Nazis develop/mass produce Wunderwaffes early, not destroyed/captured or War is longer in Nazi Favor
- Thread starter mazzil68
- Start date
nbcman
Donor
The war is probably shorter as the Nazis are throwing more of their limited resources researching and producing impractical weapons like the Maus and the Ho 229 Flying Wing instead of reliable equipment.
Even the “good” wunderwaffe were an unnecessary drain on resources. The V-1 and V-2 were revolutionary but they were also terrible drains on resources and were unable to deliver payloads equivalent to German medium bombers. The Me-262 was a great fighter but it guzzled resources due to its engines to the extent that it was probably a net drain on the German war effort. It also wasn’t very maneuverable and was badly exposed during landing.
There were other genuinely good Wunderwaffe that were being introduced in the final months of the war, particularly night vision and remote controlled anti-tank rockets. These would have been a great help for the German war effort. Wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the war but an earlier introduction may have prolonged it.
WEST WALL consumed about 2500tons of chrome and the same again in nickel installing armor for "machine gun loops", that was enough alloy metals to build the hot sections for ~ 30,000 Jumo-004A jet engines. It could be the ATLANTIC WALL had the same alloy investment.
Wimble Toot
Banned
Because maybe, you're gonna be the waffen that saves me
And after all, You're my wunderwall...
But the V-1 is useful in tying down Allied air crews and other resources trying to intercept them. More V-1s and less/no V-2s would be pretty useful to have.
RamscoopRaider
Donor
Plus, and this is important, it keeps Hitler happy that they are striking back without wasting bombers and aircrews on those missions, save aerial launch of V-1s. Hitler being happy is a Hitler less likely to interfere and make things worse
If you are looking at tying down Allied fighters, more V-1s would have been beneficial, but V-2s were an irrelevance. They were so fast that you didn't know they were coming until after they'd arrived. Cancel the V-2 and more resources are available for other stuff. OTOH mMore V-1s, more launch sites, more air launches from He-111s, Dornier 217s, He-177s would have stretched the defences, but they wouldn't have changed the outcome of the war.
I’m not sure the V-1 did tie down more Allied resources to contain the weapon than the Germans used developing it. It’s possible but in relative terms the Germans had less to work with whilst the Allies had assets to spare.
Deleted member 1487
I can't find it right now, but the US military did a study that proved that the Germans spent something like 30% or less resources fielding the V-1 than the Allies had to spend countering it. In terms of cost effectiveness it was an extremely good trade for them...the V-2 was much more expensive and diverted very limited resources, more than inverting the ratio against Germany. With the V-1 the only reason it wasn't even much more effective than it was was due to the Allied invasion overrunning the launch sites; D-day happened IIRC at least a week prior to the first launch and cleared France of the launch sites within 3 months, so they only got a very limited window to operate. Despite the huge effort the Allies put into suppressing the launch sites and diverting the aim with Double Cross, the V-1 was still wildly effective relative to the cost to develop/make/operate. Had it been ready 6 months earlier the Allies would have been in serious trouble (not losing the war trouble, but not being able to launch D-day trouble and having to spend a huge part of their assets turning South England into an AAA/air defense den); they were very fortunate they invaded France before the first launch.
We had a pretty interesting discussion about earlier introduction of the V-1 here:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/wi-german-v-1-ready-in-1940.403890/
Ric350
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/wi-german-v-1-ready-in-1940.403890/
Ric350
Interested to know what other genuinely good Wunderwaffe could have been introduced earlier enough to give the Allies enough of a hard time to prolong the war yet not completely alter the outcome, especially if the most of the impractical and resource draining Wunderwaffe investigated in OTL are largely butterflied away?
I’ll have a look but apart from the two mentioned I wouldn’t recommend much else as significant.
No. The so-called Wonder Weapons were impractical or simply junk. Often both.
You want a war-winning Wonder Weapon? Well one side developed it, but it wasn’t Axis. That weapon was a small can of instant sunshine. And even if the Nazis got their projects working the Atomic Bomb trumps them all.