Could Nazi tech have helped Japan?

Me-262's in the Pacific?

Didn't the IJA fighter Hein represent a Japanese version (more or less) of the Me-109? AIUI, the Army pilots held it in contempt because it was seen as a hangar queen. Too complex for Japanese engineering.

Speaking of hanger queens, I understand that a completely disassembled Me-262 Swallow:eek: (loaded with specs and technical advisors) was halfway to the Cape of Good Hope in a specially adapted U-Boat on its way to deliver its cargo to Japan. They were given Doenitz's order to surrender to the nearest Allied port, which they did. But the two Japanese engineers onboard elected to commit suicide rather than surrender.
 
Is the answer to 'What would make the deadliest platform to the crew in WWII'

A boat filled with high purity H2O2 and O2?

whatever could go wrong?

Google 'HMS Exploder' and 'Type 95 Torpedo'

Russian kept, and keep, using HTP torpedoes.
 
Didn't the IJA fighter Hein represent a Japanese version (more or less) of the Me-109? AIUI, the Army pilots held it in contempt because it was seen as a hangar queen. Too complex for Japanese engineering.

No. The Ki-61 shared a common engine, more or less. AIUI, Army pilots gained a high speed dive and armor protection in addition to the range and manoueverability that they were used to. The Ki-60 was inspired by the He-100, and was a fail. The Ki-61 had the German airframe influence excised. The Ki-100 deleted the German engine.
 
The real question is what could have extended the war, increased Allied casualties, and potentially have motivated the U.S. to be even slightly more flexible when the inevitable arrived (although I think that this last element might be more than can be achieved).

The following 3 bits of German technology/concepts (if provided as early as possible, or developed jointly) could have made the war more costly for the allies:

1. Effective shipboard and airborne radars.
2. A coherent air warning and air defense system for the Home Islands.
3. High-performance/high altitude aero engines
4. Effective shipboard anti-aircraft weapons (better cannon and director systems)
 
A couple additions. A copy of Werner Moelders revised Boelke Dicta, and some FuG 7 Radios for the Zeroes and their pilots. Japanese fighter pilots were quite cavalier in their approach to air combat manoeuvering and tactics, and relied on hand signalling. Also, there was no verbal comms between carriers and their CAP. Also maybe a better gun sight.
 
I read somewhere where the Ki-61 was a maintenance nightmare. It was bad enough in Japan but those overseas frequently got pushed aside as spare parts simply couldn't be had and they ended up on the junk heap. Later on as engine quality declined even further airframes started to stack up. This led to development of the Ki-100 - the same airframe with a radial engine. Ironically enough this turned the Ki-61 into a reliable, powerful fighter. But it was too little, too late...
 

hammo1j

Donor
Thank you every one for contributions - as always the Japanese could never escape against a superior enemy only prolong their agony.

It does set me thinking though what would have happened if a fully assembled 163 got through the U-Boat channel.

The B29's had announced in advance the cities they would destroy.

This gave the Komet a major advantage. 300 of the hand built aircraft took off. 70 were destroyed on take-off.

Saburo Nakakitchi flew his rocket plane towards the B29.

"HIT THEM IN THE BOMBBAY" his elder instructors had commanded.

But the closing speed was too great and the rocket was headed for outer space. he came round again and the B29 robot guns opened up at full rpm against his flimsy machine.

He landed with half his wing blown away and only a trace of c-stoff in his tanks.

The officer slapped him. "We have destroyed 56 and it could have been 57. You have dishonoured your ancestors"
 
What about Pervitin (which was synthesized in Japan in the first place anyways)? Germany and Finland were extensive users of performance enhancing substances (though heroin was the drug of choice in Finland apparently, with methamphetamine being reserved for specialists), and got a lot of use out of it for everything from tank crews, air crews, snipers, scouts, logistics workers. Japan had some minor usage of methamphetamine for factory workers to increase production but never to the extent of Germany being willing to send in combat troops doped up on methamphetamine. Pretty much the wonder drug.

The IJA and IJN might have gotten some use out of it in jungle warfare and in China or the early stages of the Pacific War.

That goes double for the tech transfer btw. Without Pervitin being transferred from Japan prewar, you could even argue the Battle of France and early parts of Barbarossa was only possible because of how much Pervitin Germany was using.
 
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What Japanese pre war tech would be useful for the Germans?

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 in service before 1944. Even then, they beat Germany to that technology in service.

Some Japanese aircraft design features were worth examining by Germany. The Japanese excelled at building long range aircraft for example.

Japan also equaled Germany on the high speed electric submarine and built a class of medium sized ones the I-201 class.

Where Japan could have benefited was in areas like say, welding. Japanese techniques and materials were poor compared to Germany. This could have greatly helped their ship design in particular by lightening structure considerably over riveting.

Early exchange of personal antitank weapons like the Panzerfaust and Panzerwurfmine would have helped the Japanese considerably. Their penchant for close combat would have made these very useful antitank weapons if they got them early on into production.
Japan did produce these, along with a bazooka-like weapon but only very late in the war when it was already lost.

So, most of the stuff one usually thinks the Japanese could have benefited from wasn't the stuff they'd benefit from most, and Germany could have benefited from some Japanese technology.
 

TinyTartar

Banned
Some Flak 88mm artillery would have been great for them, especially if they could mass produce it.

However, if they got the MG42, the war in China changes dramatically. If they get the MG34 from the very beginning, it might prove decisive.
 
Some Flak 88mm artillery would have been great for them, especially if they could mass produce it.

However, if they got the MG42, the war in China changes dramatically. If they get the MG34 from the very beginning, it might prove decisive.

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 Germans those machineguns were a squad weapon. Japan could never produce that sort of quantity, particularly of the MG 34 that needed considerable machining of parts.

A Kar 98 in 7.7mm would have been useful if the Japanese got it in production pre-war. It would have been better than their Type 99 7.7mm was by far.
 
Aircraft carriers definitely. (1)

So, most of the stuff one usually thinks the Japanese could have benefited from wasn't the stuff they'd benefit from most, and Germany could have benefited from some Japanese technology. (2)

1) What...?:confused:

2) Problem: I'm betting that neither Japan nor Germany would be willing to admit that they did need specific help in areas in which, in their opinion, they thought they either excelled at already or were good enough to not justify further expenses to re-tool their assembly lines.
 
1) What...?:confused:

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 carriers, at least their flight operations were reasonably well thought out.


2) Problem: I'm betting that neither Japan nor Germany would be willing to admit that they did need specific help in areas in which, in their opinion, they thought they either excelled at already or were good enough to not justify further expenses to re-tool their assembly lines.
Japan was more than willing to purchase small quantities of foreign technology for evaluation and then duplicate it or license produce it. For example, they needed more medium bombers of a robust design in the late 30's in China. They bought Italian BR 20 bombers

They produced a license copy of the Douglas DC 3 as the Showa L2D with minor changes to the design. Another was the Browning M2 .50 machinegun.

Unlike Germany, the Japanese didn't have some sort of superiority complex going on that made them feel that everybody else's stuff was crap and theirs was better.
 
Nazi wonder weapons are overrated. Most of them were too expensive, too hard too maintain, too unreliable or too dangerous to the user or some combination of all four. They were flashy but were't worth the money sunk in it.

For example, Panthers worked well when they worked but much of the time they broke down, IIRC cost about as much as 3 or 4 more reliable panzer 4s, were difficult to maintain and gulped fuel. German jets had a tendency to crash and used a lot of fuel. V weapons were lucky when they hit the right city.

Panthers are not wonder weapons, just advanced designs for medium tanks. Having been designed specifically for wartime production, they actually cost little more than PzIV. Having been given a major weight increase for adicional armour after the main engineering project had been completed, they naturally suffered from an extend period of adjustments and modifications until being made reliable in the later versions.

Late war German weapons tended to be rushed into service due to the conditions of the war, and to be built by unskilled (and unwilling) labour in bombed out or improvised factories using replacement or lower quality materials.
If the Me262 had been built by Gloster, and its engines by Rolls Royce, it would have worked perfectly.
Like wise, had it been developed in a non war Germany, it would have been a perfectly reliable early generation jet interceptor and Recce aircraft, in 1947...
 
What about Pervitin (which was synthesized in Japan in the first place anyways)? Germany and Finland were extensive users of performance enhancing substances (though heroin was the drug of choice in Finland apparently, with methamphetamine being reserved for specialists), and got a lot of use out of it for everything from tank crews, air crews, snipers, scouts, logistics workers. Japan had some minor usage of methamphetamine for factory workers to increase production but never to the extent of Germany being willing to send in combat troops doped up on methamphetamine. Pretty much the wonder drug.

I believe heroin was used predominately for pain medication (and the flu, etc) rather than for enhancing performance by the Finnish troops, Pervitin was what the members of long range patrols, pilots or crucial frontline commanders took to stay up ludicrously long amounts of time. Field medics and long range patrolmen as a rule carried cocaine, heroin, morphine and metamphetamine and these substances were used pretty liberally for various ailments. There is a popular claim about in Finland that the Germans only started shipping Pervitin to Finland in bigger amounts after they had seen some negative side effects among their own troops due to heavy metamphetamine use, and thus dumping much of the available stock to their Finnish allies. I don't know if there is any truth to problems with Pervitin being the reason for providing the stuff to Finns, though. There is a well-known story about a man on ski recon patrol behind the lines in 1944 who was pursued by Soviets and in the dark of the winter night accidentally took the whole units' dose of Pervitin - 30 pills. In two weeks, he would ski 400 km behind the lines, without food or ammo, pursued by the enemy, wholly detached from the world. When he finally got to the Finnish lines and was hospitalized, his heart was beating 200 times a minute and he had lost almost half his weight.

Finland did deliberately stock up on drugs before the war in the 1930s, because it was known that if war came, the country would be isolated and at the same time as there was not much domestic production, it would be difficult to buy drugs from the international market.

A number of soldiers who had for example been proscribed heroin for extended amounts of time for pains due to to injuries wound up getting hooked and becoming drug addicts after the war, when the Finnish market was for a time flush with these wartime drugs. 1945-50 saw a wave of drug use, and some have also said that men using stimulants like Pervitin was what made the postwar reconstruction's heavy workloads possible...
 
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