Nazis get jet fighters earlier
- Thread starter bphillip54
- Start date
Admiral Beez
Banned
How about Frank Whittle gets annoyed with being rebuffed by the British establishment and is hired by the Germans to work alongside his OTL post-war friend Hans von Ohain? These two working together should have a reliably-powered German fighter equivalent to the Messerschmitt P.1101 operational by 1939.
It has more to do with chauvinism in the case of the United Kingdom. Labeling the world's largest empire as an underdog is an example of this British chauvinism that pervades AH.com. There are a lot fans of the numerous Britwanks that populate AH.com. These fans generally tend to be from the Commonwealth and who tend to overlook the evil it inflicted upon the "natives" of the colonies the empire subjugated. These fan also minimize the achievements of other powers.
In comparison, there are almost no Italians at AH.com. Not surprisingly, in the 20th century forum there are really relatively few Italy does better threads.
Really, if the underdogs were a favorite for threads, the there would be scores of threads about British colonial possession doing better in gaining freedom from the Imperial oppressors rather than the plethora empire continuing strong in the 20th century, with implied continuation of the Imperial oppression continuing.
In comparison, there are almost no Italians at AH.com. Not surprisingly, in the 20th century forum there are really relatively few Italy does better threads.
Really, if the underdogs were a favorite for threads, the there would be scores of threads about British colonial possession doing better in gaining freedom from the Imperial oppressors rather than the plethora empire continuing strong in the 20th century, with implied continuation of the Imperial oppression continuing.
Unfortunately, there are so many PODs that favour the British in Ww2
technological, diplomatic, strategic and tactical
These are mostly due to their own bad decisions prewar and their dilemmas in the early part of the war and hence can (relatively) easily be changed.
There are also the betrayals by their allies that if corrected launch massive flocks of butterflies.
It's just rich soil
technological, diplomatic, strategic and tactical
These are mostly due to their own bad decisions prewar and their dilemmas in the early part of the war and hence can (relatively) easily be changed.
There are also the betrayals by their allies that if corrected launch massive flocks of butterflies.
It's just rich soil
From the perspective of writing one such timeline, it's mostly that it's just so easy to do. The British and French made a number of catastrophic decisions and just plain had a lot of bad luck between the wars - changing that is hard. The Axis did much better than they really should have absent a lot of luck in OTL - pushing them further is kinda stretching plausibility a bit. The Americans did exceptionally well anyway, while doing better for the Soviets isn't too hard but they've got the same problem as the Nazis of a creepily evil regime without the "OMG Hugo Boss Uniforms" glamour that the Nazis still have with 12 year old boys everywhere.
As for the various colonised countries, setting them free much earlier than OTL requires a very early POD (often before 1900) since the other way to set them free - smashing the colonial power - is more likely to have them snapped up by another potential colonial power who would often be even worse.
B-29_Bomber
Banned
Yes... I went there!
Anyway, there are much better ways to improve the German position in relation to OTL and the ones I'm thinking of don't involve giving the Germans better weapons sooner.
Wouldn't the Nazi jets in 1940 be such a mismatch with the Allies planes that Germany maintains air superiority throughout the war?
Yes because the allies know nothing about bulding jet engines obviously and will have completely ignored the Germans buikding and deploying these aircraft.
Lost Freeway
Banned
Yes because the allies know nothing about bulding jet engines obviously and will have completely ignored the Germans buikding and deploying these aircraft.
This. This. THIS.
That's what annoys me about "WI the Nazis get jets/assault rifles/some other revolutionary technology" threads. They assume that the Allies are gonna keep fighting with the same old inferior technology instead of trying to come up with something equivalent.
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Yes because the allies know nothing about bulding jet engines obviously and will have completely ignored the Germans buikding and deploying these aircraft.
Of course. It's foolish to think that Britain wouldn't be aware, like they wouldn't be aware of the FW-190, or that they couldn't do something to curtail production or use, like the V-2. Britain would immediately hand over production of jet engines to a car company, and have an airframe designed and built not by their best and brightest but by a company that wasn't doing anything at the time.
Yes because the allies know nothing about bulding jet engines obviously and will have completely ignored the Germans buikding and deploying these aircraft.
That they would ignore the development at first is not impossible. Afterwards, what the western Allies really need are long-range escorts, whilst early jets were basically nothing more than interceptors.
But let's assume somehow the Germans got some sort of Me262 model at the start of the war. Where would it actually be useful?
Poland - overkill
Norway - lacks range
France - LW achieved superiority OTL; only place it might have helped a little bit would be above Dunkirk - so let's say a few dozen extra Spitfires are lost and a handful of destroyers are sunk over OTL
BoB - lacks range
Balkans - overkill
British strategic bombing - took place at night
Barbarossa - overkill
Case Blue - limited impact, as the LW had superiority for most of the time
Malta - marginally useful, although the axis air forces did achieve superiority OTL when they concentrated on the island
North African Desert - somewhat useful, although logistical limitations were far, far more important
Stalingrad - limited impact
American strategic bombing pre Mustang introduction - useful at first, until the yanks temporarily switch to night bombing
Kursk - by the time the LW gains the upper hand, the battle will be all but over
American strategic bombing post Mustang introduction - here it might come in handy, and US losses would be far higher than OTL. However, by this point (1) the war has already been lost for Germany; (2) fuel was in short supply; (3) disparity in aircraft production and pilot training was staggering
I understand and somewhat agree, but it's also annoying when people just say "oh the Allies suddenly come up with counter Y so nothing changes." Neither side was prefect when it came to developing or fielding items we now see as obvious needed/better. There were many examples where both sides didn't directly answer or incorrectly countered a system the other side fielded.
One area that comes to mind is small arms development, both sides ignored major advancements by the other. Everyone knew the US was developing a self loading service rifle from the late 1920's. And, besides the Soviets, no other power tried to match them. They were overall happy with the same sort of bolt actions they'd been using for decades. When did the British military learn the German's were adopting a general propose machinegun and a modern submachiengun? It had to have been at least a year before the war, started. From what I can see, there wasn't any urgency by the UK to develop their own versions. As far as I know the British were happy with their LMG & HMG combo and didn't see a large need for a SMG until the heavy rifle losses in France. The Americans never tried too hard to adopt a SMG even though they had a domestic design since the early 1920's. They didn't even understand the GPMG concept, their attempt to build a MG42 copy was with the idea of replacing the automatic rifle not the M1917 or M1919 which they labeled heavy and light machine guns. One area the American strangely were advanced was in adopting the M1 carbine as a PDW in all but name. No other player matched that.
Why is it unimaginable that might happen with other new technologies? It is not calling one side or another stupid to guess they might miss-understand the importance or how quickly the new system would become operational.
Your argument starts with a faulty premise. The Arado 234 was not an intercepter. It was a recon/bomber, and it had range.
The FW-190 is an excellent indicator of what would probably happen, a temporary advatange neutralized as the Allies introduced their own equivalents.
Well in this case the issue is the British are already developing the same technology, so the Germans might obtain a temporary advantage but it's not likely to have any long term impact.
BTW the OP has still not offered any plausible POD for the Germans suddenly deciding to make jets a top priority in the mid 1930s
You are a new poster so I'll go lightly. The topic of earlier German jets has been discussed many times and the board consensus is that a 1940 date is totally implausible for anyone to introduce effective jet aircraft into squadron service. Prior to 1944, jet engines were just too unreliable to power 1000's of service aircraft.
But I'll play along. If Germany had somehow advanced turbojet technology so far that it was able to put something like the He 280 or Me 262 into service in 1940 despite their temperamental and short-lived engines, they would have minimal overall effect on the early years of the war. Early jets were short-range aircraft best used on the defense. From 1939-1943 Germany was waging an offensive war that required aircraft capable of longer range, higher endurance, and able to operate from relatively rough temporary front-line airfields. In conjunction with normal piston-engine fighters, jets would exaggerate German air superiority in wars against Poland and perhaps France, but would be relatively useless in the Battle of Britain - except perhaps in delivering quick fast pinprick strikes against coastal installations and airfields near the coast. They would be even less useful against the Russian, where the ability to operate at low levels from primitive frontal airfields was important. Jets will not defeat Britain or the USSR.
Also, Britain and the US are not going to just sit on their hands when intelligence officers inform them in the late 1930's that Germany was making huge strides in developing useful turbojet aircraft. Britain, especially was no slouch when it came to jets. By 1943-44, when the value of jets as bomber interceptors becomes important, I am quite sure the Allies will be fielding aircraft capable of meeting German jets on a roughly equal footing...either jets themselves or very high performance piston-engine planes. Also, bombing strategies would adapt. It needs to be noted that early jets like the Me 262 were not really suited to fighting enemy fighters. What they did best was to use their superior speeds to avoid fighters ad get at bombers...and just to escape and get back to base. If you bomb at night or the very extreme altitudes and relatively high speeds B-29's could achieve, jets lose some of their value.
Jets will make the Allied strategic offensive more difficult and perhaps lead to some significant changes in tactics and strategy that limit its effect, but the Allies are going to win the war. Period.
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The Italian airplane was a non-starter and technically wasn't even a turbojet powered plane. It used a piston-engine powered fan embedded in the fuselage and some combustion to produce an augmented ducted-fan thrust. It also barely exceeded 200 mph on its test flights.
The Sten didn't come out of heavy losses of rifles in France (not all that many were lost - many of the troops carried their personal weapons back, and the BEF was never actually all that large). Instead, it was in large part inspired by the fact that the UK rifle factories in Birmingham got heavily bombed by the Luftwaffe and production was very badly interrupted at a time when the British Army was expanding very fast. Submachine guns could be made cheaply (well, the Germans never managed to do so until they copied the Sten in 1945, but it can be done) and without the specialised machinery which was lost in Birmingham.