by a torpedo dropped by a biplane left over from WW I.”

The Bismarck had its rudder damaged by a Swordfish biplane.  The damaged rudder delivered the Bismarck to the British fleet, but it didn’t sink the Bismarck.  It took gunfire from the British battleships KGV and Rodney and some torpedoes from the British cruiser Dorsetshire to sink her…and even today, there is some dispute about whether it was battle damage or scuttling which ultimately finished her off. The Swordfish, by the way, was designed in the 1930s; it was not a WWI leftover.

@CWO:

A couple of comments on the original article:

“Although It is obvious that The first operational A-bomb was dropped by the U.S. on Hiroshima, the U.S. found it desirable to imply that the Germans were far from being close to having an atomic weapon at the end of the war in 1945. Recently revealed information shows that this was not true and helps to explain why the Reich ordered the fighting to continue even into the streets of Berlin when it seemed obvious to everyone there simply was no hope.  Its not a stretch to say that the top-secret project was actually only weeks away from completion, and even a casual study of Hitler shows he would not have hesitated to use it.”

The three links posted in that part of the article don’t work, so I couldn’t check the sources, but I wonder abour the statement that “its not a stretch to say that the top-secret project [to have an atomic weapon at the end of the war in 1945] was actually only weeks away from completion.”  As far as I know, Germany never even got as far as having an operational nuclear reactor, let alone manufacturing enough fissionable material for an atomic bomb.  The U.S. devoted massive resources to its Manhattan Project (whereas Germany did not), and even then it took America about two-and-a-half years to get from the first operational reactor to the first operational atomic bomb.

“For example, the battleship Bismark was sunk by a torpedo dropped by a biplane left over from WW I.”

The Bismarck had its rudder damaged by a Swordfish biplane.  The damaged rudder delivered the Bismarck to the British fleet, but it didn’t sink the Bismarck.  It took gunfire from the British battleships KGV and Rodney and some torpedoes from the British cruiser Dorsetshire to sink her…and even today, there is some dispute about whether it was battle damage or scuttling which ultimately finished her off. The Swordfish, by the way, was designed in the 1930s; it was not a WWI leftover.

You are right about the Swordfish. As you correctly pointed out, even though it was a biplane, the British did not put it into production until 1936.

Like you, I was unable to check the links about the German nuclear program which had originally been cited. But after some digging I was able to find this. If the claims cited in the article are correct (which is far from certain), Germany was very close to developing a nuclear device. (I.e., something a lot less powerful than the nuclear bombs the U.S. used to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but a lot more powerful than a conventional weapon.) A full-fledged nuclear bomb would have required a far greater amount of industrial capacity than Germany was in a position to allocate.

This being said, HortenFlyingWing wrote, in his original post, “don’t mind mis-spellings, and some errors here and there.” As IL pointed out, it’s been ten years since this thread has last been active. So that means that Horten and his friend have had plenty of time to correct those errors and come up with a better article! :) I liked the original article, but I’d like an error-free article even more.

@KurtGodel7:

I liked the original article, but I’d like an error-free article even more.

Me too.  The problem with these kinds of errors is that it only takes a few serious or blatant ones to cast doubt over the credibility of the entire article, even if the rest is accurate.  They create the impression (rightly or wrongly) that an author doesn’t have enough background to evaluate the information he’s found elsewhere, and that he’s just repeating it uncritically.

As for the supposed weapon mentioned in the BBC link you provided, I agree that the claim is far from being a solid one.  And even assuming that by 1944 or 1945 Germany had developed a radiological dispersion weapon, or even a couple of fully-fledged tactical nuclear bombs, it can be argued that these wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the war.  The Eastern Front was so large, and the Russians had so many divisions along its length, that a couple of localized tactical nuclear blasts wouldn’t have greatly altered the force ratio between Germany and Russia.  Also, by the last third of 1944, Germany wasn’t just fighting on the Eastern Front; it was also fighting the Anglo-Americans in the west.  It would have taken mass-produced tactical nukes to stop the three Allied powers from advancing into Germany…and even in America in 1945, there was nothing “mass” about the number of atomic bombs produced: the U.S. was able to manufacture a grand total of three weapons by war’s end.

@CWO:

@KurtGodel7:

I liked the original article, but I’d like an error-free article even more.

Me too.  The problem with these kinds of errors is that it only takes a few serious or blatant ones to cast doubt over the credibility of the entire article, even if the rest is accurate.  They create the impression (rightly or wrongly) that an author doesn’t have enough background to evaluate the information he’s found elsewhere, and that he’s just repeating it uncritically.

As for the supposed weapon mentioned in the BBC link you provided, I agree that the claim is far from being a solid one.  And even assuming that by 1944 or 1945 Germany had developed a radiological dispersion weapon, or even a couple of fully-fledged tactical nuclear bombs, it can be argued that these wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the war.  The Eastern Front was so large, and the Russians had so many divisions along its length, that a couple of localized tactical nuclear blasts wouldn’t have greatly altered the force ratio between Germany and Russia.  Also, by the last third of 1944, Germany wasn’t just fighting on the Eastern Front; it was also fighting the Anglo-Americans in the west.  It would have taken mass-produced tactical nukes to stop the three Allied powers from advancing into Germany…and even in America in 1945, there was nothing “mass” about the number of atomic bombs produced: the U.S. was able to manufacture a grand total of three weapons by war’s end.

I wonder if we’ve become less accepting of error today than we’d been thirty or forty years ago. Or–maybe I’m not phrasing that correctly–maybe it’s just become easier to do our own research, and therefore to detect errors, than it had been.

For example, a few years ago I’d come across some articles from The Guardian about Britain’s use of torture on political prisoners around 1945 - '47. Below is a quote:

Former prisoners [of Bad Nenndorf] told Hayward that they had been whipped as well as beaten. This, the detective said, seemed unbelievable, until “our inquiries of warders and guards produced most unexpected corroboration”. Threats to execute prisoners, or to arrest, torture and murder their wives and children were considered “perfectly proper”, on the grounds that such threats were never carried out.

Moreover, any prisoner thought to be uncooperative during interrogation was taken to a punishment cell where they would be stripped and repeatedly doused in water. This punishment could continue for weeks, even in sub-zero temperatures.

Naked prisoners were handcuffed back-to-back and forced to stand before open windows in midwinter. Frostbite became common. One victim of the cold cell punishment was Buttlar, who swallowed the spoon handle to escape. An anti-Nazi, he had spent two years as a prisoner of the Gestapo. “I never in all those two years had undergone such treatments,” he said.

Britain opened the Bad Nenndorf secret prison in the second half of 1945, and initially used it primarily on key Nazi officials. Its willingness to resort to the above-described methods to obtain confessions casts considerable doubt on any confessions thus extorted! Many people, if subjected to physical torture + threats to their families, will do or say anything they believe will keep their families safe.

Having been exposed to the article about Bad Nenndorf and a torture center in London, I found that my view of other historical sources had changed. This is particularly true of historical sources which I’d once regarded as credible, but which did not acknowledge the possibility of torture + coercion when reporting the confessions of senior Nazi officials. It is also true of sources which describe the exterminations which occurred in Nazi Germany without bothering to mention the Anglo-American food blockade or the famine/near famine conditions which resulted. (I learned about Germany’s food situation when reading Adam Tooze’s book, The Wages of Destruction.)

A number of people widely regarded as credible WWII historians have made truly remarkable errors and omissions in their description of WWII history. That does not excuse non-professionals from making errors of a similar or lesser scale. But it does mean that accuracy is perhaps harder to attain in this subject than elsewhere, in part because mainstream WWII historians have traditionally been too uncritical in accepting the claims of Allied governments. This represents something of a double standard; in that the claims made by the LBJ administration about the Vietnam War, or by the Bush administration about the second Iraq War, very often do not receive uncritical acceptance. There is no reason why we should uncritically accept the FDR or Truman administrations’ claims about WWII. But until mainstream historians start doing a better job of separating cold hard facts from Allied propaganda, it will be difficult for non-professionals (who rely on those mainstream historians for most of their information) to create error-free summations of WWII history.

I realize I have strayed (if only slightly) from the subject at hand. To return to that subject, I agree that by late ‘44, Germany’s military fortunes were bad enough that they could not have been saved by a few tactical nuclear devices. The first few strikes would do the most damage, after which the Soviets and Americans would respond by spreading out their forces. To have significantly altered Germany’s fortunes, the tactical nuclear weapons would have had to destroy the heart of the enemies’ strength arrayed against Germany. IIRC, Germany in '44 had 400,000 men on its western front, as compared to 2 million men in the Anglo-American force. While German infantry had enjoyed a qualitative advantage over their British and American counterparts in 1943, that advantage had slipped away by January of '45. (If not earlier.) This was largely because in late '44/'45, many German soldiers on the Western front were poorly trained, poorly armed old men or young boys, foreign soldiers who had little interest in dying for Germany, or else German men of military age who’d realized the war was lost. Even if half the Anglo-American force had been destroyed with tactical nuclear weapons, they would still have enjoyed a better than 2:1 advantage in manpower, near-complete air supremacy, a commanding advantage in tanks, artillery, and other weaponry, as well as all the other advantages their overwhelming industrial capacity could bring to bear. Likewise, the Soviet force on Germany’s eastern front was much larger, better-armed, and far stronger than the German force it faced.

Interesting set of articles (from what I can determine as the links are apparently broken).

No question that the German educational system (set up by Bismark in the mid 1800’s) and the German industrial capabilities let to some amazing technology during the war. I would also agree that part of this was due to the fact that by 1944 (and maybe sooner) only a revolutionary technology would win the war…Hitlers “wonder weapons”.

Still, I think there is too much emphasis on the German achievements and too little recognition of the allied “wonder weapons”; perhaps due to a respect for the Nazi scientists and engineers.  It is important to recognize that the allies had some amazing technological advances during this time as well.

1. The A-bomb developed during the Manhattan project.  While the USSR, UK, Germany, and Japan all had similar programs, only the US was able to develop this in time to make a difference in the war.  The USSR developed one later, based in large part from stolen technology   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_atomic_bomb_project

The scientific research was directed by noted Soviet nuclear physicist Igor Kurchatov, and benefited from highly successful espionage efforts on the part of the Soviet military intelligence. Ultimately the USSR tested its first nuclear weapon in August 1949.

.  The extent of the technology that needed to be developed to do this should not be underestimated.

2. the proximity fuse,  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximity_fuze

Vannevar Bush, head of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) during this war, credited the proximity fuze with three significant effects:[9]

* First, it was important in defense from Japanese Kamikaze attacks in the Pacific. Bush **estimated a sevenfold increase in the effectiveness of 5-inch antiaircraft artillery with this innovation.[10]
   * It was an important part of the radar-controlled antiaircraft batteries that finally neutralized the German V-1 bomb attacks on England.[10]
   * Third, it was released for use in Europe just before the Battle of the Bulge. At first the fuzes were only used in situations where they could not be captured by the Germans. They were used in land-based artillery in the South Pacific in 1944. They were incorporated into bombs dropped by the U.S. Air Force on Japan in 1945, and they were used to defend Britain **against the V-1 attacks of 1944, achieving a kill ratio of about 79%. (They were ineffective against the much faster V-2 missiles.) There was no risk of a dud falling into enemy hands. The Pentagon decided it was too dangerous to have a fuze fall into German hands because they might reverse engineer it and create a weapon that would destroy the Allied bombers, or at least find a way to jam the radio signals. Therefore they refused to allow the Allied artillery use of the fuzes in 1944.
   * General Dwight D. Eisenhower protested vehemently and demanded he be allowed to use the fuzes. He prevailed and the VT fuzes were first used in the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944, when they made the Allied artillery far more devastating, as all the shells now exploded just before hitting the ground. **It decimated German divisions caught in the open. The Germans felt safe from timed fire because they thought that the bad weather would prevent accurate observation. U.S. general George S. Patton said that the introduction of the proximity fuze required a full revision of the tactics of land warfare.[11] (emphasis mine) had an incredible influence on the battlefield.  Had the Germans developed this (and they had a program to do so) in conjunction with the V2, I would assume a similar increase in effectiveness.  Yet it was the allies who developed it first and who benefited.

3. Radar - the allies radar and sonar capabilities were much more advanced than anything the axis had.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavity_magnetron

While radar was being developed during World War II, there arose an urgent need for a high-power microwave generator that worked at shorter wavelengths (around 10 cm (3 GHz)) rather than the 150 cm (200 MHz) that was available from tube-based generators of the time. It was known that a multi-cavity resonant magnetron had been developed and patented in 1935 by Hans Hollmann in Berlin.[14] However, the German military considered its frequency drift to be undesirable and based their radar systems on the klystron instead. But klystrons could not achieve the high power output that magnetrons eventually reached. **This was one reason that German night fighter radars were not a match for their British counterparts…The combination of small-cavity magnetrons, small antennas, and high resolution allowed small, high quality radars to be installed in aircraft. They could be used by maritime patrol aircraft to detect objects as small as a submarine periscope, which allowed aircraft to attack and destroy submerged submarines which had previously been undetectable from the air. Centimetric contour mapping radars like H2S improved the accuracy of Allied bombers used in the strategic bombing campaign. Centimetric gun-laying radars were likewise far more accurate than the older technology. They made the big-gunned Allied battleships more deadly and, along with the newly developed proximity fuze, made anti-aircraft guns much more dangerous to attacking aircraft. The two coupled together and used by anti-aircraft batteries, placed along the flight path of German V-1 flying bombs on their way to London, are credited with destroying many of the flying bombs before they reached their target.

4. Cryptography was better on the allied side, providing a critical intelligence advantage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cryptography#World_War_II_cryptography

The war was won by the allies because the Nazi’s failed to defeat the Soviet Union.  The Nazi wonder weapons were too little, too late but even if they had been developed soon enough, I think the Allied wonder weapons could have countered the Nazi’s.

That said, the technological breakthroughs, by both sides of the conflict, demonstrate impressive work by their scientists and engineers.********

@221B:

Still, I think there is too much emphasis on the German achievements and too little recognition of the allied “wonder weapons”; perhaps due to a respect for the Nazi scientists and engineers.  It is important to recognize that the allies had some amazing technological advances during this time as well.

Yours is a solid post, and a good contribution to this discussion! I came across many of the same things when doing research for my rules set

The race to build an atomic bomb started as a result of breakthroughs made by German scientists and published in academic journals. A successful atomic bomb effort required a large group of highly talented scientists and engineers, as well as a massive allocation of industrial capacity. Germany had the talented scientists it needed, but it lacked excess industrial capacity to devote to a project which would require years before yielding any benefits at all. Clearly the U.S. achieved something impressive both by having its scientists create a successful bomb design, and because it had been able to enrich the required uranium and plutonium. But Germany deserves credit for a strong nuclear program as well–albeit a nuclear program which lacked the access to industrial capacity to solve the problems the Americans solved.

You’ve correctly pointed out the proximity fuse’s impact on anti-air fire and artillery fire. It was devastating. Toward the end of the war, the Germans seem to have developed a proximity fuse of their own, which they had apparently intended to include on their surface to air missile. From the link (towards the end):

Both proximity and self-destruction fuzes were provided. The proximity fuzes were projected on the I.R., Electronic, and acoustic principals; however, the latter had essentially been dropped by the designers as the maximum range at which the actuating impulse was of sufficient magnitude was too small to derive most effective results from the warhead.

Unfortunately, the article does not indicate how the proximity fuses described above compare to those employed by the British and Americans; or whether the Germans’ proximity fuses were small enough to be practical for normal AA fire. (The referenced surface to air missile weighed 1800 kg / 4000 lbs.) At first glance, proximity fuses seem to be an area similar to radar, in the sense that the Germans had a respectable research effort underway, even if the British and Americans were somewhat ahead.

I also looked at the R4M–a German air-to-air missile used near the end of the war–on the theory that it might also have had a proximity fuse. From Wikipedia:

Only a small number of aircraft were fitted with the R4M, mostly Messerschmitt Me 262s and the ground attack version of the Fw 190s . . .

The weapon had excellent results. . . . in March 1945, six R4M-armed Me 262s flying out of the Oberammergau flight test center and led by Luftwaffe General Gordon Gollob claimed to have shot down fourteen B-17s in a mission.[citation needed] In April 1945, R4M-equipped Me 262s claimed to have shot down thirty B-17s for the loss of three aircraft.[citation needed]

Unfortunately, the Wikipedia is light on detail, and doesn’t indicate whether the R4M used a proximity fuse.

You mentioned that the Allies were ahead of the Germans in cryptography. That’s a good point and one worth expanding upon. During the war Britain had several Colossus computational machines. These were digital programmable electronic devices designed for problem-solving. They may or may not be considered full-fledged computers, depending on how broad your definition of a computer is. Regardless, they were critical in Britain’s code-breaking and computational efforts.

Germany had also made breakthroughs in computational research. From Wikipedia: “[The Zuse Z3 was] the world’s first working programmable, fully automatic computing machine. It was Turing-complete, and by modern standards the Z3 was one of the first machines that could be considered a complete computing machine.” The Z3 was introduced in 1941; several years before the Colossus. However, development on the Zuse machines was considerably slowed due to lack of adequate funding. “Zuse asked the German government for funding to replace the relays with fully electronic switches, but funding was denied.” But by the end of the war, Zuse had built the Z4, which was “the world’s first commercial digital computer.” (Albeit an electro-mechanical computer, instead of fully electronic like the Colossus or the later, far more powerful ENIAC.)

The war was won by the allies because the Nazi’s failed to defeat the Soviet Union.  The Nazi wonder weapons were too little, too late but even if they had been developed soon enough, I think the Allied wonder weapons could have countered the Nazi’s.

It’s tempting to point out that the Allied advantage in industrial capacity and manpower was so overwhelming that they did not need to counter Germany’s wonder weapons with wonder weapons of their own. Sheer numbers would have been enough. In 1939, Germany had a population of 69 million people, as compared to 169 million for the Soviet Union. That disparity gave the Soviets an overwhelming advantage in the manpower available for infantry. In the spring of 1941, the German Army consisted of 150 divisions, 100 of which were used to invade the Soviet Union. By the fall of '41, Soviet recruitment efforts had increased the size of their own army to a staggering 600 divisions. Also, if you look at these aircraft production numbers you can see that the Allies had an overwhelming advantage in military aircraft production (a reasonably good proxy for overall military production).

If those advantages had been taken away–if the Allies had had roughly equal manpower and industrial capacity to that of the Axis–would the new weapons being designed by the Allies have been enough to counter those of the Germans? I don’t think they would have been. German jets, with their air-to-air missiles, would have gained near-total domination of the skies. Their advanced Type XXI U-boats would have been devastating against Allied shipping. Allied artillery and AA guns would have been very significantly enhanced by proximity fuses, but the artillery would have been vulnerable to attacks from the air. (Especially because Germany had developed an air-to-surface missile.) The Germans would have had better tank designs, and night vision for their planned tanks. Not to mention their increasingly long-ranged Panzerfaust hand-held anti-tank weapons. While the Allies would have had their share of advantages as well, I don’t think those advantages would have offset all that.

Kurt,

Excellent points, I appreciate you taking the time to discuss.  It is difficult, however, to assess what might have happened so there are no right or wrong answers.  What if this had happened, what if they had developed that…

A couple of more points I’d really like your opinion on if you (or others) have time:

1. How would the German ME262 compare to the UK built (and operational during WWII) Gloster Meteor jet in combat?  What about the Horton HO-229 vs. the Meteor ?  Or the US P-80?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me262
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloster_Meteor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horten_Ho_229

My guess is that the Ho-229 would have ran circles around them all…but I cannot definitely say that since we don’t know what would have happened.

2. The German V-2 was an incredible advance unmatched by the Allies…or was it?  Consider what the American Robert Goddard developed decades before the Germans or the cold war space race between the US and USSR:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H._Goddard

Its a long read (but very well worth it), so I’ll simply quote from Werner Von Braun …

Don’t you know about your own rocket pioneer? Dr. Goddard was ahead of us all.

Wernher von Braun, when asked about Goddard’s work following World War II[84]

What if the US had invested even a small amount of money toward Goddards work (as they certainly would have had the V-2 or proposed V-3 really started affecting the Allied war effort)?