# Today vs WWII military power **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 19, 2004, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-vs-wwii-military-power/255828 "2004-07-19T15:08:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**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:** [April 10, 2011, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-vs-wwii-military-power/255828/41 "2011-04-10T03:00:30Z")
Technology has completely changed the way weapons work. Somebody mentioned massed artillery. The reason you saw massed artillery in WWII was because the artillery was so poor. You fire several hundred rounds off in the general direction of your target in the hopes that one of those rounds might hit your target at random. Same thing with aerial bombardment. German military intelligence had a division that analyzed where allied bombs landed in an attempt to figure out what city they were aiming at. There were times when the bombers didn’t even hit the right country. Nowadays we have smart weapons. The principle now is hit the target. Modern armed forces are smaller than WWII armed forces but they’re a lot more lethal because they don’t waste ninety percent of their firepower. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2011, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-vs-wwii-military-power/255828/42 "2011-04-10T10:58:16Z")
> [@Otara](#): > > Not really - the T34 and M4 were good tanks when initially introduced, the Germans were very worried by the T34 in particular. > > As a solution Germany tried to bring in new tanks like the Tiger, but the problem with doing that is you slow down production while swapping over, and there are teething problems, training, etc etc. They were going to get swamped anyway, but it magnified the imbalance rather than reducing it, and by the time they somewhat corrected things with the Panther which was far cheaper, it was too late and the same ramping up issues occurred. > > The USSR and the US mostly stuck with improving ‘good enough’ designs rather than trying to do that, until enough resources were free to do so. The US did actually pay a bit of a price later in the war because of this strategy, as they did have the resources to introduce a new heavier tank earlier on (the Pershing), but there was an ideological divide over whether to do so and as a result it didnt make it there in large enough quantities to make a difference. Give the US’s resources, they probably should have but hindsight is easy. > > Otara By then though the question wasn’t so much as to whether Shermans could beat Tigers and Panthers on level terms (they couldn’t) but as to whether the German heavies were going to show up at all in the face of chronic shortages of fuel, spares and ammunition and the omnipresent threat of Allied close-support aircraft. While the Pershing would have given you the cozy feeling of beating the best German tanks in a fair fight, strategically the problem was already solved by not having to get into a fair fight in the first place. > [@Raguleader](#): > > Only the latest model Shermans had the 76mm high velocity gun, most of the run had a less powerful 75mm medium velocity gun. Didn’t have nearly the same punch to it. Actually, a quick look at Wiki says that some of the later models of M-4 carried a 105mm howitzer. :eek: The 105 fellated as an anti-tank weapon though. It wasn’t intended as one, but to deliver some serious HE against hard points. ---
**Author:** ![Otara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a88e4f/32.png) [@Otara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otara)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-vs-wwii-military-power/255828/43 "2011-04-11T00:59:38Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > By then though the question wasn’t so much as to whether Shermans could beat Tigers and Panthers on level terms (they couldn’t) but as to whether the German heavies were going to show up at all in the face of chronic shortages of fuel, spares and ammunition and the omnipresent threat of Allied close-support aircraft. While the Pershing would have given you the cozy feeling of beating the best German tanks in a fair fight, strategically the problem was already solved by not having to get into a fair fight in the first place. And then the Battle of the Bulge turned up and they turned out to have a few more tanks left than expected, ie 400 Panthers and the like. The outcome of the war was never in doubt, but a lot more tanks were lost and people killed than might have otherwise been. The Wiki article on the Pershing has a good rundown of the timeline involved, the active resistance to its earlier introduction and how said resistance disappeared rather quickly after that battle. Otara ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-vs-wwii-military-power/255828/44 "2011-04-11T02:34:55Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Same thing with aerial bombardment. German military intelligence had a division that analyzed where allied bombs landed in an attempt to figure out what city they were aiming at. There were times when the bombers didn’t even hit the right country. One of the reasons that the US went to firebombing in Tokyo was that conventional bombing was so inaccurate that they weren’t making any progress. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-vs-wwii-military-power/255828/45 "2011-04-11T06:23:20Z")
> [@Otara](#): > > And then the Battle of the Bulge turned up and they turned out to have a few more tanks left than expected, ie 400 Panthers and the like. The outcome of the war was never in doubt, but a lot more tanks were lost and people killed than might have otherwise been. > > The Wiki article on the Pershing has a good rundown of the timeline involved, the active resistance to its earlier introduction and how said resistance disappeared rather quickly after that battle. > > Otara Quite true, although the Battle turned out to be of dubious value for the Germans - it cost them rather higher in casualties than it did the Allies, and plenty of hardware that might have lasted longer if they’d remained in a defensive posture. As to the deployment of the thoroughly admirable Pershing, since only twenty of them saw an angry German, this seems to have been an excellent example of closing the stable door. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-vs-wwii-military-power/255828/46 "2011-04-13T03:28:35Z")
what’s the question again? can ww2-vintage weapons be used today on a stand-alone basis or as part of an otherwise modern armed force? if its the latter, then i will say that many infantry hardware back in ww2 are still useful: the 1911 .45 is still in actual use, so is the browning .50 caliber MG. the 81mm mortar and various howitzers can still be made useful. in the navy, an iowa-class battleship on its own can withstand missile and torpedo attack better than any modern navy vessel. if part of a task force with air and submarine support, it can certainly reach an enemy coast and pulverize any near-shore installation. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-vs-wwii-military-power/255828/47 "2011-04-13T08:24:51Z")
The question was more how would a modern military force (ie: The early 21st century US military) fare against one of our enemies from the 1940s (ie: Japan and Germany. Maybe for a bonus round we can go up against the Soviets). As for dealing with modern weapons, my understanding is that Battleships (and indeed, most surface vessels) are poorly equipped to deal with modern torpedoes, which basically are designed to make the maximum use of various physical properties of ships and water. A modern torpedo, rather than impacting the hull of a warship, will detonate immediately under it, causing a hole (well, technically, a very brief crater) to appear in the water beneath the ship. Once the ship is no longer in the water, due to the explosion forcing the water away, its own unsupported weight will cause it to collapse. Of course, I’m sure the actual explosion immediately beneath the ship does the structural integrity no favors. As far as WWII style torpedoes go, the Iowas will probably fare about as well as any other late-war battleship, assuming an enemy somehow got close enough to launch torpedoes at them (the torpedoes of the time being very short ranged weapons) ---
**Author:** ![ramel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eb8c5e/32.png) [@ramel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ramel)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-vs-wwii-military-power/255828/48 "2011-04-13T08:32:08Z")
> [@mac\_bolan00](#): > > in the navy, an iowa-class battleship on its own can withstand missile and torpedo attack better than any modern navy vessel. if part of a task force with air and submarine support, it can certainly reach an enemy coast and pulverize any near-shore installation. A WW2 era battleship would not withstand a torpedo attack. Torpedoes detonate beneath the target creating a void. This leaves that section of the ship momentarily unsupported and the ship’s own weight then breaks its back. ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-vs-wwii-military-power/255828/49 "2011-04-13T08:41:29Z")
> [@ramel](#): > > A WW2 era battleship would not withstand a torpedo attack. > > Torpedoes detonate beneath the target creating a void. This leaves that section of the ship momentarily unsupported and the ship’s own weight then breaks its back. a nuclear powered sub will have to work hard to sink an iowa with torpedoes though, especially if the BB has supporting forces. in an attack, i’d rather be aboard an iowa than a nuke-powered carrier. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-vs-wwii-military-power/255828/50 "2011-04-13T08:57:51Z")
> [@mac\_bolan00](#): > > a nuclear powered sub will have to work hard to sink an iowa with torpedoes though, especially if the BB has supporting forces. > > in an attack, i’d rather be aboard an iowa than a nuke-powered carrier. And I’d rather be on an airbase. I’d like to SEE an attack sub sink one of them. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-vs-wwii-military-power/255828/51 "2011-04-13T08:59:58Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > And I’d rather be on an airbase. I’d like to SEE an attack sub sink one of them. 😛 it won’t sink but subs have cruise missiles. does you airbase have hard bunkers? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-vs-wwii-military-power/255828/52 "2011-04-13T09:52:01Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > In WWII, a “grenade launcher” was a grenade on the end of a stick; you would put the stick in the barrel of a rifle and fire with a special blank cartridge. Modern 25mm grenade launchers give infantry a much greater firepower option. AFAIK the French army still uses rifle grenades. This lets anyone in the squad use them, rather than mandating a designated grenadier to carry a special weapon+ammo. Since they’re quite larger than 40mm thumpers I’d also guess they pack more boom and/or produce more shrapnel, especially considering the propulsion part presumably comes from the rifle instead of having to fit inside the grenade itself. If the wiki is to be believed, the Israeli army is moving back to them as well. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-vs-wwii-military-power/255828/53 "2011-04-13T09:54:20Z")
> [@mac\_bolan00](#): > > it won’t sink but subs have cruise missiles. does you airbase have hard bunkers? 😃 WWII era subs had cruise missiles? Why not? I guess all the technology existed for it back then. 😃 Fun pointless trivia: The first cruise missiles were developed during World War I, by the Americans. They couldn’t get the bugs worked out early enough to make any use of them though. They were basically built as airplanes without pilots. The hard part was getting them to take off and fly to their targets reliably. ---
**Author:** ![Otara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a88e4f/32.png) [@Otara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otara)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-vs-wwii-military-power/255828/54 "2011-04-13T11:31:48Z")
The Iowa class was only useful more recently because it had already been built and could be kept for shore bombardment, so doesnt really directly compare to weapons like a Browning .50, which are still being made today. It was also heavily modified, so doesnt really compare to its 1940’s state at all, its more of a frankenstein. Otara ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-vs-wwii-military-power/255828/55 "2011-04-13T12:43:16Z")
> [@Otara](#): > > The Iowa class was only useful more recently because it had already been built and could be kept for shore bombardment, so doesnt really directly compare to weapons like a Browning .50, which are still being made today. It was also heavily modified, so doesnt really compare to its 1940’s state at all, its more of a frankenstein. > > Otara Which, to be fair, is kind of a tradition for the bigger ships. They’re too expensive and time-consuming to just scrap and replace so soon after you’ve built them, so they tend to get refitted over and over again. Ships that served in World War I with [low-profiles and lots of guns near the water line](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/USS_Nevada.svg) (best for defending against those troublesome and impertinent destroyers and torpedo boats) served in World War II as[floating castles festooned with turrets and gun mounts all over the heavily-built-up superstructure](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/USS_Nevada_%28BB-36%29_specs.jpg) to fend off attacking aircraft. Sometimes the only way to tell two pictures were of the same ship were to look at where the main battery was (the guns and their support equipment being way too big to move around, unlike pretty much everything else on the ship) So yeah, to make a long story short (Too late!), it was generally cheaper to take an existing warship and retool her to fit the changing face of war, rather than to scrap her and build a new ship to replace her. I imagine it’d be interesting to compare the USS Enterprise (CVN-65) when she was commissioned in 1961 to the same ship in 2011 just to see how much she may have changed due to advancing technology. ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-vs-wwii-military-power/255828/56 "2011-04-13T13:14:31Z")
the davy crocket is actually post-war but close enough. some say the only dumber weapon is a nuclear hand grenade but i see several merits to a short-range rocket-propelled nuclear grenade: easily transportable and concealable, can’t be stopped once fired (just look for a suicidal operator as he is likely to die.) [http://www.brook.edu/FP/PROJECTS/NUCWCOST/davy6.jpg](http://www.brook.edu/FP/PROJECTS/NUCWCOST/davy6.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-vs-wwii-military-power/255828/57 "2011-04-13T13:43:57Z")
> [@robby](#): > > Interestingly, though, modern submarines lack a basic piece of weaponry that the WWII subs had: the deck gun. Deck guns are a useful weapon for attacking defenseless enemy merchant vessels that aren’t worth the expense of a modern multimillion-dollar guided torpedo. Does that matter, though? My understanding is that the primary use of modern American subs is to either carry nukes, track (and potentially engage) other subs carrying nukes, track/engage enemy warships, and to launch cruise missiles. We don’t really do merchant raiding any more. > [@mac\_bolan00](#): > > a nuclear powered sub will have to work hard to sink an iowa with torpedoes though, especially if the BB has supporting forces. > > in an attack, i’d rather be aboard an iowa than a nuke-powered carrier. You may want to rethink that - your Iowa is never even going to _see_ a modern carrier. It’ll see very fast, very heavily-armed planes, sure - but the carrier is never going to be in gunnery range. Why would it? Sure, if a carrier were so foolish as to stray within range of a BB’s guns, it wouldn’t last long. But the carrier can strike from hundreds of miles away, and can outrun almost any modern surface ship, let alone a 70-year-old clunker. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-vs-wwii-military-power/255828/58 "2011-04-13T18:53:16Z")
A related question here: How much more powerful are the military explosives now than in WWII? Apart from the accuracy issue, that is. If one were comparing a 500 pound iron bomb from WWII and an identical bomb casing filled with modern stuff, how much more BOOM would the new one have? ---
**Author:** ![Otara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a88e4f/32.png) [@Otara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otara)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-vs-wwii-military-power/255828/59 "2011-04-13T22:36:55Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > Which, to be fair, is kind of a tradition for the bigger ships. They’re too expensive and time-consuming to just scrap and replace so soon after you’ve built them, so they tend to get refitted over and over again. My point is that noone is building them anymore when they wear out, unlike aircraft carriers. Sherman tanks were still being used decades after WW2 as well, but again noone was building them from scratch. Their value lay in them already existing and being better than nothing, rather than being inherently still considered useful enough to keep manufacturing them. Otara ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_ch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a4c791/32.png) [@Dan\_ch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dan_ch)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-vs-wwii-military-power/255828/60 "2011-04-13T23:28:29Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > But the carrier can strike from hundreds of miles away, and **can outrun almost any modern surface ship** , let alone a 70-year-old clunker. The maximum speed of nuclear aircraft carriers is classified, but AFAIK is generally estimated at slightly above 30 knots. IIRC, they’re reputation as the fastest ships around is due to 2 factors: 1. The reactors can produce a huge amount of steam in a short time; this allows them to accelerate better than standard ships, which had to build their steam pressure over time. (though I don’t know if that’s still the case with more modern propulsion systems) 2. They can sustain high average speeds for very long times; while ships with conventional propulsion can reach and sustain 30 knots, they usually don’t do it because the fuel consumption increases exponentially with the speed and going fast would reduce considerably their range. I heard a story from the 60’s, when US Navy still had nuclear powered cruisers. One of them had the reputation of being the fastest ship in the fleet, though probably this was not strictly true. But its captain was very careful to race other ships only in sprint races (where he had the advantage of better acceleration) or in very long distance races (where he could maintain high speeds without running out of fuel). And WW2 ships were not slower than the modern ones. Iowa was good for 32 knots and AFAIK there was a class of French destroyers able to reach 40 knots. Probably the biggest advantage a modern ship has is its ability to detect and strike from huge distances. True, it may not be able to penetrate the armour of an old-style battleship, but it doesn’t have to. It can destroy the radars and range finders of a battleship, thus mission killing it. I wonder if, with modern weaponry, would it be possible to put a bomb through the smoke stack of a WW2 era ship… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-vs-wwii-military-power/255828.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-vs-wwii-military-power/255828.md?page=4)