German AAM and SAM missile accelerated by 2 years

More casualities, but perhaps a shorter war as the resources are diverted from tanks and planes.

As soon as the things start getting used, the Allies are going to develop their own things. The Russians aren't going to be stopped either.

Maybe the Moon is reached a few years earlier/by the soviets (if they claim most the scientists)?
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmetterling

If the Germans get this technology into mass production circa Fall 1943, what impact does it have if any?


First Generation AAM/SAM were not that effective since contermeasures were relatively easlier, with hit performance in the high single digit region against maneuvering fighters. Slow limbering bombers would be easier to hit. No one knows for sure but it could be 10-20% hit chance. Given that average fighter sortie of the day was getting 0.1-0.2 kills, then this could add up. A fighter with 4 x 30mm guns and a pair of AAM , could reach 0.3- 0.4 kills per sortie against bombers, while Experten would almost surely double or triple these figures.

It may have more to do with changing the way the dog fights happen. For example historically torpedo had a very low chance of hitting anything beyond a few hundred meters range. However there are numerous accounts of situations where torpedos are launched at 5-10km range or even more. The aim was often to force the enemy to excute a defensive manuever , while the launching ship excuted its own manuever often involving deploying smoke while turning away and escaping.

An interesting aspect of the AAM development was they were planned to be mounted on Bombers to give them some self defense capacity against enemy interceptors. So judicious use of these missiles could greatly increase bomber sortie survival rates?

Every thing hinges on how mass producable they are. The very first Panzerfaust was something like 1000RM per copy, while the price per unit quickly dropped to only a few RM when they were producing them in the region of 1/2 million per month. It was commented once that the amount of flak shells need to bring down a bomber in 1943 was the same cost as a Tiger tank, while in 1944 that figure increased by an order of magnitude. From that POV anything is an improvement.

Most likely the industry needed to build these would come from another industry , certainly from the point of view of resources labor and funding. But that doesn't mean fewer planes or tanks, however it may mean sharp cuts in flak shell production. If the industry diverted was the V-1/V-2 industry they could make a better contribution.
 
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The AAM is radio controlled and would require a two crew plane to launch it from. A single pilot would have their work cut out flying their plane, controlling a missile and keeping a look out for Mustangs. As it is the Germans had the plane for the job, the Me410.

A mix of Me 410s (each with two AAMs) and single engined fighters could attack boxes of the Eighth Air Force. The Me 410s stand off and fire their missiles whilst the fighters keep the Mustangs off their backs. When they are out of missiles, the Me410s could then go after stragglers.
 
Maybe it will have more effect if they developed earlier their Luftfaust, the first shoulder fired AA weapon. It fired several rockets and could be usefull against jabos. In Normandy, low-flying allied planes were decisive in stopping any counterattack or reinforcements for the germans. Forced to fly higer, jabos would not be that effective. Don't know the price, but the Luftfaust could surely be mass produced like the panzerfaust and delivered to all units.
 

Redbeard

Banned
Judging from the Anti ship missiles used in OTL by the Germans the radio controlled guidance would be the weak spot in the system. Anyway an ECM (Electronic Counter Meassures) race would start, but in OTL the allies had the upper hand here.

I wonder if a wire guided missile would be possible, or if the Germans based on experience (from 1943) with jammed anti-ship missiles could have a SAM/AAM with a lead in ECM in production by 1944?

If so it would be a breakthrough that really prohibits a major bomberoffensive as long as a lead can be maintained in ECM. Low flying fast planes like the Mosquito would still be fairly safe though. The Germans also had a shoulderborne 20mm recoilless AA gun (multible tubes) ready for production when the war ended. It is generally considered to have been a very lethal, cheap and jamming safe weapon vs. low flying planes if it had been introduced into service.

regards

Steffen Redbeard
 
I wonder if this PoD happened how many 8.8cm flak guns would be moved to the eastern front ?

Also this would need the Germans to move from producing the V1 and V2 etc to producing SAM's in large numbers.

How many AA Shells did it take to down one Allied bomber on average ?
Assuming that this PoD that the Germans entered into full production of SAM's in 1943 and lets say on average 50% (for daylight raids) of the missiles fired hit their target.

I would assume the the Allied bomber attacks would be less effective, what affect would this have on German war production etc??
 
One result of the use of German SAMs, wild weseal aircarft. The Allies could arm some P-47 and P-38 fighters to hit SAM sites with rockets and guns.
 
Wire guided versions of the Air to Air missile [Ru334] were planned and a couple of years after production commenced an passive accoustic homing version tuned to bomber engines was to be fielded with its own built in proximity fuse.

Thats one of the other problems. Unless their is a parralell proximity fuse developed then accuracy would remain low and effectiveness would be determined by tactics and mass production. Germans toyed with proximity fuse technology since the 1930s but in war time development with the delays they would not have materialised until 1947 two years after the Guided missiles went into production.

Like all special weapons the proximity fuse development was cancelled in Feb 1940, since Goering and Hitler thought the war would be over by 1941. There development resumed in 1943 after the revesals on the eastern front finally convinced Hitler that infact these 'wunderweapons' were needed. So if you remove that 3 year delay period that theoretically means they could be ready by 1944.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Try 5, maybe 10 years. Then figure out a way for them to mass produce the weapons. Then figure out a way for them to do it while being engaged on three fronts without strangling their supply to deployed forces.

In other words, figure out a way to make give them the resources of the United States AND the USSR.

Otherwise, this is just like all the other, Nazi wonder weapon WI, borderline ASB. Germany came up with lots of innovations because they were getting their asses kicked & they were willing to try anything to hold the wolf from the door, even for a day. The problem was, they WERE getting ther asses kicked which meant they lacked the resources to make practical use of whatever they managed to come up with.

Even if they HAD managed to deploy these weapons, the allies, given their overwhelming industrial potential would have quite quickly found a way to call, and then raise.

Best case (if you want to call it that), if the Nazi's had managed to get all the super weapons in place? Germany gets nuked, and the Red Army meets the Western Allies on the French border.
 
Way too much has been made of Nazi high tech. No matter how good their science was their weakness was their decision-making abilities. You'll notice that according to the Wiki article, in OTL the designers were told that the weapon wasn't needed; then later ordered to (and were successful in) bringing it to development and deployment until it was cancelled yet again.

If it was deployed in 1943 or 1944 it would have been just a drop in the bucket against the Allied air offensive getting cranked up around then. The Nazi's wasted too many resources on too many "wonder weapons" to be of any real use to their war effort.

It really doesn't matter how smart your weapons are if the idiots are in charge of them.
 
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5-10 years is a peace time measurement and in war time such measurements are halved or quarted. The rule of thumb I saw as 7 years peace time developement = 1 year war time. These weapons were all prewar developments intented to be part of the transformation of the Wehrmacht from defenseive into offensive through selective weapons production . What Von Blomberg refered to as 'technical possiblities' , they were developed along side of jets rockets helicopters etc to help bridge this gap.
 
If it was deployed in 1943 or 1944 it would have been just a drop in the bucket against the Allied air offensive getting cranked up around then. The Nazi's wasted too many resources on too many "wonder weapons" to be of any real use to their war effort.
The Western allies weren't that much better. The Panjandrum, the automatic 32pdr fitted to a Mosquito and the coal dust bomb are just three examples of money down the drain on wonder weapons. The Russians were more concentrated, but the anti-tank dog shows that they were not intellectual giants.

One major reason why Allied wonder weapons aren't slagged off so much is that they worked and delivered the goods whether it was sonar/ASDIC, the A Bomb or Cat and Mouse.
It really doesn't matter how smart your weapons are if the idiots are in charge of them.
I second this.
 
I wonder if a wire guided missile would be possible
It was, & it was done. X-4 was a wire-guided AAM (which strikes me a very odd idea...), developed into X-7 ATM (not unlike TOW).
Judging from the Anti ship missiles used in OTL by the Germans the radio controlled guidance would be the weak spot in the system. Anyway an ECM (Electronic Counter Meassures) race would start, but in OTL the allies had the upper hand here.
Trials had been done on acoustic homers tuned to B-17 engines, & both IR & SAR homing were in reach by '43.
 
Maybe it will have more effect if they developed earlier their Luftfaust, the first shoulder fired AA weapon. It fired several rockets and could be usefull against jabos. In Normandy, low-flying allied planes were decisive in stopping any counterattack or reinforcements for the germans. Forced to fly higer, jabos would not be that effective. Don't know the price, but the Luftfaust could surely be mass produced like the panzerfaust and delivered to all units.
...
The Germans also had a shoulderborne 20mm recoilless AA gun (multible tubes) ready for production when the war ended. It is generally considered to have been a very lethal, cheap and jamming safe weapon vs. low flying planes if it had been introduced into service.

regards

Steffen Redbeard
It seems you're both talking about this.

It doesn't look like it was particularly effective... nice idea though.
 
the automatic 32pdr fitted to a Mosquito

There was never an automatic 32lb AT gun fitted in an aircraft. The 94mm 32lb gun was fitted in the A39 Tortoise assault vehicle but it was far to heavy to fit in an aircraft. The Mosquito did have a variant fitted with the 57mm Molins AT gun that had an autoloader. This however was a successful marriage that proved to be an effective weapon only discarded as wing mounted rocket projectiles could be more easily fitted or removed as the need arose.
 
'British Secret Projects: Missiles, Hypersonics and Ramjets' suggests that the UK had a very active missile program, if Germany starts using them more then Britain could accelerate developmnet (with US money).
 
'British Secret Projects: Missiles, Hypersonics and Ramjets' suggests that the UK had a very active missile program, if Germany starts using them more then Britain could accelerate developmnet (with US money).

You're forgetting Britain could never do anything first and just has to sit back and let everyone else walk all over them.:D
 
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