What if Nazi Germany had some super weapon or other developed before WW2 was started? This can be accomplished by funneling resources from some other wonder weapon projects or something. The real question I am trying to get at is whether any of their concepts were feasible, and could have affected the course of the war. Not necessarily a Nazi victory, but something to change the war itself.
Some Nazi "wonder weapon" is developed by WW2
- Thread starter El Speculador
- Start date
Technically they had some wonder weapon: The stg 44, the Me 262, V1, V2.
But before the WW2 the German didn't needed super weapon, just very good, reliable ones. In fact, at the beginning of the war, most of their weapons (not all, obviously) were inferior to the allied ones. It was their doctrine and experience that tipple the balance.
But before the WW2 the German didn't needed super weapon, just very good, reliable ones. In fact, at the beginning of the war, most of their weapons (not all, obviously) were inferior to the allied ones. It was their doctrine and experience that tipple the balance.
on Stg 44
already in 1918 the german Army study the use of 7.92 x 32 mm Short ammo, also for Machine-guns (that's ammo used by Stg 44)
But conservative high command ignore that proposal
already in 1918 the german Army study the use of 7.92 x 32 mm Short ammo, also for Machine-guns (that's ammo used by Stg 44)
But conservative high command ignore that proposal
If you look back at the timing of the different proposals in OTL, a lot of advanced electronics based ideas came in 1937. It could be chance, but also helped by the official request send out to German research institutions that scientists had to report discoveries that might have military use.
Imagine that happening in 1933 you might see proximity fuses, guided bombs, electroboote, advanced radar like the "Dete" and just maybe jets in time for WW2. So that's quite a techno POD right there.
Some of this assumes that the OTL inventors had the idea before they went forward with it in OTL. Likely, but not a given thing.
Imagine that happening in 1933 you might see proximity fuses, guided bombs, electroboote, advanced radar like the "Dete" and just maybe jets in time for WW2. So that's quite a techno POD right there.
Some of this assumes that the OTL inventors had the idea before they went forward with it in OTL. Likely, but not a given thing.
None of those three examples were wonder weapons they all were quite well known.
Assault Gliders, the US was working on them in 1918
Magnetic Mines, the British were using them in 1918
Enigma, It was a copy of a commercial code machine manufactured by a German company Chiffriermaschinen Aktien-Gesellschaft. It was in use by the armed forces of Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Japan and lots of Banks and other financial institutions. Britain had its version Type-X and the US had the SIGABA and the M209
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typex
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-209
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIGABA
Now if you want a really alternate WW 1, the V-1's pulse jet engine, the earliest patent on such a thing is 1864.
Hell, with a bit of technical piracy, and bodging and kitbashing masquerading as development, the world could have seen jet flying bombs at Appomattox.
How much difference eighty years of research and development could make...well, it really would be an alternative history.
Hell, with a bit of technical piracy, and bodging and kitbashing masquerading as development, the world could have seen jet flying bombs at Appomattox.
How much difference eighty years of research and development could make...well, it really would be an alternative history.
Nothing of it the Nazis would have been able to develop didn't have a chance to change the course of the war. The Nazis had simply more enough resources for that.
And even if they had arrived there, the allies began too to develop great weapons.
I take an example: the super-heavy tanks (Pz VIII Maus and E-series). These tanks, so put into service, would have been an unbearable wasting of resources (steel, rubber, nikel, copper and gasoline) and wouldn't even have been able to knock down the balance, the Americans being about to put into service technically superior tanks (T-95, T26E1, T-32 and future T-34). The same thing of the Soviet side (IS-3 and IS-4) or English (Tortoise, Centurion).
The war was lost for Hitler from the end of the battle of Moscow, when Wehrmarcht has of pass in a war of attrition instead of a blitzkrieg.
PS : And let us not forget that all the marvels developed by German were counterbalanced by the mass production of the allies (for one Pz VI Tiger the Russians took out 6 T-34).
Deleted member 1487
Arguably a V-1 missile barrage against London non-stop from August 1940 on would probably force Britain from the war within a year
But V-1 was not ready in 40, the technologies were not still in the point (when at the idea of using it). If need be if Hitler had not been so stupid (and I am polite) Me-262 would maybe have been able to be ready for the end of 1941, what would have not bad changed the course of the war for 8th Army Air force and Bomber Command
Deleted member 1487
I'm saying that if it would have been ready, as another poster suggested it was possible had it been conceived of. It wasn't exactly cutting edge technology like the Me262 was (no way that could have been ready before 1943 because of the engines). Really the only hard part of the V-1 was the guidance system, which would have been doable had efforts been started there pre-war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1_flying_bomb#Design_and_development
Arguably its not that hard to get someone to come up with the idea in 1936 and have a version of the V-1 ready in 1940.
Completely True.
But you should not forget the mentality of the army in the time. Most still thought as in 14-18 (it was in particular the case of Hitler). I do not say that V-1 would not have been able to arrive in 36 just taken from the head of a brilliant Von Braun or Goddard. On the other hand I see badly general officers as Brauchitsch or Keitel, who had difficulty in accepting the idea of the Blow of Sickle in 40, or same Göring to accept straightaway the idea to use V-1 for a barrage on London. And it in a time when Luftwaffe crossed capable of solving the RAF problem in anticipation of Seelöwe. What was the case until Hitler makes the bullshit distract the luftwaffe of the English aerodromes to throw it on cities to avenge the bombardment of Berlin
Maybe but... resources??
The more fundamental flaw with giving the Nazis wonder-weapns of any sort in useful quantities is the absolutely dire state of the German economy in 1939-40. It really was "robbing Peter to pay Paul" as far as armaments production was concerned. For a mass of V-1s Germany might have had to sacrifice Ju-88 production, or abandon building Bismarck and Tirpitz. Or have fewer Panzer Divisions. Or less ammunition for the artillery.
Now a POD to make the German economy stronger in the late 1930s might also give the wherewithal for V-1s or something else useful in 1940. However, given that the German economy in 1933 was very much not the highly advanced West Germany of the 1960s it's difficult to achieve.
After i digest Tooze, i'll see if something comes to mind re improving the German economy. One core problem IMHO is the Nazi Romantic Idyll of a Peasant and Craft based Aryan society. Which isn't really consistent with moving technical innovation into mass production, nor seeking "the good enough" rather than the perfect. Reluctance to move peasant farmers into higher value industry was thus an ideological constraint. However, there were also scarcities of necessary imported inputs that simply meant German industrial output couldn't be grown much more than achieved, no matter what sacrifices its people might have been asked to make. Not to mention simple capacity constraints on transport and basic goods (cement, steel, etc) and limits on possible investment. Nazi ideology had an adverse impact ion trade and financial relations with the UK, France and US, which to some extent explains the import problems.
Still, provided we accept that something greatly additional to the 1940 German military establishment is a bit ASB it makes an interesting discussion point. For a realistic TL though having V-1s needs to be mostly at the expense of something else Germany built up in 1938-40.
Perhaps. But the V-1 was very inaccurate and the UK could accelerate the development of faster fighters and extra AA to reduce their effects. Plus bombing of the launch sites, though maybe it would need to sacrifice a "R" class or 2 BB in a bombardment for that to work.
The more fundamental flaw with giving the Nazis wonder-weapns of any sort in useful quantities is the absolutely dire state of the German economy in 1939-40. It really was "robbing Peter to pay Paul" as far as armaments production was concerned. For a mass of V-1s Germany might have had to sacrifice Ju-88 production, or abandon building Bismarck and Tirpitz. Or have fewer Panzer Divisions. Or less ammunition for the artillery.
Now a POD to make the German economy stronger in the late 1930s might also give the wherewithal for V-1s or something else useful in 1940. However, given that the German economy in 1933 was very much not the highly advanced West Germany of the 1960s it's difficult to achieve.
After i digest Tooze, i'll see if something comes to mind re improving the German economy. One core problem IMHO is the Nazi Romantic Idyll of a Peasant and Craft based Aryan society. Which isn't really consistent with moving technical innovation into mass production, nor seeking "the good enough" rather than the perfect. Reluctance to move peasant farmers into higher value industry was thus an ideological constraint. However, there were also scarcities of necessary imported inputs that simply meant German industrial output couldn't be grown much more than achieved, no matter what sacrifices its people might have been asked to make. Not to mention simple capacity constraints on transport and basic goods (cement, steel, etc) and limits on possible investment. Nazi ideology had an adverse impact ion trade and financial relations with the UK, France and US, which to some extent explains the import problems.
Still, provided we accept that something greatly additional to the 1940 German military establishment is a bit ASB it makes an interesting discussion point. For a realistic TL though having V-1s needs to be mostly at the expense of something else Germany built up in 1938-40.
Deleted member 1487
The shift from airfields to cities is often misunderstood, the point wasn't to destroy airfield ever, it was to force the last reserves of British fighters to battle so that they could be destroyed, which was the strategy of the USAAF in 1943-44; by going after London the RAF Fighter Command could not stay out of the fight and husband its strength, but it could do that if it just had to abandon a few airfields. The problem was the Germans had bad intelligence on British fighter production and seriously underestimated how many fighters were left, so when they got their battle and found out the RAF was a long way from defeated they abandoned their plan for Sealion. Since the end of the war the RAF has wargamed the BoB several times and found that there was basically no way for the Luftwaffe to win the BoB unless the RAF made extremely stupid mistakes.
Deleted member 1487
Perhaps. But the V-1 was very inaccurate and the UK could accelerate the development of faster fighters and extra AA to reduce their effects. Plus bombing of the launch sites, though maybe it would need to sacrifice a "R" class or 2 BB in a bombardment for that to work.
The more fundamental flaw with giving the Nazis wonder-weapns of any sort in useful quantities is the absolutely dire state of the German economy in 1939-40. It really was "robbing Peter to pay Paul" as far as armaments production was concerned. For a mass of V-1s Germany might have had to sacrifice Ju-88 production, or abandon building Bismarck and Tirpitz. Or have fewer Panzer Divisions. Or less ammunition for the artillery.
Now a POD to make the German economy stronger in the late 1930s might also give the wherewithal for V-1s or something else useful in 1940. However, given that the German economy in 1933 was very much not the highly advanced West Germany of the 1960s it's difficult to achieve.
After i digest Tooze, i'll see if something comes to mind re improving the German economy. One core problem IMHO is the Nazi Romantic Idyll of a Peasant and Craft based Aryan society. Which isn't really consistent with moving technical innovation into mass production, nor seeking "the good enough" rather than the perfect. Reluctance to move peasant farmers into higher value industry was thus an ideological constraint. However, there were also scarcities of necessary imported inputs that simply meant German industrial output couldn't be grown much more than achieved, no matter what sacrifices its people might have been asked to make. Not to mention simple capacity constraints on transport and basic goods (cement, steel, etc) and limits on possible investment. Nazi ideology had an adverse impact ion trade and financial relations with the UK, France and US, which to some extent explains the import problems.
Still, provided we accept that something greatly additional to the 1940 German military establishment is a bit ASB it makes an interesting discussion point. For a realistic TL though having V-1s needs to be mostly at the expense of something else Germany built up in 1938-40.
Britain did not have the resources or ability to counter the V-1 in 1940-42 and even attempting to do so would badly affect the war effort. Also the resources and facilities needed for BBs and bombers are vastly different.
As to resources they were there, the German aircraft industry was highly inefficient in 1936-41 due to Udet organizing production. Tooze has a lot of issues with his analysis, so I'd take him with a grain of salt on issues of aero-production. Also to say that the Nazis were against technology is ignoring the fact that farm labor fell the entire pre-war period as the Nazis employed people in new industries built from scratch.
Also the V-1 was dirt cheap, so even foregoing a few He111s or Ju88s would be an easy trade off as the V-1 was 2-4% of an He111 airframe without engines or other equipment.
Me 262 was at an advanced stage even before WWII according to Wiki.
... But the Meteor was not far behind.
So, although Me 262 was hardly a wonder weapon, it could have had an impact IF
- produced in numbers
- focused on air superiority
- no bombs attached!
The engineering challenges were immense, but not impossible if necessary will-power had been put behind it (as with the Meteor for that as well).
BoB would have been different if Germany had squadrons upon squadrons of Me 262
That said, if that would have been so, Meteor and others would also have been developed to counter it.
So, WWII with jets?
Ivan
... But the Meteor was not far behind.
So, although Me 262 was hardly a wonder weapon, it could have had an impact IF
- produced in numbers
- focused on air superiority
- no bombs attached!
The engineering challenges were immense, but not impossible if necessary will-power had been put behind it (as with the Meteor for that as well).
BoB would have been different if Germany had squadrons upon squadrons of Me 262
That said, if that would have been so, Meteor and others would also have been developed to counter it.
So, WWII with jets?
Ivan
RAF during the battle of England was about to tear. It is not I which the said it's Dowding himself. So materially as humanely she could not face any more for a very long time. Until Berlin is bombarded and imposes an affront to Hitler and Göring who had planned nothing as defense over Reich (the famous: If a single enemy bomb falls one day on Berlin, I am willing to be called Meier). Hitler, who was not a strategist but a blood ideologist wanted to avenge this insult, losing just the once will not hurt the sense of the priorities, and threw his bombers on the English cities to the place e to continue to bombard the English aerodromes of the South, what would have allowed him to obtain the air superiority over the Channel, indispensable condition for Seelöwe. After that would have been for the price of big sacrifices for the luftwaffe which would not have been able to play the role which it had during Barbarossa