German computers in WW2

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Deleted member 1487

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Zuse
Unlike England, Germany didn't really support its computer program, which was pretty much one man working in his basement: Konrad Zuse.
He ended up completing the world's first Turing complete computer the Z3:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z3_(computer)
Design and development

Zuse designed the Z1 in 1935 to 1936 and built it from 1936 to 1938. The Z1 was wholly mechanical and only worked for a few minutes at a time at most. Helmut Schreyer advised Zuse to use a different technology. As a doctoral student at the Berlin Institute of Technology in 1937 he worked on the implementation of Boolean operations and (in today's terminology) flip-flops on the basis of vacuum tubes (valves). In 1938 Schreyer demonstrated a circuit on this basis to a small audience and explained his vision of an electronic computing machine – but since the largest operational electronic devices contained far fewer tubes this was considered practically unfeasible.[4]
Zuse decided to implement the next design based on relays. The realization of the Z2 was helped financially by Dr. Kurt Pannke, who manufactured small calculating machines. The Z2 was completed in 1939 and presented to an audience of the Deutsche Versuchsanstalt für Luftfahrt ("German Laboratory for Aviation") in 1940 in Berlin-Adlershof. Zuse was lucky – this presentation was one of the few instances where the Z2 actually worked and could convince the DVL to partly finance the next design.[4]
Improving on the basic Z2 machine, he built the Z3 in 1941, which was a highly secret project of the German government.[5] Dr. Jenissen, member of the Reich Air Ministry acted as a government supervisor for orders of the ministry to Zuse's company ZUSE Apparatebau.[6]
The Z3 was completed in 1941 and was faster and far more reliable than the Z1 and Z2. The Z3 floating point was improved over that of the Z1 in that it implemented exception handling. The exceptional values plus infinity, minus infinity and undefined could be generated and passed through operations. The Z3 stored its program on an external tape, thus for reprogramming no rewiring was necessary to change programs.
On 12 May 1941 the Z3 was presented to an audience of scientists including the professors Alfred Teichmann and Curt Schmieden[7] of the Deutsche Versuchsanstalt für Luftfahrt ("German Laboratory for Aviation"), in Berlin.[8]
Zuse moved onto the Z4 design; this was built as the war ended.
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His other computers the Z1 and Z2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z1_(computer)
were ready prewar. These could have been incredibly helpful in research calculations and code breaking, but were not really exploited for these goals. One of Germany's problems in WW2 in the area of research was not being able to handle all of the calculations necessary, which led to scientists 'fudging' numbers and using inferior research as a result, simply due to lack of manpower and tools to crunch vast amounts of data.
Similarly Germany's code breaking efforts could have been aided by computing help.

What if Germany works to mass produce this device and distribute it to labs and code breaking services liberally? Given the wasted efforts on things like the V1 and V2 rockets, Germany easily could have afforded producing 100 machines a year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z3_(computer)
OTL:
Zuse asked the German government for funding to replace the relays with fully electronic switches, but funding was denied during World War II since such development was deemed "not war-important".[3]
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What effect would it have had on the war? Germany may well have rebroken convoy codes after 1940 and other Allied codes, which could have netted them important operational and strategic information.
Research-wise the Germans wasted major efforts with failed airplanes that proved unworkable in practice, despite seemingly working in theory. Had they had better means of calculation the wasted efforts wit the Me210 could have been offset somewhat. Heck, the V2 project might have moved quicker too, not to mention the Wassfall SAM missile or other projects I'm not thinking of.
 
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TofuTanker

I'm sure it would have helped the Germans. Is it possible that they could have seen through Operation Fortitude?

Kissinger said:
Nice idea, but its NAZI germany here, intelligence is not needed to join
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That doesn't make any sense. Are you saying that for the Germans to fund a computer project is ASB? It's a simple POD. You must be joking.
 

Deleted member 1487

KyleB said:
That doesn't make any sense. Are you saying that for the Germans to fund a computer project is ASB? It's a simple POD. You must be joking.
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Germany funded the research OTL, but to a minor degree and cancelled the grant after the 1940 Führerbefehl to limit funding to short term projects because the war was supposed to end soon.

So this POD is that someone up top realizes the benefits of a computer...like have a scientist complain to Goering about the lack of mechanical calculators and have him discover the project during a funding request (Goering funded research heavily).

Kissinger said:
Nice idea, but its NAZI germany here, intelligence is not needed to join
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The major Nazi problem wasn't research or at least funding it, rather development was lacking, which is what Zuse needed. However given the right focus the regime moved heaven and earth for its favored projects, just look at the resources that went into the V-weapons!
 

Kissinger

Banned
wiking said:
Germany funded the research OTL, but to a minor degree and cancelled the grant after the 1940 Führerbefehl to limit funding to short term projects because the war was supposed to end soon.

So this POD is that someone up top realizes the benefits of a computer...like have a scientist complain to Goering about the lack of mechanical calculators and have him discover the project during a funding request (Goering funded research heavily).



The major Nazi problem wasn't research or at least funding it, rather development was lacking, which is what Zuse needed. However given the right focus the regime moved heaven and earth for its favored projects, just look at the resources that went into the V-weapons!
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over 2000 V-2s at for the month of May alone.
 

Deleted member 1487

Kissinger said:
over 2000 V-2s at for the month of May alone.
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Huh? May 1944 or 1945? Pretty much though goes to show what could have been thrown at the project if chosen for continual development during the war. Even 100 Z3s and Z4s could have had major benefits for the Germans and the regime had no reason to not build them, but the lack of knowledge of the need for the project and lack of awareness about it thanks to ridiculously stringent security laws by the very people who could have utilized and requested it prevented it from taking off. The right circumstances, a chance meeting or some such, easily could have caused major resources, compared to OTL, to be poured into development and production of the device, putting the Germans well ahead of the Allies in computing technology.
 

phx1138

wiking said:
Z1 and Z2 were ready prewar. These could have been incredibly helpful in research calculations and code breaking
...
Germany may well have rebroken convoy codes after 1940 and other Allied codes, which could have netted them important operational and strategic information.
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The Allied convoy codes were pretty crude & really didn't need computers to break them.:rolleyes:

To get the kind of change you're proposing IMO needs a radical change to the German military-scientific culture. Unlike Britain, where scientists could tell military officers what they were capable of & learn what the military needed,:rolleyes: in Germany, it was much more one-way dictation of military needs, with almost no actual exchange, & so almost total ignorance by officers of what science could do, or do for them. Plus, Germany made extremely high quality equipments, needlessly high in many cases;:eek: compare the Brits jury-rigging radars & such... (Or the over-finished tanks against the T-34.:rolleyes:)
wiking said:
Even 100 Z3s and Z4s
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:eek::eek::eek: The Brits, with the need to break Enigma, only used about 12 of the Colossus electronic calculators.:rolleyes: Germany needing 100, or 20, is a big stretch.:rolleyes:
 
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