# Question about German technology WWII **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 2, 2014, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-german-technology-wwii/692171 "2014-07-02T06:31:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-german-technology-wwii/692171/101 "2014-07-06T01:39:22Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Wow, you’re still not getting it. Irony, thy name is **Magiver**. > [@Magiver](#): > > Unlike a B-17 that has to be OVER the target, a stand off weapon is delivered out of range of the target. Of course it’s subjected to fighter attack, but unlike a bomber it doesn’t also have to defend against ground/sea attack. What do you think fighter aircraft are for? To defend other air assets. If you can use one plane to destroy one ship then you’ve gained a substantial advantage in resource management over your enemy. 😕Why in gods name are you talking about B-17s? By the way, you are yet again completely wrong; B-17s flew too high to be subjected to flak from ships. Of course they were also completely useless at bombing ships being unable to hit anything from that height, wartime propaganda stories of [Colin Kelly](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Kelly) notwithstanding. Where in the hell are these fighters that you think are going to escort your sitting duck He-111 going to come from? I hate to be the one to break it to you, but the Luftwaffe wasn’t in very good shape in mid to late 1944. Do you imagine it never occurred to the Japanese to try to escort their bloated G4Ms carrying Ohkas? They were in the same boat as the Luftwaffe though, their good fighter pilots were dead, pilot quality had fallen through the floor, they were no match for the American pilots and planes they faced, and they were trying to escort a heavily overloaded medium bomber. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this before it sinks in but they also only had to get within 37kms of a ship and were free to turn and run for it as soon as they launched, unlike your He-111 which is going to have to get within 2 miles and loiter while trying to guide a V-1 via a command wire. The end result of all of this and you still have a weapon inferior in performance to the Fritz X and a He-111 that would be better off carrying a torpedo; at least it wouldn’t be committing suicide. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-german-technology-wwii/692171/102 "2014-07-06T01:51:56Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > The Type 93 Torpedo was not steerable so I’m not sure why you’re bringing it up. Airplane launched torpedoes were very effective in WW-II. The Bismark was immobilized by an antique airplane carrying a torpedo and The Pacific fleet was severely damaged at Pearl Harbor due to aerial attack and torpedoes played a significant roll. I bring it up to mention the relative ranges of torpedoes and the weapons you’re describing. Even the American Mark 13 had a range of about 3-4 miles, and had homing capabilities later in the war. Hell, by the end of the war, the Mark 13 could be dropped with a gliding rig that would let it coast for 8-10 miles before dropping it in the water. You’re vastly underestimating the capability of torpedoes, and that’s affecting your estimation of the use of a bomb that had a stand-off distance of two miles. The biggest reason that torpedoes had to be brought in closer to be successful was that the ship would try to evade them (turning towards the torpedo bombers to present a smaller target was a common tactic). Given that they were being set upon by a swarm of bombers attacking from all directions, the effectiveness of this varied greatly (and dropped off heavily as the numbers, tactics, and equipment of the attackers improved over the years). In any case, a standoff distance of 2 miles wouldn’t be of great use at attacking an aircraft carrier, and a standoff distance of 20 miles wouldn’t be much improvement either against a ship equipped with radar and loaded with fighters that had a combat radius of something like 400-500 miles. This is also why your typical navy fleet in WWII had a picket of dozens of smaller ships spread out over hundreds of miles in every direction to spot enemy forces as early as possible. It was these pickets, usually destroyers and the like, that ended up facing Kamikaze attacks and such late in the war, rather than the battleships or carriers (and most battleships could shrug off your typical kamikaze attack anyways). ---
**Author:** ![Redfishhunter930](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@Redfishhunter930](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Redfishhunter930)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-german-technology-wwii/692171/103 "2014-07-06T03:16:28Z")
After rereading the question again and reading the replies about fritz, V-1,V-2 etc… The simple fact of the matter is Yes the Germans had some outstanding technologies. But these were not effective in them winning the war. Example the Gattling gun was invented during or around the American Civil War but the technology of the weapon through refinement in the technology didn’t become a decisive weapon till the First World War. My point being to my earlier post was that the Germans were still feeding horse and using teamsters instead of using a teamster as a fighting man. While we were using or technology to improve our logistics in order to win the war and go home. Can’t paste the link but look up P.L.U.T.O. Wikipedia ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-german-technology-wwii/692171/104 "2014-07-06T03:54:16Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > See also: atomic weapons, proximity fuzes, earthquake bombs, bouncing bombs, mathematics and operational research (extremely underappreciated: RAE operational research touched everything from developing camouflage patterns, to designing the ideal convoy which maximised its defensive capabilities, to reducing the number of artillery shells needed to shoot down a plane from 20,000 at the start of the war to just 4,000 at its end, American operational researchers doubled the accuracy of B-29 crews in the Pacific Theatre), and so on. Another hugely important technology people usually forget: antibiotics. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-german-technology-wwii/692171/105 "2014-07-06T04:10:03Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Another hugely important technology people usually forget: antibiotics. Helicopters too, although they were fielded at the tail end of the Pacific war. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-german-technology-wwii/692171/106 "2014-07-06T04:35:49Z")
> [@JacobSwan](#): > > Like the first generation P51 mustangs with American engines? It only became a good plane when fitted with rolls Royce Merlin engines. The engines were Rolls Royce Merlin designed. Rolls Royce produced many of those engines, and Packard in the US also produced engines using those designs. The Packard Merlin engines were considered better built even by the Rolls Royce people. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-german-technology-wwii/692171/107 "2014-07-06T04:36:58Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Pretty much, yeah, although the economics may be shifting toward it being more practical. It’s called the Fischer-Tropsch process, if you want to look into it. South Africa used the technology to deal with apartheid-era trade embargoes, since they had a lot of coal. > > That was more true in comparison to Japan than Germany, but yes, especially later in the war, lack of access to key alloying elements not available in their areas of control probably did hurt the quality of German steel. But the main reason was that the Americans had 100-octane gasoline (Jimmy Doolittle was chiefly responsible, in his work with Shell), for more power per pound of gas. Octane does not have more power, it increases the temperature at which gasoline will self ignite, allowing for higher-compression ratios before firing. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-german-technology-wwii/692171/108 "2014-07-06T04:38:24Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Helicopters too, although they were fielded at the tail end of the Pacific war. While helicopters became a major military technology, I don’t feel they had much of an impact in World War II. ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-german-technology-wwii/692171/109 "2014-07-06T05:26:57Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Octane does not have more power, it increases the temperature at which gasoline will self ignite, allowing for higher-compression ratios before firing. And higher compression, all else remaining equal, means a more powerful engine, right? The funny thing is, doesn’t higher octane gas actually have less chemical energy per weight, than lower octane fuel? ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-german-technology-wwii/692171/110 "2014-07-06T08:00:44Z")
> [@Redfishhunter930](#): > > After rereading the question again and reading the replies about fritz, V-1,V-2 etc… The simple fact of the matter is Yes the Germans had some outstanding technologies. But these were not effective in them winning the war. Example the Gattling gun was invented during or around the American Civil War but the technology of the weapon through refinement in the technology didn’t become a decisive weapon till the First World War. I don’t believe the Gatling Gun had much impact on the First World War. I think you’re getting it mixed up with the Machine Gun. The Gatling Gun used rotating barrels to rapidly chamber and fire rounds, with the mechanism being externally powered (usually a hand crank in those days) while the Machine Gun usually has a single barrel and is self-powered, using the recoil or spent gasses of the bullet being fired to work the mechanism to chamber the next round. They were seen as more practical once they were developed because they were significantly lighter than Gatling Guns while having the same effective performance otherwise. Now, where the Gatling Gun finally reached full maturity was arguably the late 1950s, with the development of electric-powered weapons such as the M61 Vulcan Cannon, a 20mm cannon that worked on the same principle as the old Gatling Gun (part of the development process included taking an old Gatling Gun and rigging it to an electric motor as a proof of concept). In the intervening time, the Gatling was presumably just seen as a developmental dead-end, left in the dust by more practical weapons until the advancement of technology and changing requirements lead to a situation where machine guns and autocannons could not perform as well as they were needed to (high speed jet combat), and the old idea was revisited with new technology allowing a jet to carry a single heavier cannon with a much higher rate of fire rather than having to carry multiple slower autocannons or machine guns. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-german-technology-wwii/692171/111 "2014-07-06T09:32:18Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Irony, thy name is **Magiver**. 😕Why in gods name are you talking about B-17s? By the way, you are yet again completely wrong; B-17s flew too high to be subjected to flak from ships. I compared The Heinkel medium bomber to the heavy US bomber used early in the war. The Heinkel was re-purposed to launch the V1 which at the time was used as a terror weapon. Adding the already functional wire guidance system to it would have made it a more accurate bomber than a B-17 and thus a better use of resources. > [@Dissonance](#): > > Where in the hell are these fighters that you think are going to escort your sitting duck He-111 going to come from? What do you mean where would they come from? The question makes no sense. They’d use the same fighters in their inventory they always had. > [@Dissonance](#): > > I hate to be the one to break it to you, but the Luftwaffe wasn’t in very good shape in mid to late 1944. well duh, we’re not debating that. The discussion is advancements in technology. Despite fighting a war on 2 fronts and going up against an enemy with exponentially greater resources AND a German leader who was a complete logistical lunatic they managed to wage war for 6 years. > [@Dissonance](#): > > The end result of all of this and you still have a weapon inferior in performance to the Fritz X and a He-111 that would be better off carrying a torpedo; at least it wouldn’t be committing suicide. the Fritz X was limited to making adjustments in free fall. A V1 was a flying weapon capable of significant course corrections. The Fritz was dropped from a Dornier Do 217 medium bomber which was comparable in performance to a Heinkel He 111. Combining existing technologies and platforms is an efficient method of maximizing resources in a war. The greatest battleship in the beginning of the war was the Bismark. It was taken down by 6 antique biplanes supported by 6 fighters. This was a much closer combat arena than a stand alone weapon. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-german-technology-wwii/692171/112 "2014-07-06T09:56:10Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > In any case, a standoff distance of 2 miles wouldn’t be of great use at attacking an aircraft carrier, and a standoff distance of 20 miles wouldn’t be much improvement either against a ship equipped with radar and loaded with fighters that had a combat radius of something like 400-500 miles. This is also why your typical navy fleet in WWII had a picket of dozens of smaller ships spread out over hundreds of miles in every direction to spot enemy forces as early as possible. It was these pickets, usually destroyers and the like, that ended up facing Kamikaze attacks and such late in the war, rather than the battleships or carriers (and most battleships could shrug off your typical kamikaze attack anyways). This of course brings up the question of just where these suicidal V-1 carrying He-111 anti-ship strikes were going to take place. The Pacific War was a naval war, the European War was not. The Japanese ultimately resorted to Kamikazes and Ohkas because every American advance across the Pacific was accomplished with yet another amphibious landing and the attrition rate of planes trying to attack Allied ships by that point in the war was high enough to nearly be suicidal anyway, and was no longer producing much in the way of results. The Japanese lost over 350 planes in one day in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, and the only damage they managed to inflict was one bomb hit on the battleship _South Dakota_. By the time the V-1 was in use Germany could no longer even control the airspace over its own country, where 1,000 bomber raids bombed German cities at will. On the day of the landings at Normandy, the Luftwaffe could only manage 100 daylight sorties to almost 15,000 sorties flown by Allied aircraft that day. The few German bomber groups that tried operating over Normandy did so only under the cover of darkness, and even then suffered such heavy losses that they were either formally or unofficially disbanded. Even if a wire guided abomination of a V-1 was available at the same time the V-1 first saw service (highly unlikely), the first V-1 was fired June 13, 1944, seven days after the landings at Normandy. Expecting a He-111 even carrying a normal bomb load to conduct a daylight sortie over the English channel to attack Allied shipping moving troops to Normandy and survive long enough to reach said shipping is ludicrous to the extreme. Strapping a V-1 to it, giving it the flight characteristics of a school bus and expecting it to survive long enough to get within two miles of a ship is simply absurd, even if it were escorted by every Luftwaffe fighter available in Normandy in June 1944, which was a remarkably small number. The Fritz X was able to achieve some success at Salerno, Anzio, and against the Italian fleet as it attempted to flee for Allied harbors after the Italian capitulation because the degree of Allied air superiority wasn’t quite so total yet, Salerno was conducted at the extreme limit of the range of Allied fighter cover, Anzio was fairly far from Allied fighter bases limiting the time fighters could spend on CAP, and the Italian fleet had no air cover whatsoever. It wasn’t an accident that the Fritz X and Hs293 had no effect on the Allied landings at Normandy; the Luftwaffe was unable to operate with any effect in the face of such total Allied dominance of the skies, even without using suicidal absurd weapons as wire guided V-1s. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-german-technology-wwii/692171/113 "2014-07-06T10:29:43Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > I compared The Heinkel medium bomber to the heavy US bomber used early in the war. The Heinkel was re-purposed to launch the V1 which at the time was used as a terror weapon. Adding the already functional wire guidance system to it would have made it a more accurate bomber than a B-17 and thus a better use of resources. Oh lord, the inaccuracies just don’t stop coming. The wire guidance system wasn’t already functional; it was never issued to the Luftwaffe by the end of the war. Adding a wire-guidance system to the V-1 would turn the He-111 into a deathtrap. You might note that when He-111s were used to fire V-1s at London they fired them from 160 miles out, not 2. Fear of radar detection was a serious concern as the He-111 was heavily overloaded, slow and unmanueverable while carrying a V-1. [Here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1_flying_bomb#Operation_and_effectiveness): > [@](#): > > The trial versions of the V-1 were air-launched. Most operational V-1s were launched from static sites on land, but from July 1944 to January 1945, the Luftwaffe launched approximately 1,176 from modified Heinkel He 111 H-22s of the Luftwaffe’s Kampfgeschwader 3 (3rd Bomber Wing, the so-called “Blitz Wing”) flying over the North Sea. Apart from the obvious motive of permitting the bombardment campaign to continue after static ground sites on the French coast were lost, air-launching gave the Luftwaffe the opportunity to outflank the increasingly effective ground and air defences put up by the British against the missile. To minimise the associated risks (primarily radar detection), the aircrews developed a tactic called “lo-hi-lo”: the He 111s would, upon leaving their airbases and crossing the coast, descend to an exceptionally low altitude. When the launch point was neared, the bombers would swiftly ascend, fire their V-1s, and then rapidly descend again to the previous ‘wave-top’ level for the return flight. Research after the war estimated a 40% failure rate of air-launched V-1s, and the He-111s used in this role were extremely vulnerable to night fighter attack, as the launch lit up the area around the aircraft for several seconds. And this still doesn’t explain why in gods name you decided to bring the B-17 into the discussion. > [@Magiver](#): > > What do you mean where would they come from? The question makes no sense. They’d use the same fighters in their inventory they always had. So in other words, you mean they’d get them from nowhere, since that’s where any fighters not devoted to desperately trying to defend the Reich from 1,000 bomber raids came from. > [@Magiver](#): > > well duh, we’re not debating that. The discussion is advancements in technology. Despite fighting a war on 2 fronts and going up against an enemy with exponentially greater resources AND a German leader who was a complete logistical lunatic they managed to wage war for 6 years. So in other words you not only want to make it not suicidal to try approaching within 2 miles of an Allied ship in 1944 in a He-111 that you’ve turned into a slow moving self-exploding flying bomb, you now want it to be escorted by Luftwaffe fighters provided by Alien Space Bats. > [@Magiver](#): > > the Fritz X was limited to making adjustments in free fall. A V1 was a flying weapon capable of significant course corrections. The Fritz was dropped from a Dornier Do 217 medium bomber which was comparable in performance to a Heinkel He 111. And? None of this changes the fact that the Fritz X had three times the range, twice the speed and armor-penetrating abilities that the V-1 lacked. A V-1 would explode without penetrating the armor of a cruiser, much less a battleship. A Fritz X penetrated six decks of the battleship HMS _Warspite_ before exploding in number 4 boiler room. > [@Magiver](#): > > Combining existing technologies and platforms is an efficient method of maximizing resources in a war. The greatest battleship in the beginning of the war was the Bismark. It was taken down by 6 antique biplanes supported by 6 fighters. This was a much closer combat arena than a stand alone weapon. And the inaccuracies just don’t stop coming. The Bismarck (note the spelling) wasn’t even in commission when the war began and calling it the greatest battleship of the beginning of the war is little more than cheerleading. ---
**Author:** ![Redfishhunter930](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@Redfishhunter930](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Redfishhunter930)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-german-technology-wwii/692171/114 "2014-07-06T14:04:34Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > I don’t believe the Gatling Gun had much impact on the First World War. I think you’re getting it mixed up with the Machine Gun. The Gatling Gun used rotating barrels to rapidly chamber and fire rounds, with the mechanism being externally powered (usually a hand crank in those days) while the Machine Gun usually has a single barrel and is self-powered, using the recoil or spent gasses of the bullet being fired to work the mechanism to chamber the next round. They were seen as more practical once they were developed because they were significantly lighter than Gatling Guns while having the same effective performance otherwise. > > Now, where the Gatling Gun finally reached full maturity was arguably the late 1950s, with the development of electric-powered weapons such as the M61 Vulcan Cannon, a 20mm cannon that worked on the same principle as the old Gatling Gun (part of the development process included taking an old Gatling Gun and rigging it to an electric motor as a proof of concept). > > In the intervening time, the Gatling was presumably just seen as a developmental dead-end, left in the dust by more practical weapons until the advancement of technology and changing requirements lead to a situation where machine guns and autocannons could not perform as well as they were needed to (high speed jet combat), and the old idea was revisited with new technology allowing a jet to carry a single heavier cannon with a much higher rate of fire rather than having to carry multiple slower autocannons or machine guns. Yes of course, First we had matches then someone took a flint and made a bic lighter. Same end result. > **[Firearms](https://science.howstuffworks.com/firearms-channel.htm)** > > Firearms are one of the oldest and most evolved weapon systems. From flintlocks to automatic weapons and flamethrowers, learn how firearms have been used to wage wars and save lives. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-german-technology-wwii/692171/115 "2014-07-06T14:42:40Z")
> [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > And higher compression, all else remaining equal, means a more powerful engine, right? > > The funny thing is, doesn’t higher octane gas actually have less chemical energy per weight, than lower octane fuel? Yes, but more per gallon - which is true in general of all alkanes, and part of the reason for a diesel’s high mileage per gallon. ---
**Author:** ![JacobSwan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@JacobSwan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JacobSwan)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-german-technology-wwii/692171/116 "2014-07-06T14:54:51Z")
> [@Redfishhunter930](#): > > Yes of course, First we had matches then someone took a flint and made a bic lighter. Same end result. > > [Firearms | HowStuffWorks](http://science.howstuffworks.com/machine-gun-info3.htm) It’s one of those strange historical facts that the lighter was invented before matches. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-german-technology-wwii/692171/117 "2014-07-06T15:05:02Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Oh lord, the inaccuracies just don’t stop coming. The wire guidance system wasn’t already functional; it was never issued to the Luftwaffe by the end of the war. Adding a wire-guidance system to the V-1 would turn the He-111 into a deathtrap. You might note that when He-111s were used to fire V-1s at London they fired them from 160 miles out, not 2. Fear of radar detection was a serious concern as the He-111 was heavily overloaded, slow and unmanueverable while carrying a V-1. [Here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1_flying_bomb#Operation_and_effectiveness):And this still doesn’t explain thy in gods name you decided to bring the B-17 into the discussion. Why do you keep mentioning the He-111? It’s the same basic platform as the Dornier which was subjected to the same fighter attacks you keep harping about: [from wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_X) - The operator had to keep the bomb in sight at all times (a tail flare was provided) and the control aircraft had to hold course,[7] which made evading gunfire or fighters impossible. > [@Dissonance](#): > > So in other words, you mean they’d get them from nowhere, since that’s where any fighters not devoted to desperately trying to defend the Reich from 1,000 bomber raids came from. They’d get them from the same fighters that would have escorted the planes flying the Fritz X. > [@Dissonance](#): > > So in other words you not only want to make it not suicidal to try approaching within 2 miles of an Allied ship in 1944 in a He-111 that you’ve turned into a slow moving self-exploding flying bomb, you now want it to be escorted by Luftwaffe fighters provided by Alien Space Bats. As I mentioned before the Fritz X was vulnerable to jamming. By 1944 it was rendered useless: In early 1944 the UK began to deploy its Type 650 transmitter, which employed a different approach. This system jammed the Straßburg receiver’s intermediate frequency section, which operated at a 3 MHz frequency and appears to have been quite successful, especially as the operator did not have to attempt to find which of the 18 Kehl/Straßburg command frequencies were in use and then manually tune the jamming transmitter to one of those frequencies. This system automatically defeated the ordnance’s receiver regardless of which radio frequency had been selected for an individual Luftwaffe missile. > [@Dissonance](#): > > And? None of this changes the fact that the Fritz X had three times the range, twice the speed and armor-penetrating abilities that the V-1 lacked. A V-1 would explode without penetrating the armor of a cruiser, much less a battleship. A Fritz X penetrated six decks of the battleship HMS _Warspite_ before exploding in number 4 boiler room. I don’t know where you get 3 times the range. It was launched 2.7 miles out. It had to be close enough to observe and also within free fall range of the bomb. A powered weapon does not rely on altitude constraints. It can be launched low to the surface like a torpedo plane. This goes back to the success of the Swordfish biplane against the Bismarck. > [@Dissonance](#): > > And the inaccuracies just don’t stop coming. The Bismarck (note the spelling) wasn’t even in commission when the war began and calling it the greatest battleship of the beginning of the war is little more than cheerleading. From [Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_battleship_Bismarck): the ship was laid down at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg in July 1936 and launched two and a half years later in February 1939. Work was completed in August 1940 when she was commissioned into the German fleet. Bismarck and her sister ship Tirpitz were the largest battleships ever built by Germany, and two of the largest built by any European power. Poland was invaded September 1st 1939 in a land war. A big nitpick on your part regarding it’s commission date. It sent the British flag ship to the bottom with little effort. The Bismarck was disabled with a torpedo biplane at close range yet you seem to think a standoff weapon using a 400 mph missile with a 1000 lb warhead wouldn’t work. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-german-technology-wwii/692171/118 "2014-07-06T16:34:43Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > While helicopters became a major military technology, I don’t feel they had much of an impact in World War II. Which puts them in the same category as the German Wunderwaffe that’s the topic of this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-german-technology-wwii/692171/119 "2014-07-06T16:49:06Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > I don’t believe the Gatling Gun had much impact on the First World War. I think you’re getting it mixed up with the Machine Gun. The Gatling Gun used rotating barrels to rapidly chamber and fire rounds, with the mechanism being externally powered (usually a hand crank in those days) while the Machine Gun usually has a single barrel and is self-powered, using the recoil or spent gasses of the bullet being fired to work the mechanism to chamber the next round. They were seen as more practical once they were developed because they were significantly lighter than Gatling Guns while having the same effective performance otherwise. > > Now, where the Gatling Gun finally reached full maturity was arguably the late 1950s, with the development of electric-powered weapons such as the M61 Vulcan Cannon, a 20mm cannon that worked on the same principle as the old Gatling Gun (part of the development process included taking an old Gatling Gun and rigging it to an electric motor as a proof of concept). > > In the intervening time, the Gatling was presumably just seen as a developmental dead-end,. The rise and fall and rise of the multi-barrel concept is an interesting chapter in weapons development. But while I agree self powered machine guns had overtaken Gatling guns by WWI, and also as stated earlier manually cranked Gatling guns weren’t fully perfected during the American Civil War, in between those two wars hand cranked Gatling guns became practical and effective weapons. Their fire support for example is often credited with tipping the balance in the US victory in the Battle of San Juan Hill in the War of 1898 for example. Those were Model 1895 Gatlings, firing smokeless powder .30-40 ammunition, same as used by US Krag-Jorgensen rifles. They were heavier and harder to conceal than recoil or gas operated single barrel machine guns (a handful of the latter were also present in that battle), but were practical and effective within their limitations. It might also be noted that some modern Gatling guns are self powered by propellant gas rather than an external power source. That’s true of the GAU-4 version of the US 20mm type, and AFAIK all versions of the Russian GSh-6-23 and GSh-6-30 Gatling guns. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-german-technology-wwii/692171/120 "2014-07-06T17:00:28Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > Which puts them in the same category as the German Wunderwaffe that’s the topic of this thread. a bit of trivia, German subs carried rotor gliders that they towed behind them as spotters. [Focke-Achgelis Fa 330](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focke-Achgelis_Fa_330) Not much use in areas with radar coverage but an interesting piece of equipment. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-german-technology-wwii/692171.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-german-technology-wwii/692171.md?page=7)