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Well, in one area they are already hit by 1957. That's the aircraft industry. Duncan Sandys, the defense minister then had put out a white paper declaring manned fighters and most other manned aircraft would no longer be necessary and had pretty much wrecked the whole of Britain's aircraft...

I gave examples. On aircraft carriers, the German design for the Graf Zeppelin was pretty much rubbish. The trolley-catapult launch system was overly complex, relatively fragile, and very limited in ability to put a strike up of any useful size. While the Japanese had some issues with their...

That's pretty much just what the US did in Argentina's case as that nation was very reluctant to enter the war on the Allied side...

With firearms and cannon you really couldn't go beyond smoothbores whatever the propellant. For example in the ACW bronze rifled cannon were tried in small numbers (the James Rifle). Erosion of the rifling was very rapid. Another problem would be what you use for shot. Lead for small arms would...

Their Type 88 75mm AA gun was adequate for their field needs. It was about a third the weight of an 88, a big consideration for the Japanese. A better machinegun really doesn't bring anything to the table if they are still using it in the same numbers and tables of organization. For the...

That's a fuzing issue, not a torpedo issue. If the Germans had a better fuze for their own torpedoes it would have helped, just as the same goes for many models of US one.

Aircraft carriers definitely. Another was the cavity magnetron which Japan beat even Britain to. However, the small size of the Japanese radar program (less than 1000 workers total split between the two services with no interaction between the two) kept them from putting a microwave radar...

Actually, that was just a mechanical and materials issue. It ruined reliability. The compressor problem was a major issue. For example, it was a serious problem with BMW's 002 to the point they dropped it and went to the 003. It's first use on the Me 262 V1 was so disastrous they spent a...

This article pretty much drives a stake through the heart of this what if... http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-067.htm So, the problem isn't a better torpedo, it's lack of a better fire control system and means of guiding the torpedo to its target...

The Sparrow did poorly in Vietnam mainly because it was designed for long range shooting and ROE's prevented it. Falcon had several issues that made it fail: http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-4.html

ASB territory. Not one South American nation in the late 30's had a military that was anywhere near first rate. Most had a collection of iffy units equipped with obsolescent to obsolete equipment, lacked motorization, lacked artillery and other heavy weapons, had no air forces, and had small...

Pretty much. The US ends trade with the South American countries that join the Axis. A blockade is enforced and their economies start to collapse. The US on entering the war invades these nations and pretty much in short order stomps them into the ground as not one has a "real" military to...

The reason for that was the urgency wasn't the same. The US in the 1950's assumed the Soviets were building an ICBM and didn't want to be caught without one of their own. There was more breathing room for follow on generations. The USN used Thor to test their IRBM needs and then developed...

The reason so many designs were used was that the USAF wanted to get an IRBM and then an ICBM operational as quickly as possible. To that end, they copied many larger WW 2 programs and used parallel development to ensure that they'd get a system that worked as quickly as possible. For WW 2...

Reconstruction started with Andrew Johnson after Lincoln's assassination. Johnson in many ways made a botch of the whole process particularly when his choices conflicted directly with Republicans in congress. It came to a head with Johnson's impeachment. One might note that Johnson switched...

The Martini Henry suffered from jamming of cartridges when hot. This typically manifested itself around 20 + rounds fired rapidly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martini%E2%80%93Henry Otherwise it was a decent rifle. The Mauser on the other hand has what became the standard for bolt...

A small point... The German jet engine program would have suffered a major setback. Their program relied heavily on engineering assistance from the Swiss turbine firm Brown Boveri. Without their help, turbine design for jet engines would have been much more difficult, hence their engine...

I'd say they did that and it didn't work out too well.

I'd say it was rather Hitler saw the Soviet Union, and particularly the Red Army as ripe for defeat. It wasn't ideology there. After France fell the OKW and Hitler started planning all sorts of wild, impossible expansions like taking the Azores for example. Britain, then the US occupied...

Because, if the original propellants are used (RNFA / Red Fuming Nitric Acid and Furfuryl alcohol, called Visol by the Germans) the missile trails a thick reddish brown trail of smoke behind it. It would be sending up the proverbial red flag as to its presence...