Question about German technology WWII

Factual Questions
21

Rocketry is also a good example of differences in Allied vs German thinking. Rocketry was pushed enthusiastically by scientists who were interested in rocketry basically in all the developed nations of the time. But the Allied countries, the military top brass and such looked at rockets and basically said “these are expensive, will not be as accurate or as useful as bombs dropped by bombers, and will not be able to be produced in nearly the same quantity.”

Was it a little short sighted? I don’t know, maybe. These guys obviously weren’t looking ahead to ship-launched cruise missiles, intercontinental ballistic missiles and etc, but then again, none of those things were going to be produced by anyone in the 1940s. In the context of WWII, you actually needed to be thinking about “what’s going to help us win this war that’s happening right now” not “what technology will produce dividends 15 years from now.”

22

The US began thinking about an intercontinental bomber in 1941. How could we bomb the Reich if Britain fell? The B-36 wasn’t produced until after the War but was the mainstay of SAC for some years. Was it a failure if it was never used in a war? The B-47 was technically more advanced because it was all-jet but the B-52 was the true successor. And they are still flying…

23

Good points. This also applied with respect to manpower - the US not only had a large manufacturing and R&D base, but it also had a very large number of not-especially-well-educated farmboys who could be drafted en masse, given rifles and a few weeks of training, and told to go kill Nazis. Germany was running out of people to conscript. Even a general with a PhD isn’t going to survive an onslaught of hundreds of peasants. Both sides had many well-educated and experienced tacticians and engineers. The Allies had the ability to bring it on and keep it coming. Germany could bring it on, but couldn’t keep it up.

24

The Germans were severely limited by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. So they worked on ways around it. Rocketry is the most famous example. And, as mentioned, really didn’t do much for them so it was mainly for show than effect.

BTW, the Germans (or rather, one German) had a particularly good handle on computers by WWII. But again no real effect on the war.

The Allies won, hands down, the tech side of the war is dozens of ways. The German’s tech was just flashier (except for The Bomb, of course).

25

A lot of folks look at the so-called superiority of German engineering, but they are looking at it wrong.

The Tiger tank is an excellent example of this. By almost every measurable way, the Tiger was superior to all of the other tanks in WWII. If you put a Tiger and a U.S. Sherman tank face to face, you could even let the Sherman fire first if you wanted to. The Sherman couldn’t penetrate the front armor of the Tiger. The Tiger, however, could put a shell in through the front and out through the back of the Sherman. The Russian T-34 fared a bit better than the Sherman against a Tiger, but it was still far from an even match. So this is clearly an example of the superiority of German engineering, right?

Wrong.

Yes, the Tiger was a wonder of German engineering, but it was extremely expensive and was difficult to produce. Yes, it took on average 4 Shermans to kill 1 Tiger, but we could produce 10 Shermans for every 1 Tiger that they made. The Russians also rather famously discovered that their much simpler and much more rugged T-34 could often defeat a Tiger simply by ramming it. There are a lot of exaggerated stories of the Russians ramming tanks in WWII and many of them are just stories, but they are based on some real incidents where the outgunned Russian tanks did in fact ram the German tigers to disable them. The “superior” Tiger with all of its complex parts was also a royal pain to repair when something broke.

If you look at producability and simplicity with the intent of rugged reliability, the Russian T-34 was probably the best tank of WWII. But if you put a single Russian T-34 up against a German Tiger, the Tiger is probably going to win. The T-34 didn’t win in one-on-one battles. It won by coming over the border in wave after wave after wave of tanks. In the end, on both fronts, the Tiger couldn’t be produce in large enough quantities to make a significant difference on the battlefield.

Also, the Germans did have smart bombs, and most folks haven’t heard of the U.S. using smart bombs until the Iraq war. But while Germany had the Fritz X for example, the U.S. had the Azon. Both the U.S. and German smart bombs were produced in fairly low numbers and both were nowhere near as accurate as modern smart bombs. Germany was pretty much on even ground here, not light years ahead.

The Germans had the only practical jet fighter of the war, but they weren’t light years ahead of everyone else. The Messerschmitt Me 262 gets a lot of well deserved credit for being the first operational jet fighter, but the thing sucked so much fuel and had such a limited range that while it did shock the bejeezus out of the allied pilots that first encountered it, it wasn’t of much practical use. Also, the U.S. and England both had jet engines. They just hadn’t quite turned them into practical planes. If the war had lasted a bit longer, the U.S. Lockheed Shooting Star would have been put into service. Japan had the Nakajima Kikka, which was still in the prototype stages when the war ended. They also had the Yokosuka MXY-7, though to be fair it was more of a kamikaze rocket than an actual jet fighter.

Germany was putting a lot of effort into the Me 262 at a time when it was running very low on regular planes and pilots. They needed more planes to go toe to toe with Allied fighters and bombers, not something that could race up, fight very impressively for a very short time, then run away as its fuel ran out. Like the Tiger Tank, the Me 262 took a lot of resources to build and operate, and like the Tiger it couldn’t be fielded in large enough numbers to make a difference.

The “best” weapons don’t necessarily win the war. There is something to the old Russian saying (often attributed to Stalin) that “quantity has a quality all its own”. You see this over and over with German weapons in WWII, and not just in tanks and jet planes. The German MG-34 machine gun for example was a great gun, probably the most advanced machine gun in the world when it went into production, but again it cost too much to produce. The Germans made very fancy and well engineered weapons, but they focused too much on making each weapon as good as they could, and not enough on producability and cost. In the end, their so-called “superior engineering” probably did them more harm than good.

26

Any design change to the T-34 famously had to be approved personally by Stalin. Stalin wanted tanks rolling off the assembly line to the front, any design “improvements” that might slow down this process were forbidden.

And don’t forget, when the T-34 was introduced, it was superior in almost every way to the actually existing German tanks it was facing. The famed Tiger tanks saw very limited service in very small numbers late in the war. A Tiger tank doesn’t do much good if it breaks down halfway to the battle and gets abandoned as a mobility kill. And almost no battles were “two tanks meet alone in the battlefield, one tank drives away”. Yes, often the best way to defeat a tank is with another tank. But that one Tiger isn’t facing 4 T-34s, it is facing 4 T-34s plus infantry, plus mines, plus tank traps, plus artillery, plus air support.

And of course, most German armor was other sorts of crap, with literally hundreds of designs, each with their own supply chains. The Germans were slapping any sort of gun they could scrounge to any sort of chassis they could build. If you’ve only got a few shells left in your tank platoon for the main gun, and you can’t get any more because the factory that made that particular caliber of shells is now in rubble, that gun is nearly useless.

27

also the germans were ahead in producing the so called night vision

28

Jets were not much of a real advantage compared to useful radar. Or self-sealing fuel tanks. Or drop tanks. Or a functional heavy Bomber.

The V program looked impressive but was mostly a waste of resources.

29

Actually the Tiger I was produced in 1942 and they made 1400 or so. And altho decent, the design was cruddy it used brute force rather than brilliant design. Maybe you’re thinking of the Tiger II, which came out in 1944 and they made only about 500?

The Panther was actually one of the best designed tanks, not the Tiger I.

However, Germany might have been better off building Hetzers.

30

The Germans and the Brits both developed the jet engine at about the same time. They even managed to build both the centrifugal type and axial flow type independent of each other.

The difference is that the Brits didn’t have slave labor to build stuff with. That’s a huge friggin resource to have. They were also more pragmatic than the Germans about technology. They went with the Centrifugal style engine which was much more stable. The German jet engine was a ticking time bomb that required a seasoned pilot to operate. Nobody seems to remember the British Gloster Meteor flew in the war.

The Brits developed their radar systems to a much more sophisticated level making it a truly useful instrument. Their ability to disseminate information up the chain of command quickly would still be considered an achievement today as would the combined efforts of US/British code breaking. Breaking the enigma was a tremendous achievement.

Ships were a function of time. The Bismarck was way ahead of anything else because it was the latest ship built. By the end of the war it had been destroyed and better ships built by the Allies.

Rocket technology and pulse jet technology was the one thing Germans truly leap-frogged over the allies. But that pales in comparison to the invention of the atomic bomb. THAT was some serious technology.

What it all comes down to was how stupid Hitler was. He squandered just about every technical achievement made. If he’d let his military leaders run the war it would have been exponentially worse for the allies. There were some great German military leaders. I think England would have been forced to surrender which would have moved the war to the Mediterranean. Without a base of operations it would have been a serious logistical nightmare.

31

To add a couple of things: Tiger vs. Sherman or T-34 examples are often brought up, but the Germans themselves didn’t consider the Tiger to be in the same category as the Sherman or the T-34, which were medium tanks. The Tiger was a heavy tank and seen by the Germans as another type of vehicle altogether; it was not deployed* in the panzer divisions, it was used exclusively in independent heavy (schwere) panzer battalions and companies at the Corps and Army level. A fairer comparison would be against other heavy tanks, which the US lacked until the end of the war in the T-26 Pershing, or against Soviet heavies such as the KV-1, IS-1, IS-2, and IS-3 where the superiority of the Tiger, if it still retains one, diminishes quite substantially. A more appropriate comparison vs. the Sherman and T-34 would be the Pz-IV where again the superiority, if there is one, isn’t very prominent.

The other thing to point out is that the Tiger was a mechanical nightmare exceeded only in this respect by the Panther. It suffered from constant mechanical breakdowns and took huge amounts of maintenance hours to keep running even in this unreliable state. Having a tank twice as good as your enemy doesn’t do so much good if it breaks down four times as often as your enemies tanks, and as Lemur866 pointed out these tank vs. tank comparisons miss the fact that battles rarely were resolved as tank vs. tank. The great majority of tanks put out of action during WWII were not put out of action by other tanks; the number one cause was the towed anti-tank gun.

  • barring 1st and 2nd SS Panzer which briefly had a company each before having them taken away to form the core of the 101st SS heavy panzer battalion, 3rd SS Panzer which had a company for the duration of the war and Grossdeutschland which had a battalion, but wasn’t even technically a division at that point, it was a corps.
32

As for production rates, the Russians out produced the Axis by far more than 10 to 1, much more like 50 o 1 and probably more.

The Axis r&d for electronics was poor, at the start of hostilities, they were well ahead on radar and on radio, especially so when you look at what was deployed in the field, where virtually all Axis tanks had a fm radio.

It did not take the British long at all to match and then outstrip German radar. In particular the development of the magnetron which allowed the use of centimetric radar proved crucial in nullifying the German subs, who found they could not surface at night to recharge or even to put themselves in better locations to intercept convoys

German production of aircraft was lower than British, for almost the entire war, thanks to the use of methods introduced in the US. When you add in the huge industrial might of the US itself then you do have to wonder why the Germans were too stupid to change their industry.

One special area for which the Germans must be roundly criticised it their medium range artillery, basically it was far too heavy and cumbersome, even the mighty 88. There were far too many variant and calibres, imagine the supply problems in the mud seasons in Russia.

By contrast US artillery usage was extremely impressive, especially their system of directing all pieces in a zone on one target, no matter what their calibre. Instead the Germans developed very heavy pieces that were operationally completely impractical, extremely vulnerable and unbelievably costly, both to build and then to operate.

Its the mundane things that make a huge difference, such as the quality of German water vessels, these made a significant difference to their forces in North Africa, their lack of air to ground forces cost them dearly, yet British camouflage and deception was almost a valuable as the real thing in splitting and diverting Axis forces, a few hundred inflatable tanks did as much damage as the real thing, one way or another.

33

They certainly did change it, just not in time. Factories that were being heavily bombed got dispersed into the forests and caves for their own protection, and staffed by slaves. That they still produced materiel at the rate they did, given the resulting operational inefficiencies, speaks to efficiency and dedication. Or maybe just ruthlessness.

If they were so stupid and unproductive, why did beating them take so long?

34

It is highly likely that the Pajandrum was a hoax, part of Operation Fortitude, which sucessfully convinced the Germans that a landing would be made on the heavily fortified Pas de Calais, where it might have been of some use. The actual landing was in Normandy, of course.

http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/TRANSPORT/diwheel/diwheel.htm#paj

Considering that the testing was done not in secret, but in full view of hundreds of holidaymakers, several times, this is a very persuasive theory. However, as far as I am aware, it has never been confirmed. I think we should be told.

35

Tank carriers. Tank carriers are big slow vehicles that you use to carry a tank around. You can’t use them in a battle.

But the Allies built and used tank carriers and the Germans didn’t. Which meant that the Germans always had tanks breaking down traveling between battles. Which meant that in the battle itself, the Allied tanks were in better condition than the German tanks.

36

Because despite how moronic Hitler was his military command was exceptional. They entered the war with inferior equipment and forces yet bliztkrieg’d their way through France. They took over factories in countries they conquered and built better tanks. They literally built a lot of their war machine on the run.

Enter Hitler, the Russian Front and a complete mismanagement of assets.

37

Or one thing that’s just astonishing. Throughout all of World War II, German factories never went on twenty-four production shifts. Even in 1944 and 1945, German factories making ammunition and tanks and airplanes were shut down every evening and all the workers went home (or back to the camp).

38

on “Hogan’s Heroes,” which is historically accurate about a lot of things, excpet of course that whole sabotage unit operating out of POW camp thing, there was an episode about the Germans acquiring heavy water, which is needed for nukes, and about developing synthetic fuel…were the nazis about to make their own nukes when the war ended, what about the synfuel?

39

Not even remotely close to true. 10 to 1 is in itself an extreme exaggeration; I can only put this down to the mistaken belief that the Soviets only beat the Germans by employing human wave tactics. The casualty ratio between the Germans and the Soviets was heavily in the Germans favor in the opening months of Barbarossa, but as the war drew on it moved progressively closer to 1:1. For examples of production:
Tanks and SPGs:
USSR 106,025
Germany 67,429

Artillery
USSR 516,648
Germany 159,147

Mortars
USSR 200,300
Germany 73,484

Machineguns
USSR 1,477,400
Germany 674,280

Not true on two levels. One, you are using Axis where you mean German (virtually all Italian tanks at the start of the war were radio less tankettes), and two, the Pz-I was the backbone of the German panzer force in Poland and still comprised 1/5 of the panzers in the invasion of France. It had a two man crew, and a radio was not standard equipment; there was only a radio in command vehicles. The Pz-II with a three man crew was the first German tank where a radio was standard equipment.

The British didn’t need to match the Germans in the area of radar; they had already outstripped them. The first five stations of the Chain Home were operational in 1936.

40

Add me as another who believes the German superiority is overblown. Examples:

Until the introduction of the ME-262 American aircraft was better than German in almost all areas. The Luftwaffe didn’t have any heavy bombers and the US had several.

My understanding is that American metallurgy was better which allowed them to design (among other things) more powerful aircraft engines.

The allies were using the first crude computers to crack the Enigma and calculate ballistics.