Better German AA

How long would it extend the war if German AA was more financed, and researched than it was OTL. where they actually focused more on their defense than offensive during the american offensive.

how would events be different. and what AA designs could be eventually developed, (i believe i heard of rockets, and a lot of AA bunkers that were on the drawing board, but were turned down by hitler).
 
My guess would be somewhere between lasting slightly longer and going down much sooner depending on where they pull the money from.
 
German air defense strategy centered about fixed flak emplacements, so resources that could've gone to night-fighting Luftwaffe units instead went to production of flak guns and shells, which proved to be incredibly wasteful and inefficient compared to equivalent industrial output of planes. Better anti-air technology would simply increase production costs and soak up more German industrial manpower that was desperately needed for production of armor and aircraft on other fronts.

Switching German air defense strategy more towards an emphasis on Luftwaffe night-fighters would do much more to harm the RAF's Bomber Command and later on the day time raids by the 8th Air Force. However, the heavy usage of fixed flak emplacements was seen by the German leadership as a necessary element for propaganda and morale purposes, since you could have local civilian anti-air volunteers manning those flak guns to do their part for the war effort.
 
CC - more German night fighters would require more German night-fighter pilots (and, ideally, reasonably well-trained pilots), along with more fuel and more engines. Not sure that that's a recipe for success.
 
Agreed. I'm just arguing that the lopsided emphasis on flak defenses resulted in decreased output of armor and munitions that could've gone to the Eastern Front. Combined with the fact that most of Bomber Command's casualties resulted from the nightfighters, the Germans just as well might've cut back on relatively ineffective flak defenses and shifted production to more useful war materiel.

Increasing nightfighter units might be just as infeasible a proposition, but flak production was more evidently so.
 
And it would've gone to much better use against Soviet armor on the Eastern Front than stuck blindly firing shells into the skies over the Ruhr.
 
Intruder missions were very successful but were canned because Hitler thought the German people needed to see that they were being defended. The moral of the story is attack, attack, attack! AA money, or a portion thereof, would have been well spent on intruder missions against bomber bases.
 
simple high tech things

The one thing that could have made a difference was the avaiability of proximity fuses. Late in the war those made a huge diference in the efectiveness of US AA fire, turning the 5''/38 into a better aircraft killer. If the germans had proximity fuses to go with their radar directed twin 128mm flak units they could have made allied raids far more costly.
 

Rubicon

Banned
The one thing that could have made a difference was the avaiability of proximity fuses. Late in the war those made a huge diference in the efectiveness of US AA fire, turning the 5''/38 into a better aircraft killer. If the germans had proximity fuses to go with their radar directed twin 128mm flak units they could have made allied raids far more costly.
Agreed, and the Germans could have had proximity fuses developed and ready to go into production sometime during 1941.

Imagine German artillery on the eastern front with proximity fuses against the human wave attacks of the Red Army *shudders*
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Agreed, and the Germans could have had proximity fuses developed and ready to go into production sometime during 1941.

Imagine German artillery on the eastern front with proximity fuses against the human wave attacks of the Red Army *shudders*

While somewhat useful against troops, the real "bang for the buck" (hey, I rarely use puns, but this one is just too easy) would have been in AAA. The Rheinmetall fuse, if it had worked even 50% as well as designed (sensitivity of four meters instead of two) would have been brutal against bomber boxes, especially when used with the 128mm dual mount.

Yet another unintended gift to the Allied Bomber Offenisve by Hitler and his lunacy (stop this program because it wouldn't be ready for deployment in six months but delay the Swallow so it can become a bomber).
 

Cook

Banned
I’m surprised that no-one has mentioned Wasserfall yet. Without constant political medalling and with priority given to Wasserfall they could have had batteries of SAMs operational from late 1943, early 1944 in very large numbers. That would have made an enormous difference.
 
I’m surprised that no-one has mentioned Wasserfall yet. Without constant political medalling and with priority given to Wasserfall they could have had batteries of SAMs operational from late 1943, early 1944 in very large numbers. That would have made an enormous difference.

The thing about the Wasserfall was that it was very easy to jam and the Allies were very good at ECM.
 

Rubicon

Banned
While somewhat useful against troops, the real "bang for the buck" (hey, I rarely use puns, but this one is just too easy) would have been in AAA. The Rheinmetall fuse, if it had worked even 50% as well as designed (sensitivity of four meters instead of two) would have been brutal against bomber boxes, especially when used with the 128mm dual mount.

Yet another unintended gift to the Allied Bomber Offenisve by Hitler and his lunacy (stop this program because it wouldn't be ready for deployment in six months but delay the Swallow so it can become a bomber).

While I agree with the overall sentiment (that proximity fuses are generally more useful for the AAA then the regular artillery) I disagree with the 'somewhat'. Proximity fuses are the main reason why leg infantry has become virtually useless on the 'modern' battlefield (that and it's lack of mobility).

The capabilities of the leg infantry to perform offensive actions became extinct with the Proximity fuses and the role of the leg infantry reduced to mere defensive actions. To perform offensive actions the infantry would have to be fully mechanized in completely enclosed APC vehicles. The armoured half-tracks in use by the USA and Germany at the time would be inadequate.

Thus my reasoning that the human wave attacks performed by the Red Army would get *nasty*, even nastier then IRL.
 
Infantry still has legs

Proximity fuses just made overhead protection mandatory. Being caught in the open was always dangerous for us, and overhead bursts could have been scored before proximity fuses by using time fuses. All the firepower in the world couldn't keep the Chinese from saving north korea, and they did it with light infantry.
The current trend for MRAP everything has more to do with western aversion to casualties than with firepower issues.
 
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