Nazi Secret Weapons - Peenemünde Army Research Center

[Deleted member 92195]

I ask because this would seem to contradict the Farm Hall transcripts, where we have recordings of the leading German physicists wondering how the US managed to get an Atomic bomb when the BBC announced the Hiroshima attack

The former diagram looks possible for something drawn up in Farm Hall after August 6th, the latter seems to include fusion which everything I've read says no one in Germany was even looking at in relation to a weapon and makes me think it isn't real, though the book calling it an "alleged" design makes me feel much better about the book

World War II Data book

Hitler’s secret weapons 1933 - 1945 - David Porter (Amber books)

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Keeping Walter Thiel alive will directly help the development of the Wasserfall SAM. How much difference that would make is anybody's guess. I think the SAM sites would be very vulnerable. However a warhead of some 360Kg going off in the middle of a box formation of B1's could do a lot of damage and Wasserfall might force the Americans to fly in looser formation. Again though Wasserfall used active radio guidance and I could see that being jammed quite ras

Thiel's survival won't help the development of the vital guidance system, which was the part not developed enough IOTL. He was a rocket engineer, not an electronics engineer and while that helps with the rocket engine part it doesn't actually help work out how to get it to target.

 

[Deleted member 92195]

I got intriguing question.

If Germany won in WWI or Hitler never came to power would the Peenemnude research centre/project have been initiated? Or is it because of Hitler that it was initiated?

 

[M79]

Rockets were not banned as part of the Versailles treaty. A Kaiser-reich is not as likely to pursue rocketry at state expense. I'm interested in how far Goddard would go with state funding from 1932 or 1934 though.

 

[Mike D]

Still ridiculous and expensive, 15cm is overkill for anything really, save low velocity HE throwers

It's also a massive and heavy round (assuming it's one piece) for the loader to have to move round a cramped turret. A 150mm anti tank round would undoubtedly be devastating to any WW2 era tank it hit but I'd be surprised if you could sustain even one round a minute for much longer than a few minutes before the loader's lying on the turret floor in a pool of his own sweat. It'd be interesting to see how many rounds you could safely store in a WW2 era tank too - the Germans weren't great with safe ammo storage even with much smaller 75mm/88mm ammunition.

 

[mirkoasdv]

In respect to Rommel it is only the background to the scenario, whilst I do have some academic literature on the logistics of a Middle East campaign by David M. Keithly. If Thorma died Nazi germany would nearly be dead by August of 1944. That is a scenario, but this is the where choas theory comes in. Is why wasn’nt he killed in the first place, how was he captured and the circumstances of how and why he was captured by the people who captured him. You would need detailed description of his capture and there is to many different dynamics to think of.

Where if Rommel won the first he might not have even been sent and if he was Rommel would have taken Egypt by then. If Rommel wins the second battle whilst he is present then it is just later than the first scenario and Rommel continues onto Egypt.

War-declaration to USA 11.XII 1941. killed Romel's advance with DAK,because UK troops gave morale and much more tanks of USA. This tanks not be send to British, when USA be in war with Japanese only. At the important notice, USA NEWER entered war on Soviet's side. USA just forced to do it.

 

[riggerrob]

OTL Nazi Germany did have a small nuclear program but it suffered numerous delays.
The first problem was Hitler chasing off Jewish scientists and discrediting “Jewish science.”
Some major miss-calculations also hindered the program.
Second, the program stagnated several times due to lack of interest in the Nazi Party.
Thirdly, WALLIED sabateurs wrecked a heavy water plant in Norway.
Eventually, Werner Heisenberg and company assembled a nuclear pile under the town of Haigerloch (40 km From Tubingen in Baden Wittenberg). It was almost critical when the USA Army over ran Southern Germany. The atomkellar is now open to tourists.

As for delivering nuclear bombs ..... tell a U-boat to lay it in New York harbour. But that drifts us away from Pennemunde.

 

[Deleted member 92195]

It's also a massive and heavy round (assuming it's one piece) for the loader to have to move round a cramped turret. A 150mm anti tank round would undoubtedly be devastating to any WW2 era tank it hit but I'd be surprised if you could sustain even one round a minute for much longer than a few minutes before the loader's lying on the turret floor in a pool of his own sweat. It'd be interesting to see how many rounds you could safely store in a WW2 era tank too - the Germans weren't great with safe ammo storage even with much smaller 75mm/88mm ammunition.

Despite everyone saying it's a waste of resources look at them building the Dora railway gun and the attempt to build the MAUS, it is consistent behaviour in wasting resources, I'd just rather see them waste it on a good tank, the Pz.kpfw VII rather than an awful tank the MAUS.

 

[RamscoopRaider]

Despite everyone saying it's a waste of resources look at them building the Dora railway gun and the attempt to build the MAUS, it is consistent behaviour in wasting resources, I'd just rather see them waste it on a good tank, the Pz.kpfw VII rather than an awful tank the MAUS.

The question is how good would it actually be. They never even built a prototype, so it is a piece of paper with them saying "we can totally build this, we swear". It may be worse than the Maus in that being on paper more practical they might actually throw enough resources at it to try to get it in service

 

[iron]

Mg213 looks amazing, but the 30 mm a bit weak in muzzle velocity. Not surprising as they kept the weight down. Were there a heavier weapon with similar ROF and higher velocity in development?

There were both a 20mm and 30mm version under development. Mauser started development with the 20mm x 146mm round, initially using a gas operated system to drive the chamber and mechanism. This unit was known as the MG213A. Muzzle velocity and rate of fire (3400fps/1400rpm) with the smaller round were both greater than was achievable with the 30 X 146 shell (not much of a surprise). The 30mm version (designated MK213/MG213C) could still attain a high RoF however, 1200 rpm. To reduce the overall weight of the weapon system, the MK213 version used a considerably shorter barrel and a proportionally smaller cartridge charge (relative to the increased projectile weight). Muzzle velocity suffered as a result, but the "throw weight" was thought to be all that really mattered if used in closing attacks (i.e. from the frontal quadrant), and the throw weight was staggering compared to an MK108.
There is some very good information on this weapon in this scan of a 1955 article from flight magazine.
This weapon was light years (relatively speaking) ahead of it's time. DEFA, M39 and ADEN (and obviously Mauser's own MK27) all owe their heritage to it.

 

[iron]

I got intriguing question.

If Germany won in WWI or Hitler never came to power would the Peenemnude research centre/project have been initiated? Or is it because of Hitler that it was initiated?

Rocketry was already under development by the Wiemar era Reichswehr, prior to Hitler's rise to power. They were looking at it as a replacement for the heavy artillery, banned in Germany under the ToV. There was nothing in the rules of the Treaty that prevented them from developing heavy bombardment rockets...
If they won the First war it is doubtful that there would have been any impetus to fund rocketry. Hitler coming to power is irrelevant, if they are under the proscriptions of the Versailles Treaty, then the Reichswehr will probably pursue the historical course.

 

[marathag]

That is why it should not be given priority, that electric drive uses a lot of copper, which was in short supply for everybody (the Manhattan project couldn't get all the copper they wanted, they used Silver instead), and the Germans more so than the Allies

Silver 1.59 x10-8
Copper 1.68 x10-8
Aluminum 2.65 x10-8
Iron 9.71 x10-8

As was done postwar, Aluminum is used for wire due to it's low weight, low cost, while being almost a good a conductor. You just used slightly larger diameter wire, and made sure of solid connections.

It had downside in longtime use is poor connection techniques, but thr life of combat vehicles was pretty short.

Aluminum bus bars would have been fine for electric drive. Even the wire for motors

 

[RamscoopRaider]

Silver 1.59 x10-8
Copper 1.68 x10-8
Aluminum 2.65 x10-8
Iron 9.71 x10-8

As was done postwar, Aluminum is used for wire due to it's low weight, low cost, while being almost a good a conductor. You just used slightly larger diameter wire, and made sure of solid connections.

It had downside in longtime use is poor connection techniques, but thr life of combat vehicles was pretty short.

Aluminum bus bars would have been fine for electric drive. Even the wire for motors

Keyword Postwar. During the war Aluminum was almost in as short supply as copper during the war, Germany needed every bit of it they could get for aircraft, hence all the wooden and sheet steel aircraft projects. Goering would never let the Army steal any more of "his" aluminum and for once he'd be 100% right. Electric drives for tanks are a luxury when conventional drives work just as well

 

[Deleted member 92195]

Rocketry was already under development by the Wiemar era Reichswehr, prior to Hitler's rise to power. They were looking at it as a replacement for the heavy artillery, banned in Germany under the ToV. There was nothing in the rules of the Treaty that prevented them from developing heavy bombardment rockets...
If they won the First war it is doubtful that there would have been any impetus to fund rocketry. Hitler coming to power is irrelevant, if they are under the proscriptions of the Versailles Treaty, then the Reichswehr will probably pursue the historical course.

So if Germany wins WWI there is no Peenemunde but if Hindenburg does not give into Hitler's demands to pass the enabling act then Peenemunde is still built in 1937. Is this despite a scenario where the Third OHL having power over the Kaiser's power, politics and military in what was described as military dictators.

 

[marathag]

Keyword Postwar. During the war Aluminum was almost in as short supply as copper during the war, Germany needed every bit of it they could get for aircraft, hence all the wooden and sheet steel aircraft projects. Goering would never let the Army steal any more of "his" aluminum and for once he'd be 100% right. Electric drives for tanks are a luxury when conventional drives work just as well

Germany was being littered with high grade aluminum from drop tanks to entire shot down aircraft. AL is very easy to recycle.

Germany never ran short of aluminum for aircraft production. They produced over 300,000 tons of Al a year. They had more planes than pilots in 1944.

There's enough for both.

 

[RamscoopRaider]

So if Germany wins WWI Peenemunde is more than likely built in 1937 and if Hindenburg does not give into Hitler's demands to pass the enabling act then Peenemunde is still built in 1937. In both situations, Germany is not as extreme as Hitler but still strongly antisemitic.

Well it might not necessarily be there or at that time, they could choose a different section of the Baltic (a WWI winning Germany would have a much greater choice of spots) or they could pick a different time, a non Nazi government might not budget for such a facility so soon and continuing experiments under the Kaiserreich could see such a facility needed even earlier. Deals with lots of minor events we can't predict as we can't track exactly how the behavior in the people involved in choosing such a time and place would change given such divergences

Germany was being littered with high grade aluminum from drop tanks to entire shot down aircraft. AL is very easy to recycle.

Germany never ran short of aluminum for aircraft production. They produced over 300,000 tons of Al a year. They had more planes than pilots in 1944.

There's enough for both.

And Germany thought they needed 1,000,000 tons of Al per year. The Allies actually reached that rate by the end of the war

They ran short, as early as 1943 they were starting to build aircraft out of wood, by 1944 everything but the most high priority stuff was starting to be made of wood. They had more planes than pilots as they were slow to rationalize pilot training, they solved that. If they had more than enough Aluminum they would not have diverted resources to projects meant to save aluminum

 

[marathag]

They ran short, as early as 1943 they were starting to build aircraft out of wood, by 1944 everything but the most high priority stuff was starting to be made of wood. They had more planes than pilots as they were slow to rationalize pilot training, they solved that. If they had more than enough Aluminum they would not have diverted resources to projects meant to save aluminum

Every country thought they would run out of Aluminum, yet each country kept increasing production

https://books.google.com/books?id=Elfmh6eJFrMC&pg=PA127
https://books.google.com/books?id=Elfmh6eJFrMC&pg=PA125
goes over that the German actually had enough Copper to last till 1947, so yeah, they could spare a couple hundred pounds for each electric drive panzer, not even needed to do Al substitution.

Above source notes Messerschmidt was wasting a lot of aluminum, like making ladders.
Use wood for that.

 

[iron]

Well it might not necessarily be there or at that time, they could choose a different section of the Baltic (a WWI winning Germany would have a much greater choice of spots) or they could pick a different time, a non Nazi government might not budget for such a facility so soon and continuing experiments under the Kaiserreich could see such a facility needed even earlier. Deals with lots of minor events we can't predict as we can't track exactly how the behavior in the people involved in choosing such a time and place would change given such divergences
And Germany thought they needed 1,000,000 tons of Al per year. The Allies actually reached that rate by the end of the war

They ran short, as early as 1943 they were starting to build aircraft out of wood, by 1944 everything but the most high priority stuff was starting to be made of wood. They had more planes than pilots as they were slow to rationalize pilot training, they solved that. If they had more than enough Aluminum they would not have diverted resources to projects meant to save aluminum

If you could prove that the move to wood was a result of a shortage of aluminum you'd be getting somewhere. But you can't.
The move to wooden sub-assemblies at the end of the war had as much to do with the labor skills available as anything else.
An idiot with a pen knife can shape a former out of wood for a rudder or aileron, if given sufficient instruction.
Also? He can simply cut the trees down in his back yard and make hundreds of such parts...
Making the same "bits" out of aluminum is obviously another matter entirely.

 

[Gudestein]

There were both a 20mm and 30mm version under development. Mauser started development with the 20mm x 146mm round, initially using a gas operated system to drive the chamber and mechanism. This unit was known as the MG213A. Muzzle velocity and rate of fire (3400fps/1400rpm) with the smaller round were both greater than was achievable with the 30 X 146 shell (not much of a surprise). The 30mm version (designated MK213/MG213C) could still attain a high RoF however, 1200 rpm. To reduce the overall weight of the weapon system, the MK213 version used a considerably shorter barrel and a proportionally smaller cartridge charge (relative to the increased projectile weight). Muzzle velocity suffered as a result, but the "throw weight" was thought to be all that really mattered if used in closing attacks (i.e. from the frontal quadrant), and the throw weight was staggering compared to an MK108.
There is some very good information on this weapon in this scan of a 1955 article from flight magazine.
This weapon was light years (relatively speaking) ahead of it's time. DEFA, M39 and ADEN (and obviously Mauser's own MK27) all owe their heritage to it.

It is impressive, but I was thinking about its ustability in a tank buster role. That would require a longer barrel for sure. Basically like a rapid ROF mk103?

 

[Hodor]

I'd like to hear people's thoughts on just the impact of the germans developing good proximity fuses.