Nazi resource use and V weapons

[Derek Jackson]

How much of the Nazis effort went into the V1, the V2 and the failed (supergun) V3?

How serious could it have been had the equivalant effort been put into either Jet fighters or submarines?

 

[The Dean]

Without looking up man-hours and resources that Todt put into the various projects I am speculating. Even so I think it would have been far more effective to put the Me 262 in the air as a fighter not a bomber, get that one past Adolph if you can, and get the XX1 U-Boats into service earlier. That would have had a far greater impact than the V-weapons had.

 

[Michel Van]

building those V weaopns kill more prisoners as people kill by those weapon.

alone the V-2 (A-4 Project by Von Braun) kost billions of reichsmark
like buiding of Mittelbau-Dora underground factory.

V-3 was joke
supergun working on the multi-charge principle whereby secondary charges are detonated to add velocity to a projectile.
so big i cannot be move and to build into bunker
the V-3 hat to fire over channel to London, to achieve any damage, they wanted to use Sarin-gas shells
something Hitler (a Victim of a Gas attact in WW1) never had allowed!

the bunkers with V-3 were bomb by Allied and the program came to a end.

had Nazi leaders never taken the V-weapons and instead go for better Aircraft and cheap Tanks
had change in the war were significantly

 

[Riain]

No time was lost by Hitler's insistence that the 262 be a bomber, the decision was rescinded before the engines were ready for service. There was no huge batch of 262s ruined because they were built as bombers. There was no huge waste of missions done as inneffective bombers.

As for the V2, a lot of resources were poured into it that could conceivably have gone into other projects, but unless they went into Me262, A234 and other advanced projects these resources would also be wasted. What's the point of building bombers when all of their airfields are 'capped', air defences of the Allies were tight as a frog's arse and there are no pilots or fuel? When it's all said and done the V2 was the only weapon which could penetrate British air defences and wasn't tied to vulnerable airfields after D-day.

 

[The Dean]

There was a need for air superiority and that was and is achieved by fighters not bombers. Maybe the 262 was not held up by the bomber decision but the massive civil engineering works Todt put into the V-weapons was literally millions of man hours and millions of tons of ferro concrete. Those resources could have been spent more profitably elsewhere.

 

[Jukra]

POD: Instead of actually building Wunderwaffe, Germans spend more money on UFA special effects department. After 1943, when promise of "New weapons" was important to German morale, the UFA Special Effects Crew produces film reels of V-1, V-2, V-3 and V-4 which will decide the course of war sometime later.

In reality, efforts of V-1 and V-2 are kept at research level. After the war has finished more or less similar time to OTL we will see a more thriving European film industry with emphasis on sci-fi and fantasy epics having non-nationalistic themes...

 

[Jukra]

There was a need for air superiority and that was and is achieved by fighters not bombers.

Actually I think Hitler's idea of using Me-262 as a Schnellbomber was fairly good one. While, say, 50-200 Me-262's wouldn't have any real effect on USAAF bombing campaign at all, using them as bombers able to penetrate enemy AD against Allied landing attempt might have actually had an impact upon the war.

On advanced weapons, I think possibility of putting more effort on submarine research has been overlooked in ATL scenarios. It is perhaps difficult to justify without really analyzing impact of radar, but let's make a following quickie:

POD: After Op Seelöwe is cancelled and planning for Barbarossa has begun, Raeder and Dönitz come around to talking about how to conduct the war. As Britain is not going to be knocked out of war with an invasion, a maritime campaign to cut her communications off will be necessary. While surface ships, with their inherent limitations, are at satisfactory technical level it seems clear that wide-scale introduction of radar will force submarines of the future to conduct their attacks from underwater. Walther turbine might promise means for a true submersible, but the technology is long way off.

Thus it's decided that while research on Walther turbine will continue, the new submarine which will conduct it's attacks underwater will be diesel-electric. The new sub, let's call it Type XXI, will come into service perhaps in 1942. Unlike our Type XXI it will not have snorkel, as air threat was still low in 1940, but it will be easy to convert it to use one.

Now, just to extrapolate effects, the new boat is coming to service just as limitations of traditional U-boats are visible. After inevitable R&D lags, Germans have XXI-lite in service in numbers by Spring 1943...

 

[Shimbo]

IIRC the V weapons used approximately the same percentage of the German budget that the Manhattan Project did of the US budget (German economy being smaller).

IMO the V1 was a reasonable use of resources, it was orders of magnitude simpler and cheaper than the V2. It was the V2 that was a disastrous waste of resources.

I've argued before that an earlier, more numerous V1 could have been a highly effective city bombardment weapon despite its inaccuracy.

 

[burmafrd]

Putting the effort into U Boats that went into building the surface fleet would have been the greatest bang for the mark. Imagine instead of maybe 60 subs in mid 1940 (and not many of them were capable of mid atlantic attacks) instead there are 200, with most of them able to reach the US Coast and loiter for several weeks. Given the state of the British and American escort resources its very probable that England starves by Christmas.

 

[Jukra]

Putting the effort into U Boats that went into building the surface fleet would have been the greatest bang for the mark. Imagine instead of maybe 60 subs in mid 1940 (and not many of them were capable of mid atlantic attacks) instead there are 200, with most of them able to reach the US Coast and loiter for several weeks. Given the state of the British and American escort resources its very probable that England starves by Christmas.

The problem is that if the resource shift is done before the war starts the RN will take notice. I think there's few things which are, however, feasible:

- Better adaptation to serial producing, like the US already did during WW I
- Focusing on longer range Type IX instead of Type VII
- Active introduction of new u-boat classes after bringing Type VII and Type IX online (even if not as revolutionary as Type XXI, maybe one could "Guppyize" Type IX, for example...)

 

[Riain]

Jukra, the use of 'silver bullet' fighter wings amongst larger forces of lesser aircraft has proven successful numerous times in the past as a force multiplier/enabler. The Allies had to put in a lot of resources into 'capping' their airfields which were heavily gaurded with flak, and defeating piston fighters tasked with enabling 262 operations. Without the 262 to make all of this happen the Allies would have had an even freer riegn over Germany.

A much better option than the bomber 262 would be to push the Arado 234 into service sooner, and in numbers. Indeed I think this might be the only offensive option to the V2.

 

[FlyingDutchman]

On advanced weapons, I think possibility of putting more effort on submarine research has been overlooked in ATL scenarios. It is perhaps difficult to justify without really analyzing impact of radar, but let's make a following quickie:

POD: After Op Seelöwe is cancelled and planning for Barbarossa has begun, Raeder and Dönitz come around to talking about how to conduct the war. As Britain is not going to be knocked out of war with an invasion, a maritime campaign to cut her communications off will be necessary. While surface ships, with their inherent limitations, are at satisfactory technical level it seems clear that wide-scale introduction of radar will force submarines of the future to conduct their attacks from underwater. Walther turbine might promise means for a true submersible, but the technology is long way off.

Thus it's decided that while research on Walther turbine will continue, the new submarine which will conduct it's attacks underwater will be diesel-electric. The new sub, let's call it Type XXI, will come into service perhaps in 1942. Unlike our Type XXI it will not have snorkel, as air threat was still low in 1940, but it will be easy to convert it to use one.

Now, just to extrapolate effects, the new boat is coming to service just as limitations of traditional U-boats are visible. After inevitable R&D lags, Germans have XXI-lite in service in numbers by Spring 1943...

The Germans captured everything they needed to know about snorkels in '40 in the Netherlands, IIRC at the Feijenoord wharfs.
IOTL they didn't think air and radar threat to be serious enough to start installing the enormously simple snorkel but somehow in your TL they'll instead develop and build an entire class of (as yet) unnecessary submarines?

IMHO that's unbelievable, unless you use 100% hindsight.

IOTL the Germans didn't use snorkels untill 1942/1943, why would they even start developing fancy subs untill then?

Nazi resource use and V weapons
How much of the Nazis effort went into the V1, the V2 and the failed (supergun) V3?

How serious could it have been had the equivalant effort been put into either Jet fighters or submarines?

As Shimbo already suggested, I'd keep the V-1 program, maybe on a lower scale, if only to defend the enormous R & D the Germans are (still) pouring into missiles.

Instead of the V2 and the V3 I'd use those efforts to further shore up the defenses facing the Atlantic. A defensive weapon, but you'd defend this by claiming it free's up several Panzer(grenadier) divisions eventually for use elsewhere.

Or instead of using the V-1 as a strategic weapon, it get's used too as a tactical weapon on the Eastern Front?
It wouldn't be difficult to bomb Leningrad with these things and Hitler will love it probably.
Perhaps they could develop a shorter-ranged, more precise version?

 

[hammo1j]

262's en masse with R4M a2a missiles in 1944 would have stopped the USAAF even with the Mustang. Remember the Luftwaffe defeated both the USAAF and RAF Bomber offensive in 43 with conventional aircraft. This means the land war takes longer and Berlin is nuked in August 1945.

The V2 was a waste because it cost more resource than it destroyed. Thanks to Adolf that we got a Man on the Moon for '70.

 

[zoomar]

I would concur that the V2 was probably a waste of effort in view of the damage it caused in relationship to developmental costs. Paradoxically, perhaps its immunity to interception was a drawback, because no allied interceptors needed to be repositioned to defend against it.

The basic problem is that virtually all of the German wunderwaffen (rockets, jet propelled planes, the H2O2 submarine engine/snorkel, were all being brought on line after the outcome of the war was basically decided. It is almost ASB to imagine any of these breakthroughs reaching front lines in 1942-43 when they might have made a difference.

Germany would have been best served by adopting full mass-production techniques and placing its industry on a full war footing in 1939. Also, the Nazis, with their emphasis on exploitation and domination, never made adequate use of the industrial capacity of allies and subject states in Western and Central Europe. Festung Europa could have matched the industrial output of the USA and the USSR. Had the full capacity of Europe been employed in the gradual improvement and mass production of a few proven and efficient weapons systems from 1941 on (Bf-109, Fw, 190, Ju-88, etc., U-boats, Pzkw IV, shore defenses, etc), the gradual advance of Soviet forces in the East and the and if the invasion of Western Europe mght have been delayed. Couple this with the rational development of a few new designs not goverened by Hitlerian fantasies (ie, Do-335, Me-262 and Ar-234, Panther tank, Walther-engined subs) Germany might have been able to maintain both a numerical equality and qualitative edge in the type of weapons most useful in the defense of the Reich.

Of course, the Manhattan project would still give the US/UK atomic bombs by 1945. However, Europe could have been well defended, making the successful deployment of such weapons much more difficult than is was against the largely undefended Japanese home islands.

 

[NCW]

POD: Instead of actually building Wunderwaffe, Germans spend more money on UFA special effects department. After 1943, when promise of "New weapons" was important to German morale, the UFA Special Effects Crew produces film reels of V-1, V-2, V-3 and V-4 which will decide the course of war sometime later.

Or alternatively, in 1942 the special effects unit create a fake film showing details of an A-bomb test. They let this film be captured by a British Agent and get taken back to London ...

Cheers,
Nigel.

 

[Karlos]

What about surface-air missiles? The germans had quite an edge with projects like the Wasserfall. An effective umbrella of SAM's would deal with the allied bombers, and german fighters could be sent to the front, where -at least in the west- allied air supremacy was the first worry for german troops. The SAMS should be deployed no later than the first months of 1944 to have a real effect.

 

[merlin]

Remember the Luftwaffe defeated both the USAAF and RAF Bomber offensive in 43 with conventional aircraft.

Did they?

The US air force did suffer in '43 but that was because the fighter cover didn't have the long-range that was needed. Once there were enough Mustangs - bye, bye, 109s & 190s, and twin-engined aircraft - not a prayer.

 

[zoomar]

What about surface-air missiles? The germans had quite an edge with projects like the Wasserfall. An effective umbrella of SAM's would deal with the allied bombers, and german fighters could be sent to the front, where -at least in the west- allied air supremacy was the first worry for german troops. The SAMS should be deployed no later than the first months of 1944 to have a real effect.

Good thought. But wasn't the Wasserfall a liquid fueled missile using an engine similar to that in the A4/V2? Given the time it took to develop reliable V2 engines and guidance systems, shouldn't we presume the same delays would affect the Wasserfall? If all effort went into the Wasserfall, I would imagine they wouldn't be deployed until mid 1944, at which time the USAAF and RAF had already achieved air superiority over much of Europe. It would be difficult for the Germans to establish SAM sites without drawing the attention of allied airstrikes.

 

[Shimbo]

Did they?

The US air force did suffer in '43 but that was because the fighter cover didn't have the long-range that was needed. Once there were enough Mustangs - bye, bye, 109s & 190s, and twin-engined aircraft - not a prayer.

Both the RAF and USAAF stopped strategic bombing due to unsustainable losses in late 1943. Whether that constitutes 'defeat' or 'temporary repulsion' is open to interpretation IMO.

 

[hammo1j]

Both the RAF and USAAF stopped strategic bombing due to unsustainable losses in late 1943. Whether that constitutes 'defeat' or 'temporary repulsion' is open to interpretation IMO.

Certainly regular long term penetration of Germany like they achieved Late 1944 to 1945 was impossible and stragetic command of the air over Germany was not there yet.

If the Me262 had been used in large numbers then the US would probably have brough the B29 to Europe for high level bombing at 10km. The RAF would have gone for the high altitude unarmed Lancaster with a slave engine in the fuselage working as a supercharger.

This would have made for a very interesting battle.

Anyone know what the high altitude performance of early jets was like?