Nazis develop/mass produce Wunderwaffes early, not destroyed/captured or War is longer in Nazi Favor

Wimble Toot

Banned
Your link doesn't even say confirmed kills....

All 8th AF kills irrespective of type were confirmed by gun-camera footage.

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If a pilot didn't have something like this on the camera roll, it was a probable, or no kill at all.
 
Otherwise, the combined bombing offensive of both the USAAF and RAF had a minimal effect on Nazi production of war materials, in proportion to Allied aircrew and aircraft lost.

Still went thru the effort for underground factories, and dispersed production that did nothing to aid efficiency
Q: were the Nazis better off, or worse off for being bombed
Y or N?
 

Deleted member 1487

All 8th AF kills irrespective of type were confirmed by gun-camera footage.

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If a pilot didn't have something like this on the camera roll, it was a probable, or no kill at all.
Was it matched up to German loss records post-war? Gun camera doesn't 100% prove a kill. Also watching the footage of this, looks like this was all low level landing/takeoff kills.
 
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.
It was a pretty large can.
 

Wimble Toot

Banned
Was it matched up to German loss records post-war? Gun camera doesn't 100% prove a kill. Also watching the footage of this, looks like this was all low level landing/takeoff kills.

Sooooo, how many Me262s were lost in combat, and are those figures reliable?
 

Deleted member 1487

Sooooo, how many Me262s were lost in combat, and are those figures reliable?
You're the one with the combat record book, you tell me.

https://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/the-messerschmitt-me-262-jet-fighter/
Its pilots – intrepid men all, for the Me 262 was cantankerous and dangerous to fly – claimed 542 allied warplanes shot down while sustaining just 100 combat losses. Luftwaffe ace Hauptmann (Capt.) Franz Schall was credited with 17 aerial victories, including six four-engine bombers and ten P-51 Mustangs.
The Germans at that point in the war were able to count wrecks on their territory and apparently awarded kills based on that rather than just claims. Plus they had gun cameras too:
 

Zachariah

Banned
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?
How about the potential wonder weapons developed at Mario Zippermayr's research lab? In particular, the Hexenkessel (Witch's Cauldron) project, which developed the world's first thermobaric explosive warheads? It's not exactly cans of instant sunshine, but it'd be a hell of a lot cheaper, easier and quicker to mass produce, and they could have provided a huge force multiplier, especially if focused upon the development of highly effective detonation charges which could be used as the warheads of conventional bombs, instead of (or as well as) for surface-to-air missiles like the Taifun and Wasserfall. If they were developed in the very early stages of the war, and were ready for the Nazi bombers to use against the British during The Blitz, effectively quadrupling the Luftwaffe bombers' effective bomb tonnage, would it be out of the question for them to potentially inflict enough damage to win a strategic victory, and to force the UK into surrender? And mightn't fitting them with thermobaric explosive warheads make the Wunderwaffe delivery systems, such as the V-1s and V-2s, far more destructive and terrifying weapons of war?
 
Me 262 losses cannot be all attributed to technological deficiencies.
By 1944, the Luftwaffe was running out of fuel and experienced pilots. Part of the problem was not enough gasoline to train new pilots. ALLIES also enjoyed huge numerical superiority in German skies.
 
I'M still waiting to hear about all these spectacular 'non sexy' weapons the Nazi could produce instead of the V-2 ????

Non Sexy?
Challenge accepted.

Get rid of horses.

But can't make more trucks, you need something any workshop could do, then the shortage of tires..

So,make a cross between a Steam Truck and Tractor that would be multi-fuel, coal, coke, wood, charcoal or liquid fuel that would be geared as as similar to horse, say 20 mph top speed, but being steam would have all kinds of torque to towing. Would use a flash or watertube boiler for efficiency and crew safety. No huge cloud of scalding steam if steam chest is breached.

the 20HP Stanley Steamer had enough torque to spin the tires off the rims, and full torque (800ft.lbs)was available at any engine rpm. It was a 20hp continuous, limited by the boiler. The engine was good for over 100hp. Given good roads, was capable of 70 mph.

Now Steam HP isn't exactly like IC HP, as they had maximum torque at 1 rpm and didn't need a power robbing transmission, and were more limited by steam generation for continuous rated power.The actual '20 HP' engine could do around 125HP of work, when given enough steam. And that twin cylinder had 15 moving parts, and didn't need a gearbox, just a single reduction ratio.

The regular Stanley had about a 30 mile range( 1 water gallon per mile), since it was a total loss system, no condenser at first. It got around 10 miles per gallon of Kerosene for the burner.
Any liquid could be lightly atomized and burned.
Kero has 20,000 BTUs per pound
Anthracite Coal, 14,000 per pound
Ethanol, 13,000
Coke, 12,000
Lignite, 8,000
Wood-dried, 8,000
Straw,6,500
Peat, 6,000
Wood-wet, 3,000

So instead of feeding horses fodder, burn it. They needed clean water to drink, boil it to steam instead


Each horse had a few pounds of iron in horseshoes, there is your building materials. Adds up over millions of them.
Last, steel wheels over rubber

So something a little smaller than this Sentinel, that used a good sized vertical watertube boiler rather than a flash monotube

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But the Nazi 'Iron Horse' would use a similar quick dump ashpit up front for when solid fuel is burned. Hans and Franz will be grateful for some extra heat on the Eastern Front
 
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maybe or maybe not under category of wonder weapon ... an earlier Fritz-X ... little Fritz-X ... modification of SC-250 (500 lbs.) which was used for initial testing. but like everything else under Nazi regime ... it grew in size and complexity ... 6 times the weight, radio guidance. a simple wire-guided gravity bomb would have made attacks on shipping much worse in the early years.

have always thought they could have run thru development cycle of Panzerfaust and arrived at something like PZF 44 post war weapon, however @wiking makes pretty good case a rifle grenade would have worked as well or better https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...ifle-grenades-instead-of-panzerfausts.420603/

think the Elektroboote was done in reverse, that once the US was in the war a rapid development of the coastal u-boat Type XXIII should have been priority, even a slightly earlier start and scrapping of larger sibling they could have been able to complete 100(s)
 
kl 05-2013 Kampfgleiter BV40 (01).jpg.6462682.jpg

Another super-weapon was the BV-40 Kampfgleiter, 2 of which would hitch a ride behind a Bf-109 to soar above the bomber boxes while the prone pilots played music with 70 rounds of 30mm. It was prone to be cancelled, but not forgotten. Remember, they thought of it, and built a few.
 
From another forum
https://forum.axishistory.com/posting.php?mode=quote&f=11&p=2097034

Plain Old Dave said:
Guaporense said:
By the way, Japan managed to shot down 371 out of the 3,970 B-29 made. If a third world country like Japan managed to inflict such heavy casualties on the B-29 imagine if they went against Germany after Germany defeated the USSR...

http://www.au.af.mil/au/afhra/aafsd/aafsd_pdf/t165.pdf

The majority of the 414 "combat losses" in the PTO were due to "other reasons;" i.e. weather or mechanical failure. B-29 crews called the bird "four engine fires with an airplane attached," and engine fires were a persistent problem for the B-29's entire career. IIRC a restored '29 was lost to an engine fire during ground turnups a few years ago.

http://articles.latimes.com/1995-05-24/news/mn-5487_1_air-force-base

While the numbers wouldn't be AS lopsided, the Ta-152's poor wing loading at altitude would make her a sitting duck for the B-29's 50 cal MGs.
 
https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=218924&start=30

more data from another thread ....unfortunately link doesn't appear to work.

http://www.robomod.net/pipermail/soc-hi ... 27188.html
“It does raise the possibility the Me262 was no more survivable than the piston engined fighters in terms of losses per sortie, but was better able to shoot down allied aircraft, given its top speed and firepower. The 636 sorties gave rise to 155 kill claims, in other words 2.2 times as many kill claims as losses, halving the kill claims would mean an overall 1.1 to 1 loss rate, or a real kill every 8 or so sorties.”

“In 1944 the Luftwaffe day fighters in the west and over Germany flew some 80,000 sorties. The USAAF credits enemy aircraft with causing 2,902 losses, out of 7,749 losses on operations. RAF bomber units report 14 losses to enemy fighters on day operations, with Fighter Command reporting 244 losses to fighters plus 241 for unknown reasons, flak caused 809 losses or around half the 1,665 recorded losses I have. So 300 to 500 RAF losses to Luftwaffe fighters, call it 400. Plus of course some of the 1,060 USAAF heavy bomber and fighter losses to enemy aircraft from the Mediterranean based units, when they attacked Austria, Czechoslovakia, France or Germany. Based on the Bomber loss figures from Davis about 60% of the 15th Air Force Heavy Bomber losses in 1944 were from attacking those countries. That would give say 600 bomber and fighters kills made by the Luftwaffe fighters based in then defined Greater Germany and France.”

“So 80,000 sorties for 3,900 real kills, a kill every 20.5 sorties, so around 40% the effectiveness of the Me262 in 1945. It does fit but the data needs considerable refinement, since a number of the Luftwaffe fighter sorties in the west would be ground attack for example, not interception, whereas JG7 was near exclusively on interception operations. Also something more than a yearly average for Luftwaffe fighter losses in 1944 and a more definitive listing of allied losses is required.”

“It is quite possible the Me262 loss rate per sortie was in fact around the same as the piston engined types, and the main improvement it brought was a better kill rate per sortie, perhaps 3 times as much. Rather than a more middle ground of an improvement in loss rates per sortie and a higher number of kills per sortie rate but lower than the 3 times hand waved above.”

“While such conclusion seems to indicate it was the greater firepower, the four 30mm cannon, that were the difference the reality is it is also performance related, the Me262 had the performance to carry the armament and stand a good chance of intercepting enemy aircraft, then evading counter attack, compared with any piston engine fighter carrying the same armament.”

Geoffrey Sinclair

So what few ME-262 that got airborne they were 3 times as effective as rest of the LW fighter force....so thousands production per year would have cleared the sky of Wallie day light bombers.
 
So what few ME-262 that got airborne they were 3 times as effective as rest of the LW fighter force....so thousands production per year would have cleared the sky of Wallie day light bombers.

Honestly, I doubt it would make any difference. They already had more Me-262s than they could fuel, or find pilots for. Having a few thousand more sitting around unused won't perceptibly alter the grim calculus of war for the Reich. Now, if you could somehow find a way to massively increase their fuel resources, or pilot training capability, you might have something...
 
One notable thing is that JG7 and JV44 were manned with, in the case of JV44, "experten" by name and JG7 by fact.
 
Honestly, I doubt it would make any difference. They already had more Me-262s than they could fuel, or find pilots for. Having a few thousand more sitting around unused won't perceptibly alter the grim calculus of war for the Reich. Now, if you could somehow find a way to massively increase their fuel resources, or pilot training capability, you might have something...

In 1945 maybe, but Me 262 was ready in 1942 just waiting for the jet engine. Of course we all know the history of the JU-004 engine, the first worked well enough [JU-004A = estimated 80 service life ] but the strategic metals required were in short supply. So an alternative engine with 1/2 as much strategic metals and no nickel, was developed JU-004B . The projected life was 35 hours based on two sets of replacement turbine blades per engine [2 X 60=120 replacement blades per engine plus X Ray in-between].

Trouble is the 6000 engines built in 1944 would require roughly 150,000 blades production for this "35 hours engine life" generating average of 165 to 280 Me-262 sortie per day. But the disintegrating economy of the last year of war- limited blade production to 800 per month started in august 1943 peaked at 5000 per month a year later [~ 50,000 blades] . So expected sortie rate could not exceed 55- 93 sortie per day. Worse any infrastructure to implement this blade supply program would be destroyed in the bombing, so no midlife shop X-Ray and most engines last to the first blade replacement 10-12 hours. Add to that collapsing fuel supply transportation and pilot training hours....This system was never going to work that way!

So what would it take to get the original JU-004A engine working from 1942 -because that might be made to work?
 
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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.

A pointless statistic. If you compare any effort in any theater or sector you will find that in most cases, the Allies spent more than the Axis. That's part and parcel of starting wars on a shoestring against a pool of the majority of the world's economy, industry and manpower.

Another way to look at it is this:
There's a bidding contest at an auction. Bidder A has leveraged his investment, so that he will have loans lined up to help cover the price if he's successful. In that way, he needs to invest only $30 of his own pocket to counter every $100 of bidder B.
That's clever, but bidder A only has $60 in his pocket. Bidder B has $500. Yeah, bidder B spends more than he would have spent if bidder A had not been clever - he still wins the auction.

It's not technology, of any kind, that can win the war for the Axis. They were waging what is known today as an asymmetric war, asymmetric in terms of the issues mentioned above. So their hopes of winning were:

a) Achieving a first-round KO before the opponent, slower but having much more stamina and endurance, could muster its strength for a victory in the long run. They failed at that, chiefly due to the Chinese and British obstination.
b) Convincing the enemy that there's little to lose and something to gain by calling it quits. Never going to happen given the ideological policies of the Axis.
 
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