While it’s true many specific technologies have accelerated development during war as well as needs for systems not thought of to counter threats not realized. That being said, the foundations of the russian t-34 tank occured pre-war and the chassis design was from an american christie I believe.
Early jet design and theory started in the 20s and 30s. The first jet plane to fly was the German Heinkel He 178, which first flew on August 27, 1939. So, before the war started Germany was already ahead in jet planes and would probably be fielding something like the 262 in a short period of time war or no war.
British Radar was developed before the war and lots and lots of base technologies were being discovered that would easily be militarised.
The German military science advantage accelerated during the period 1933-1939 as Hitler was planning for war and the west was in Pacifist mode. When the war began, Hitler slowed down weapons research as he as sure it would be won in 18 months. The west now awake did the opposite. So if anything, it was the start of the war that signaled the closing in military science gap. It was only toward the end of the war that massive research into new weapons occured, but at the cost of mass production.
The worlds first never gases were German Tabun (1936), Sarin (1938) and developed before the war. Synthetic fuel was also a german innovation and occured before the war in anticipation of the war…so yeah, waiting 6 more years for industrial policy and science to pay off would have won the war for the Germans I think.
Excellent points! Just to add to what you’ve written–Germany and the Axis had a significant disadvantage in terms of available manpower, industrial capacity, and access to raw materials. To make up for these things, Hitler felt he had to win the war quickly, or not at all. That was true in 1940; when he sought to avoid a long, drawn-out war with France. It was also true in 1941, when he hoped to quickly beat the Soviet Union.
The Allied plan for victory, on the other hand, was as follows:
According to the Franco-Polish military convention, the French Army was to start preparations for the major offensive three days after the mobilisation started. . . . On the 15th day of the mobilisation (that is on September 16), the French Army was to start a full scale assault on Germany.
On paper, the combined French-Polish force was significantly stronger than its German counterpart; causing Polish military planners to conclude that, together with its British and French allies, Poland could win such a war.
That noon Hitler issued the second order for invasion [of Poland], driven to this extremity (according to A. I. Berndt, his liaison man with DNB) by a gross lie. Berndt thought the reported number of German nationals killed by the Poles too small and simply added a nought. At first Hitler refused to believe such a large figure but, when Berndt replied that it may have been somewhat exaggerated but something monstrous must have happened to give rise to such stories, Hitler shouted, “They’ll pay for this! Now no one will stop me from teaching these fellows a lesson they’ll never forget! I will not have my Germans slaughtered like cattle!” At this point the Fuhrer went to the phone and, in Berndt’s presence, ordered Keitel to issue “Directive No 1 for the Conduct of the War.”
From pages 567-568:
Lipski never asked to see Hitler’s sixteen point proposal . . . He was following his orders “not to enter into any concrete negotiations.” The Poles were apparently so confident they could whip the Germans (with help from their allies) that they were not interested in discussing Hitler’s offer. Nor were England and France extending themselves to persuade the Poles to negotiate.
After the Polish government had been misled by promises of a full-scale French offensive against Germany, France would instead fight an almost purely defensive war against Germany. The thought was that trenches and fixed defenses would be roughly as effective in WWII as they had been in WWI. In the spring of 1940, the Allied armies arrayed in the west were, at least on paper, stronger than their German counterparts. The Allies had more men, and more and better tanks.
The British and French empires had more industrial capacity and access to raw materials than did Germany. Plus the British and French had the option of purchasing large quantities of weapons from the United States. The Allies had the option of putting that industrial capacity to use on the ground (tanks and artillery) or in the air (a bombing campaign).
The British imposed a food blockade on Germany during WWII, just as they had in WWI. Part of the plan for victory was to starve the Germans into submission, as had been done in the last war.
The British and the French were strongly influenced by the theories of Douhet. Douhet was a strong proponent of strategic bombing. Like most other prewar planners, he significantly overestimated the damage a strategic bombing campaign could do to civilian populations.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_bombing#Period_between_the_world_wars
Douhet’s theories were successfully put into action in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) where RAF bombers used conventional bombs, gas bombs, and strafed civilian populations identified as engaging in guerrilla uprisings. Arthur Harris, a young RAF squadron commander (later nicknamed “Bomber”), reported after a mission in 1924, “The Arab and Kurd now know what real bombing means, in casualties and damage. They know that within 45 minutes a full-sized village can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured.”
Arthur Harris would later play a leading role in employing British bombers in the systematic destruction of the German population; and on a much larger scale than the bombing missions conducted against Arab and Kurdish villages during the '20s. It was felt that the starvation caused by the Allied food blockade, in combination with the death and destruction of the bombing attacks against German cities, would cause the German morale to collapse; and the German population to lose its will to fight.
Even after the fall of France; the basic Allied strategy of starvation of the people within German-held territory, plus bombing of German cities, proved very difficult to counter. It was the sort of strategy destined to create a long, grinding war well-suited to take advantage of the massive Anglo-American advantage in industrial strength. One of Hitler’s hopes in invading the Soviet Union was to gain access to the industrial capacity, manpower, and access to raw materials he needed to even the odds in this war waged against civilians. However, he would have been better served waiting until 1945 to invade the Soviet Union; even despite the fact that he would have been at a significant disadvantage to the British in the meantime. Germany in 1941 - ‘42 simply lacked the industrial capacity it needed to match the Soviets’ production of land or even air weapons.
The usual fantasy where every German weapon is assumed to be 100% successful and the Allies stand by and do nothing to counter the threat.
The truth is Allied Jets were in the wings, proximity fused radar guided guns would deal with any missiles. Millions of Panzerfausts were made and they did not stop the T34 or the Sherman. I could go on but I know someone is going to bring up Nazi Flying Saucers and secret Artic Bases!
Probably any scenario for an Axis victory involves at least a small element of fantasy; as the odds were heavily stacked against them.
It is true there were Allied jets in development. Allied jets used centrifugal flow jet engines. That type of jet engine had the advantage of being relatively well-understood, and was a relatively simple design that was comparatively easy to engineer and to build. However, the kind of centrifugal flow jet engines used by the Allies were associated with severe technical limitations; which is why late in the war Allied jet were not better than the best available piston-driven craft.
German engineers avoided the limitations associated with centrifugal flow jet engines by replacing the centrifugal compressor with the axial compressor. This was a radical change; and entailed years of engineering headaches before the problems could be ironed out. But once they were, Germany had a jet engine that was significantly better than anything the Allies had. M2 262s shot down 500 Allied aircraft to only 100 losses (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262 ); an exchange ratio which demonstrates the Germans had obtained a commanding qualitative advantage. From the same article:
Willy Messerschmitt regarded the Me 262 as only an interim type when it went into production.
Swept wings had been proposed as early as 1935 by Adolf Busemann, and Messerschmitt had researched the topic from 1940. In April 1941, he proposed fitting a 35° swept wing (Pfeilflügel II, literally “arrow wing II”) to the Me 262,[30] the same wing sweep angle that would later be used on both the American F-86 Sabre and Soviet MiG-15 fighter jets. Though this was not implemented, he continued with the projected HG II and HG III (Hochgeschwindigkeit, “high speed”) derivatives in 1944, which were designed with a 35° and 45° wing sweep, respectively.[31]
Interest in high-speed flight, which led him to initiate work on swept wings starting in 1940, is evident from the advanced developments Messerschmitt had on his drawing board in 1944. While the Me 262 HG I actually flight tested in 1944 had only small changes compared to combat aircraft, most notably a low-profile canopy (tried as the Rennkabine (literally “racing cabin”) on the Me 262 V9 prototype for a short time) to reduce drag, the HG II and HG III designs were far more radical. The projected HG II combined the low-drag canopy with a 35° wing sweep and a butterfly tail. The HG III had a conventional tail, but a 45° wing sweep and turbines embedded in the wing roots.[32]
Given the above plans, and the aerodynamics research being conducted at the Göttingen laboratory, it is likely the Luftwaffe would have maintained or increased its qualitative advantage for the next several years. As for the Panzerfaust–the early versions had a disappointing range of only 30 m. However, the widely-produced Panzerfaust 60 had a range of 60 meters. Toward the end of the war, Germany began producing the Panzerfaust 100 (range of 100 m). Near the end of the war, it deployed limited numbers of the Panzerfaust 150; and was in the process of developing the Panzerfaust 250. Each version of the Panzerfaust–from the Panzerfaust 30 on–could penetrate 200 mm of enemy armor; with later versions having improved armor penetration.
In Normandy, 6% of British tank losses were because of Panzerfausts. The proportion later rose to 34%; due partially to the lack of other German anti-tank measures, and partially to the improvement of the Panzerfaust.
Edit: the purpose of the Panzerfaust wouldn’t necessarily have been to destroy the enemy tank force outright. Rather, widespread deployment of the Panzerfaust would have made it far more difficult for enemy tanks (unprotected by infantry) to obtain breakthroughs or offensive advances against German infantry. The fact that German infantry would have been able to hold their own against enemy tanks would also have had the added benefit of freeing up other German forces for other purposes (as opposed to being confined to anti-tank duties). The Panzerfaust was not a miracle weapon; but it did have the potential to exert significant influence on the outcome of a land war given a rough degree of parity.
Proximity fused radar guided guns might be good against airplanes but in now way would they be the least effective at knocking out V2s. A scud missle is basically a V2 and the patriot missle had a dubious record against the Scud nevermind technology that is 50 years older. It’s very difficult to time out the explosion when the combinded speed is Mach 4+. There was ZERO defense against the V2 but as a military weapon, the V2 was lacking. Unless of course you mate it with nerve gas or a nuclear warhead.
The only real counter to the Me-262 was to hang around the airports and wait until they came in for fuel and shoot 'em down when they try to land. There were lots of 262s but they lacked fuel and trained pilots. With sufficient numbers you get air superiority which there Germans never really had at any point during the war.
The bottom line is that Germany was heavily investing in technology both basic as in materials research and specific as in jet engines and synthetic fuels. The allies were not to any great extent.
How did Poland provoke the Germans into attacking?
How did Poland provoke the Germans into attacking?
they didn’t, they just were in between…
