Weaponry of Nazi Germany after 1945?

[Medibee]

Does anyone have an idea of what weaponry (esp small arms) would look like in a Nazi Germany that continues to exist after 1945? The StG 45(M) was the last small arm that I can find, but I'm curious of what would have come next.

Does anyone know of any prototypes or what the designers were thinking of?

 

[idontlikesand]

i foresee a whole lot of luft 46 in this thread

 

[idontlikesand]

The Ho 229 which was undetectable by radar would give Germany a huge edge but then again it wouldn't because they would be out of fuel or the men to fly them.

 

[Admiral Halsey]

i foresee a whole lot of luft 46 in this thread

And for anyone who tries to argue that Luft 46 would be awesome I would like to direct them to "The Big One" written by Stuart Slade to show them the error of their ways. It's an AH novel admittedly but it does a great job at showing how the Wunderwaffe wasn't so damn wonderful after all.

 

[sharlin]

The Ho 229 which was undetectable by radar would give Germany a huge edge but then again it wouldn't because they would be out of fuel or the men to fly them.

Not entirely true, it wasn't invisible, it just got detected at shorter ranges (it was tested by the Skunkwork's team). But definately true that they'd be out of men and fuel to fly them.

 

[MattII]

IIRC flying wings are also notoriously difficult to control.

 

[sharlin]

Indeed now without advanced aeronautics anyhow.

 

[Hotpoint]

And for anyone who tries to argue that Luft 46 would be awesome I would like to direct them to "The Big One" written by Stuart Slade to show them the error of their ways. It's an AH novel admittedly but it does a great job at showing how the Wunderwaffe wasn't so damn wonderful after all.

Unfortunately that work is itself in many ways a mirror-verse of Luft '46 in that it gives 1940's B-36 Bombers capabilities that didn't exist until their 1950's upgrades (the technical innovations and improvements required simply hadn't been developed yet and spending more money wouldn't help as they came about due to experience).

Returning to the OP, as regards small arms I certainly think you'd see increased use of the Vampir Infra-Red sighting system at least.

 

[NothingNow]

Returning to the OP, as regards small arms I certainly think you'd see increased use of the Vampir Infra-Red sighting system at least.

Which would give them a slight edge in combat for a while, until the US starts deploying the M3 Carbine en masse, and puts IR systems on it's tanks, most likely M26s and M36s, along with AA systems being used in direct fire roles, since they're a cheap and easy counter-sniper system.

Meanwhile, German armor (including the new Panther Ausf.F,) would continue to be slaughtered by Allied airpower, and the introduction of the Centurion (and the other allied counters to the Tiger II) isn't going to help things.

But German armor is going to only get worse quality-wise and suffer from severe fuel shortages, even though the Panther Ausf.F, Jagdpanther, Panzer IV/70 and Hetzer would still be on paper extremely formidable and reliable.

 

[zoomar]

Oh no not this! How does one propose to let nazi Germany survive past 1945 in a manner that would allow it to produce all those wunderwaffen, many of which were at best only the design fantasies of engineers and politicians more concerned with escaping from Russian invaders and RAF/USAAF bombers . If you go back far enough for PoD that allows for a fully functional Nazi Germany in 1945, then you must also consider how the Allies would implement their own paper projects, many of which were just as advanced as Germany's. So yes, why not have massed fleets of B-36 bombers being intercepted by Ta183s or Ho229s, never mind that the first would bankrupt the US and the last two would have been aerodynamically unsound as designed. Fun stuff for fiction but not really much more.

 

[mcdo]

It really depends on what PoD allows Nazi German to limp on, but without drastic changes I would say any new small arms introduced are more likely to be something out of the "primitiv waffen programm"--e.g. a single-shot bolt-action rifle that lacks a magazine--than any new wonderweapon.

 

[EnglishCanuck]

And for anyone who tries to argue that Luft 46 would be awesome I would like to direct them to "The Big One" written by Stuart Slade to show them the error of their ways. It's an AH novel admittedly but it does a great job at showing how the Wunderwaffe wasn't so damn wonderful after all.

Unfortunately that work is itself in many ways a mirror-verse of Luft '46 in that it gives 1940's B-36 Bombers capabilities that didn't exist until their 1950's upgrades (the technical innovations and improvements required simply hadn't been developed yet and spending more money wouldn't help as they came about due to experience).

Basically this story is the opposite of Luft '46 and screams "SAC SAC Uber Alles!" at the top of its lungs with all disregards for plausibility. (Nuclear carpet bombing of all of Germany in 1947 aside in terms of plausibility it's not).

Any one wanting an excellent timeline devoted to examining hypothetical German weapons designs and Allied counters in a (semi)probable TL really just ought to check out the excellent Anglo-American-Nazi War by our own Calbear for an interesting examination of the subject as it examines everything from doctrine to air craft. He doesn't make any unreasonable leaps for either side and looks at it even with the lens of the Nazi's being unpredictable madmen much of the time.

Much better reading...and more importantly, it's free!

---

As to the OP, if the Reich is in any position to survive past 1945 firstly (in a scenario which is anything close to OTL) they have little ability to produce anything and we see nothing different from OTL's 1945 save maybe a few more jet planes and Panther's.

Now in a position to survive past 1945 (say the AANW POD) then you have the Luftwaffe going for short range high jet interceptors like the Me-262, and possible successors. Some more practical designs are probably built as well, but we would also have more work on the Ho-229 and the German's might actually get the damn thing flying reasonably well. They probably continue to develop weapons like these.

On the armored side I'd say they would continue down the path the Panther and Tiger tanks led them until you reach some monstrous tank similar to OTL's T-55. They'd also put more work into anti-tank weapons.

They'd rather obviously continue to develop the Wasserfall SAM system and given time could probably improve it to a reasonable system, especially if we assume they can reverse any Allied transistor chips they manage to capture.

For small arms, well the Stg 44 would be developed more (maybe into a more compact weapon) with probably an upgrade to the bolt-action rifle (something similar to the M-14 maybe?).

 

[Admiral Halsey]

Unfortunately that work is itself in many ways a mirror-verse of Luft '46 in that it gives 1940's B-36 Bombers capabilities that didn't exist until their 1950's upgrades (the technical innovations and improvements required simply hadn't been developed yet and spending more money wouldn't help as they came about due to experience).

Returning to the OP, as regards small arms I certainly think you'd see increased use of the Vampir Infra-Red sighting system at least.

Yeah i'll give it that but IMO given the fact it has the US focus on the B-36 instead of the B-29 I could see those improvements and innovations being improved earlier. Still though even with that it still shows how shitty the Luft '46 would've actually been compared to anything the allies had.