Post-war German armaments

Nietzsche

Banned
Sandman has an excellent point. Germany doesn't have that bad of manpower problems anymore, even if those troops are essentially prisoner brigades. They'll take bullets like anyone else.

However, one of my questions has remained unanswered(so much to cover..). Would the Germans start producing theater-specific equipment & weapons, or simply the time-honoured "Give the grunts this shit and have them figure out how to keep it working in the swamp/jungle/arctic/desert/savannah"?
 

Questerr

MacCaulay said:
Well, we weren't using 7.62mm NATO rounds during WWII, but they became the most widely used rounds in the Western world.

That being said...the 7.92mm round is a big manstopper, really the closest thing in concept to what the NATO round ended up being.

Also, the HK33 was mainly chambered for the 5.56 NATO intermediate round, and it was a natural evolution of the G3.

I honestly don't think they'd use an intermediate round. That would seem to indicate American influence: an influence which was there due to Cold War politics that wouldn't be present in this world.

European designs tend toward large caliber battle rifles, and that calls for something like the 7.62 NATO long round or the 7.92 Mauser.
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But the 7.92 Kurz round is an intermediate round. It's ballistics are more comparable to the 7.62 X 39 Soviet round than the 7.62 X 51 NATO round.

The evolution of the StG-44 would bring true assault rifle designs, not battle rifles, even if they were roller locked like the G3.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Nietzsche said:
Sandman has an excellent point. Germany doesn't have that bad of manpower problems anymore, even if those troops are essentially prisoner brigades. They'll take bullets like anyone else.

However, one of my questions has remained unanswered(so much to cover..). Would the Germans start producing theater-specific equipment & weapons, or simply the time-honoured "Give the grunts this shit and have them figure out how to keep it working in the swamp/jungle/arctic/desert/savannah"?
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I would go theater specific. In WW2, the Germans built far too many types of weapons and vehicles. Each of the manufacturers would look for a terrain niche to justify their existing line of production. For example, use this model of gun, it works well in saltwater mango swamps with non-Aryan soldiers. And use this weapon, it works well in salt water swamps, and the smarter Aryan soldiers need its advance features. Not to mention, the Luftwaffe infantry will have its version of weapons, the SS another, the Heer a third, and likely the navy has a fourth version. Multiple by all the types of need weapons, and it is a gun collectors dream.
 

Father Maryland

I think rather then develop new shitty designs for the hiwis, we'll see the Germans dump either they're old shit or captured foreign gear. So in 1955 top tier aryan Units could be using panther 3s and G3s, but hiwi units could be using rechambered Mosin-Nagants and Panzer IVs.
 

Dable

I haven't read the timeline but:

1'st- Logistics
Germany had major problems with trucks.Just using what ever was available from different countries and ending up with about twenty different types with problems that entails.Get a good 3ton 4x4 truck and build at least 100 per day.Use say Citroen and Peugeot factories,all of them,and sell all the old stuff to civilians to get the economy going again.Likewise a 10ton 6x6 at Renault.
Transport aircraft-The Ju52 is too small and has no real load lugging ability for an empire this size.Build a stressed skin transport aircraft with 4 BMW801 engines a maximum weight of around 40,000 Kgs and a Trapoklappe (full size rear cargo hatch).
 

Dable

2'nd-Panzer and Panzergrenadier
What the germans have to get is proper mass production no building 2 or 300 of this type of tank or self propelled gun-2 or 3000 of a particular chassis or don't bother.Looking at the map I would say 25P and 25PG divisions at least preferably with 2 or 3 types of tank at most.Say 220 tanks per Panzer division and 110 per panzergrenadier.This 8250 tanks-say 75% being E50's the rest being E25's and say 1000 E75's in heavy independant companies.I have gone for E class for ease of manufactoring and standardisation of parts but have cut out the E100 (if it had been built they would have realised it was too heavy).
APC's tommorow.
 

Nietzsche

Banned
Dable said:
I haven't read the timeline but:

1'st- Logistics
Germany had major problems with trucks.Just using what ever was available from different countries and ending up with about twenty different types with problems that entails.Get a good 3ton 4x4 truck and build at least 100 per day.Use say Citroen and Peugeot factories,all of them,and sell all the old stuff to civilians to get the economy going again.Likewise a 10ton 6x6 at Renault.
Transport aircraft-The Ju52 is too small and has no real load lugging ability for an empire this size.Build a stressed skin transport aircraft with 4 BMW801 engines a maximum weight of around 40,000 Kgs and a Trapoklappe (full size rear cargo hatch).
Click to expand...

Dable said:
2'nd-Panzer and Panzergrenadier
What the germans have to get is proper mass production no building 2 or 300 of this type of tank or self propelled gun-2 or 3000 of a particular chassis or don't bother.Looking at the map I would say 25P and 25PG divisions at least preferably with 2 or 3 types of tank at most.Say 220 tanks per Panzer division and 110 per panzergrenadier.This 8250 tanks-say 75% being E50's the rest being E25's and say 1000 E75's in heavy independant companies.I have gone for E class for ease of manufactoring and standardisation of parts but have cut out the E100 (if it had been built they would have realised it was too heavy).
APC's tommorow.
Click to expand...

There is no timelime here. This is merely a thought experiment.

However, your mentioning of APCs has got me wondering.

What kind of IFVs and APCs might we see come out of Germany? They would be useful as hell.

Mac, you're the expert on this particular portion(and also the person who showed me the true difference of purpose, use, tactics and general concept of IFVs and APCs when I previously had seen them as more-or-less the same thing.)
 

Uruk

The Katzchen was about to enter production at the end of the war so thats probably the APC for at least a few years after the war.
 

Nietzsche

Banned
Uruk said:
The Katzchen was about to enter production at the end of the war so thats probably the APC for at least a few years after the war.
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Huh. Never heard of the Katzchen. Looks like a Hanomag butt-fucked an M113.

kz1.jpg
 

Hades

I think there will be no way Germany can have the military to fight both extremely protracted insurgencies and compare to the US military. It will have to be either one or the other.

If it's going to be the former, then I can see Assault rifles and helicopters taking precedent as German counter-insurgency forces are going to need to be capable of getting in and out quickly. A vast Army designed to fight a major power like the USA will die by a thousand cuts. If the latter, then I can see naval and aerospace developments being key to warding off the US.
 

Shogo

I dunno. I think a victorious Nazi Germany might be brutal enough to break the back of an insurgency more easily than the West did OTL.

It's not like they're going to shy away from employing the kind of tactics that would get an American or British soldier tried and executed.

So I could see them using big war stuff for overwhelming force and brutality. The Nazis would pacify the shit out of any region that gets uppity.
 

Father Maryland

Shogo said:
I dunno. I think a victorious Nazi Germany might be brutal enough to break the back of an insurgency more easily than the West did OTL.

It's not like they're going to shy away from employing the kind of tactics that would get an American or British soldier tried and executed.

So I could see them using big war stuff for overwhelming force and brutality. The Nazis would pacify the shit out of any region that gets uppity.
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I think they're brutality will in a lot of area's just ferment more rebellion against them. I mean in certain area's which are relatively compact and close to the new "Fatherland" such as France, yeah Insurgencies are probably fucked. But long ass supply lines, horrible terrain and a really pissed off large populace will make any occupation of say the farther bits of Russia or the Congo rather desperate.
 

Hades

And in the case of the DEI and Iceland, when reports of atrocities in Eastern Europe and Africa come out, I think America may send ships and declare them "under protection", and Germany may well just write them off, since they are not going to be worth the hassle.

And Shogo, brutality does not necessarily equal success. Look at the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan for example.
 

Shogo

But I see it as being very different compared to say, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

They wouldn't be spreading an ideology or trying to install a favorable government. These wouldn't be people to try to convert or prop up. Given Nazi ideology, these people would be nothing more than a resource to be exploited. (Especially in say Africa, former Soviet lands, and the DEI. Not so much the rest of Europe.)

I don't see them holding back or doing something in the same way America or the Soviets did. You can't just point at something like Afghanistan and expect the same kind of thing. (Fall in line or we'll fucking kill you. ALL of you.)
 
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Father Maryland

Shogo said:
But I see it as being very different compared to say, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

They wouldn't be spreading an ideology or trying to install a favorable government. These wouldn't be people to try to convert or prop up. Given Nazi ideology, these people would be nothing more than a resource to be exploited. (Especially in say Africa, former Soviet lands, and the DEI. Not so much the rest of Europe.)

I don't see them holding back or doing something in the same way America or the Soviets did. You can't just point at something like Afghanistan and expect the same kind of thing. (Fall in line or we'll fucking kill you. ALL of you.)
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And that might work for Poland, France or the Ukraine. But will it work for the Urals, the Congo or India? Area's where the populace is either fanatic or armed to the teeth and the reich will be weak?

Would gassing Delhi keep Sikhs from continuing to rebel? Would annihilating Leopold-ville keep the Congo Basin under wraps?
 

Hades

Shogo said:
But I see it as being very different compared to say, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

They wouldn't be spreading an ideology or trying to install a favorable government. These wouldn't be people to try to convert or prop up. Given Nazi ideology, these people would be nothing more than a resource to be exploited. (Especially in say Africa, former Soviet lands, and the DEI. Not so much the rest of Europe.)

I don't see them holding back or doing something in the same way America or the Soviets did. You can't just point at something like Afghanistan and expect the same kind of thing. (Fall in line or we'll fucking kill you. ALL of you.)
Click to expand...

Then the indigenous population will have nothing to lose. I mean, "obey or die" didn't help Ceausescu or Mubarak. It just meant that the people were even more determined not to end up with their heads on a lance. Eventually, it will get too costly for the Germans to slaughter populations, in terms of political capital as well as money and manpower, as they can't have enough troops to occupy all of that territory.

As i said before, I can see the US/Alliance expy pulling a Libya in Iceland or the DEI, seeing as they are too distant for the Reich to do anything (Read: "these people are under our protection. Do anything bad, and you will face the consequences")
 

RamscoopRaider

Donor
Hades said:
Then the indigenous population will have nothing to lose. I mean, "obey or die" didn't help Ceausescu or Mubarak. It just meant that the people were even more determined not to end up with their heads on a lance. Eventually, it will get too costly for the Germans to slaughter populations, in terms of political capital as well as money and manpower, as they can't have enough troops to occupy all of that territory.

As i said before, I can see the US/Alliance expy pulling a Libya in Iceland or the DEI, seeing as they are too distant for the Reich to do anything (Read: "these people are under our protection. Do anything bad, and you will face the consequences")
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The Nazis don't have to occupy everything, they will occupy what they need (mines, ports, roads and plantations) and "neutralize" what they don't (as in kill everyone involved)

The Nazis were willing to keep diverting resources to the Holocaust when the Russians were nearing Berlin, they will keep killing for ideology and economic reasons

Don't think of Mubarak or Ceausescu, think Hafez Al Assad, Tamerlane and Genghis Khan
 

Hades

True enough, but even occupying only the strategic locations in those countries is going to utterly break the German economy and military (they will probably write off a large chunk of the empire as being too unwieldy to govern), as resources for RnD are going towards draka-style occupations of their far flung colonies. I can see their military technology in general being held back for years due to these costly occupations (while rebellions may be suppressed, they will take a huge toll), and geared towards counterinsurgencies as keeping up with America will be a distant second on their priority list.

ETA: To get back on topic, what timeframe is the OP pointing towards? 1960s? 70s?
 
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