Congratulations to Mr. Prewitt. It should be noted, however, that France’s highest order of merit is called the Legion of Honour (Légion d’honneur), not the Legion of Armour, and also that France doesn’t actually have knighthoods in the same sense as Britain does. “Chevalier” (knight) is indeed one of the Legion of Honour’s five levels, and the name is a holdover from the days when France still had an aristocracy, but the French nobility system went out the window with the French Revolution. I once saw a series of amusing cartoons depicting what life in France would be like today if the Bourbon monarchy hadn’t fallen, and one of them showed an irate air traveler standing at the ticket counter of “Royal Air France” and telling the ticket agent “But I’m a baron and I have a confirmed reservation!” The agent replies, “I’m sorry, sir, but the Duke of So-and-so has precedence over you, so we gave him your seat.” In fairness, the same sort of thing actually happens in real-life republican France. A few years ago, there was scandal involving one of the major D-Day anniversaries (I think it was the 50th one), when the French government contacted various hotels in Normany and appropriated some of their existing reservations so that various French officials could have rooms for the event. Some of those rooms, however, had been reserved by foreign veterans of the D-Day invasion. When the story broke on the front page of French newspapers (under such headlines as “Our Liberators Insulted!”), public opinion was outraged and the French government beat a hasty retreat. The prevailing editorial opinion over this affair was: Do this to our own citizens if you want, but don’t do this to the heroes who ended the occupation of France.
German WWII Technology
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I looked at the Air War on your link. That is some amazing and scary stuff.@Viracocha:
As I indicated in my earlier post on this subject, I think the war could have been extended into 1947-48 with the domination of ME262S in EARLY 1943. Germany was nowhere near producing an A-Bomb in 1945 and I doubt they would have had one by 1947-48. The U.S. and U.K. would have caught up with Germany in the production of jet fighters by then. The war could have ended earlier depending on the willingness of the U.S. to use the A-Bomb over europe. This would have saved many lives on the battlefield but cost many additional civilian lives. I would not want to have to make that decision.
Yep, I read your indication. Incidentally, I posted a link to some interesting alternative WWII history you might find interesting (I’d call it amusing but that would make the content sound funny… it’s not).
http://althistory.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Morgen_die_ganze_Welt
Given the subject we’re on - thought you might find it interesting.
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The British and U.S bombing of Germany did not cause Germany’s loss in WW2. The vast area of the U.S.S.R and the millions of Soviet troops was the doom of Germany. The Sturmgewehr 44 was the best of the poll choices to check the Red Army. The Me-262 would have little value on the Eastern Front.
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I have previously posted why I think the ME262 would have had an influence on the eastern front. With contol of the air over Europe, there would have been no d-day in 1944 which would have freed many German divisions to be transfered there as well as many Luftwaffe units. (Bombers) Would there have been a different outcome at Kursk (Operation Citadel July 5th 1943) with Germany in control of the air? I think that a stalemate would have occured and maybe a slight chance of a truce. With extra German forces in northern Italy the allies probably would have been stopped there also. Remember the choice in this poll was large numbers of ME262s in EARLY 1943. @ABWorsham:
The British and U.S bombing of Germany did not cause Germany’s loss in WW2. The vast area of the U.S.S.R and the millions of Soviet troops was the doom of Germany. The Sturmgewehr 44 was the best of the poll choices to check the Red Army. The Me-262 would have little value on the Eastern Front.
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I voted for the Me 262, though I have to admit I was tempted by the Type XXI U-boats. The Western Allies’ efforts to destroy Germany’s production, demolish its transportation system, wipe out large numbers of civilians in firestorms, and destroy its fuel supply were devastating. Moreover, the air superiority attained by the Western Democracies played a key role in making the Normandy invasion work. On Germany’s Eastern front, both sides used bomber aircraft primarily in a tactical role, and in support of the army. Control of the skies on that front meant that your dive bombers would be free to destroy the enemy’s tanks and artillery from the air, while your own tanks and artillery would be protected. At the battle of Kursk, for example, the Soviets had more military aircraft present than did the Germans; with both sides’ planes being roughly comparable in terms of quality. The avian situation on Germany’s eastern front progressively deteriorated, with the Soviets attaining first parity, and then superiority, in the skies above the battlefields. The Me 262 would have solved that problem.
On the other hand, the Type XXI U-boat represented a dramatic leap forward from any previously encountered sub design. These subs had more in common with the first nuclear subs of the postwar era than they did with their WWII contemporaries. They had the potential to make sub raiding a far more effective strategy than it had been in the past. But from a strategic perspective, Germany needed aerial superiority a lot more than it needed better sub raiding.
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I would have to go with the ME-262. When the allies concentrated on bombing german fuel supplies in mid-44 the Germans had more airforce/navy/mechanized army then they had fuel to deploy, so whatever super weapons they then had, no fuel, no use, no use.
I think the best super weapon for Germany would have been Albert Speer in charge of war production earlier and Hitler’s crazy commands not issued. By early 42 the German economy was not even on a war footing! The Nazis didn’t want women working in the factories, and the factories only ran on one shift! This well over a year after they lost the battle of Britain and they easy successes on the eastern front were all but over.
The allies had air domination by mid 43, yet German war production actually increased until mid-44. It was only until they began to lose France and the economies of the eastern territories that their war production went down. By then they had no fuel so it didn’t matter what they made.
By May 43 the ME-262 was ready for full production, Hitler didn’t trust the air generals at the time so he blocked production.
ugh, why does my screen jump all over now that I am one line below the text box……
http://www.2worldwar2.com/me-262.htm for a time line
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It isn’t sexy like jets, rockets, and U-boats, and the atom bomb, BUT I think the real game changer would have been the assault rifle
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/MP44.jpg
The war for Germany was won and lost on the Eastern front. If the frontline German troops had assualt rifles, you are talking about a whole different war.
All though sexy, and a HUGE tech. advancement the ME262 could not have saved Germany- the bombing we did, did not decide the war from 42 on. I think Germany (even with jets) would have fallen reguardless of the bombing. Bloodier - yes, more Russians would have died - but bombing did not decide the war.
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Interesting choice on the assult rifle, if the front line troops had that and the panzerfaust early on to counter the T-34 tanks thing indeed would be different. While I agree that the bombings by the west were not nearly has helpful as we like to think, concentrated bombings of ball bearing factories and oil facilities did affect output. But as I said, Germany had more than enough equipment produced, it just lacked the fuel to use it. At the conclusion of the battle of the bulge, the Germans were destroying their super tanks as they ran out of fuel and had to be abandoned.
Had the germans put their economy on a war footing in 1938 instead of 1944 me thinks things would be far different in the world.
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I think that the V2 would have changed the course of the War in the West. If Britain was pounded for over two years by Rockets and the marshaling grounds for D-Day were targeted the Western Allies would have had a rough go… IMO The V2 only made a short appearance at the END of the War when it was already to late. Being in operation longer would also have improved the technology and accuracy of the weapon during the war, making it a viable MILITARY technology rather than just a TERROR technology.
This is all conjecture of-course…
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Actually, the V-1 was probably the better weapon. With slight improvements in speed but still sub-sonic it would be immune to the wing-tip-over that was often used to disable them. The resources required for a V-2 were astounding. That’s why they don’t really use ICBMs for conventional munitions, though they are thinking of this for quick time-of-flight long distance attacks. I should do some research but I would imagine you could build dozens of V-1 for the resources of a single V-2. The V-1 is basically an unguided cruise missle and uses a highly efficient pulse engine. Waves of those launched against the D-day landings would have been a nightmere.
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It isn’t sexy like jets, rockets, and U-boats, and the atom bomb, BUT I think the real game changer would have been the assault rifle
Hard to deny it would’ve been a whole new ballgame launching Barbarossa in '41 with assault rifles and SMGs as standard issue…
I just think of house-clearing with a bolt-action rifle and get the willies.#688
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It isn’t sexy like jets, rockets, and U-boats, and the atom bomb, BUT I think the real game changer would have been the assault rifle
Hard to deny it would’ve been a whole new ballgame launching Barbarossa in '41 with assault rifles and SMGs as standard issue…
I just think of house-clearing with a bolt-action rifle and get the willies.#688
I agree with you guys. I voted for the assault rifle; planes, ships, and tanks are great weapons. But any war is won by the blood, sweat and ability of it’s infantry.
I wonder if Germany had used the assault rifle earlier in the war, how soon would the allies have countered with their own weapon?
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@ABWorsham:
I wonder if Germany had used the assault rifle earlier in the war, how soon would the allies have countered with their own weapon?
Good question.
Hmmm, higher ammo consumption would’ve been a pain considering the Allies weren’t firing the same round…
Wonder if the US would’ve just “boosted” production the BAR?
Or rushed production of the M1 carbine?#709
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A quote attributed to Eisenhower (I’ve seen several different versions of it, but containing the same elements) states that he considered the following four items to be the key war-winning weapons of the Allies: The bazooka, the jeep, the atom bomb and the C-47 Dakota transport plane. The jeep and the C-47 might seem surprising choices at first glance – and indeed might not even be considered weapons in the strict sense – but they gave the Allies tremendous battlefield mobility and logistical capacity. Both these things are critical in modern warfare. Richard Overy, in his book Why The Allies Won, makes the same point. He notes that during the war, Germany produced highly advanced next-generation weapon systems like cruise missiles (the V1), ballistic missiles (the V2) and jet fighters (the Me262), but neglected to pay much attention to such unglamorous basics as providing its army with enough trucks to break free of its continued large-scale use of horses.
Another factor Overy mentions is the technical fussiness of the Wehrmacht. Its weapon specifications and quality-control standards were so exacting that they got in the way of efficient mass production. The Panther, for example, was an adaptation of (an in some respects an improvement over) the T-34, but it was more complex and time-consuming to build, so the Germans never had enough of them. The Russians stuck to the philosophy of “make it simple, make it work, and make more of it.” The British applied the same approach to manufacturing the early versions of the Sten gun, which was intended to be a simple, cheap weapon which could be produced in vast quantities to meet the emergency Britain faced after Dunkirk. The Sten Mark III, which looked like a piece of scrap iron, was probably the ugliest gun ever used by the British Army, but it got the job done, and the British were sensible enough to realize that the second half of 1940 was not the time to get sentimental about having to give up finely polished walnut rifle stocks and carefully blued gun barrels.
People interested in this general topic might like to read a sci-fi short story by Arthur C. Clarke called “Superiority,” the inspiration of which he said would be clear to anyone familiar with the Second World War. It describes how a galactic war takes an unexpected turn when one side becomes obsessed with developing fancy new high-tech weapons, while the other side sticks to producing huge numbers of good old-fashioned “primitive” ones.
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Crude but effective. Isn’t that what we used to say about Soviet kit?
And have to agree about the value of that logistics ball and chain keeping up to the sharp end. Good points CWO.
#725
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I look forward to reading that story, I love Arthur C. Clarke. As a child I read a book about a world scenario where the US did not enter WW II. In this storyline 100 years has passed since the outbreak of the war and europe had descended technologically to the point where communication with the americas had ended many decades prior to the timeline of the story. The americas became the Pan-America….empire would be too strong, perhaps a stronger form of the EU for the americas would be right. It was forbidden to attempt communication or travel beyong certain longitude lines. The plot revolves around a US destroyer that ventures over to europe to see what went on. Civilization had crashed, lions roamed the countryside in England. Was so long ago and I can’t seem to find anything on google with any key words I can come up with.
Marc, you make excellent points. I had mentioned somewhere that the Germany army really was not mechanized and relied heavily on horses. You can make many claims about what wins a battle, but wars are won on logistics. Boring things like efficient routing algorithms and transports/trucks ensures the army gets its beans and bullets. Over-engineering…I read somewhere that the engines of a particular German tanks had engines so well machined they didn’t require a rebuild for 24 months. Of course the average combat lifespan of the tank was about 2 months… I wish I could find that tidbit on google!
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You can make many claims about what wins a battle, but wars are won on logistics. Boring things like efficient routing algorithms and transports/trucks ensures the army gets its beans and bullets.
Perhaps even more so than Germany, Japan didn’t pay proper attention to this critical issue. For example, it made inefficient use of its sea transport capacity. The Army and the Navy apparently has separate fleets of transport vessels under their control, and did not coordinate their use. So for instance, a transport vessel belonging to one service might deliver its cargo and then sail back empty in the other direction rather than using its return trip to do a needed transportation job for the other service.
Another problem along these lines was that the Japanese Navy felt that the correct mission of its warships was to sink enemy combat vessels, and thus that they shouldn’t waste their time or ammunition on anything that wasn’t a fighting ship. As a result, Japanese submarines encountering American transport ships would tend to save their torpedoes for what they considered to be more important targets like carriers and battleships. Japan likewise did not give a high priority to providing its own transport ships (including its valuable oil tankers) with enough escort vessels to defend them adequately. This made the job easier for the American submarines which operated against the Japanese convoy routes. American subs became so effective in this role that, by the end of the war, they were starting to run out of targets and Japan was facing economic strangulation (the goal which German U-boats tried but failed to achieve against Britain). Japan’s inadequate handling of maritime logistics is particularly ironic given that the main purpose of its Pacific offensive in 1941 was to secure access to the foreign natural resources (particularly oil) which Japan lacked domestically and which it had to import to sustain its economy.
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@CWO:
A quote attributed to Eisenhower (I’ve seen several different versions of it, but containing the same elements) states that he considered the following four items to be the key war-winning weapons of the Allies: The bazooka, the jeep, the atom bomb and the C-47 Dakota transport plane. The jeep and the C-47 might seem surprising choices at first glance – and indeed might not even be considered weapons in the strict sense – but they gave the Allies tremendous battlefield mobility and logistical capacity. Both these things are critical in modern warfare. Richard Overy, in his book Why The Allies Won, makes the same point. He notes that during the war, Germany produced highly advanced next-generation weapon systems like cruise missiles (the V1), ballistic missiles (the V2) and jet fighters (the Me262), but neglected to pay much attention to such unglamorous basics as providing its army with enough trucks to break free of its continued large-scale use of horses.
Another factor Overy mentions is the technical fussiness of the Wehrmacht. Its weapon specifications and quality-control standards were so exacting that they got in the way of efficient mass production. The Panther, for example, was an adaptation of (an in some respects an improvement over) the T-34, but it was more complex and time-consuming to build, so the Germans never had enough of them. The Russians stuck to the philosophy of “make it simple, make it work, and make more of it.” The British applied the same approach to manufacturing the early versions of the Sten gun, which was intended to be a simple, cheap weapon which could be produced in vast quantities to meet the emergency Britain faced after Dunkirk. The Sten Mark III, which looked like a piece of scrap iron, was probably the ugliest gun ever used by the British Army, but it got the job done, and the British were sensible enough to realize that the second half of 1940 was not the time to get sentimental about having to give up finely polished walnut rifle stocks and carefully blued gun barrels.
People interested in this general topic might like to read a sci-fi short story by Arthur C. Clarke called “Superiority,” the inspiration of which he said would be clear to anyone familiar with the Second World War. It describes how a galactic war takes an unexpected turn when one side becomes obsessed with developing fancy new high-tech weapons, while the other side sticks to producing huge numbers of good old-fashioned “primitive” ones.
This is a very solid post. Just to add to what you’ve written, during WWII Canada produced more military trucks than the entire Axis combined. One reason why Germany didn’t do more to mechanize its supply lines was its lack of oil. You can have all the military trucks in the world, but if you can’t fuel them they are useless. A strong effort was made to gear its logistics system around the resources it did have, which in this case meant coal. Supplies would be shipped by coal-powered trains to drop-off points, and then via horses the rest of the way.
During the '20s and early ‘30s, Germany had fallen behind the U.S., Britain, and even the Soviet Union when it came to implementing mass production techniques. That was partly the result of the Versailles Treaty, which helped cause economic stagnation in Germany while the Allies moved forward and advanced their own economies. Hitler sought to reverse that stagnation upon taking power. But building up industrial capacity and mass production expertise takes time. Notably, Germany produced nearly three times as many military aircraft in 1944 as it had in 1942. That increase demonstrates that Germany was at last catching up to the Allies in terms of industrialization and the implementation of mass production techniques. However, the Allies’ sheer size and access to raw materials allowed them to significantly outproduce Germany even in 1944.
Toward the end of the war, efforts were underway to allow Germany to simplify its tank designs to make them more easily mass produced. The goal of the Entwicklung program was to replace all of Germany’s tank designs with simplified yet improved E-series designs. The E-25 was to replace all Mark III and Mark IV designs; the E-50 Standardpanzer was to replace the Panther and Tiger I designs, and the E-75 Standardpanzer was to replace the Tiger II design. The main benefit to this program would have been tanks that were simpler, more mechanically reliable, and more easily produced. Improvements were also made to the tanks’ combat ability. For example, the E-75 had better armor and a more powerful weapon than the Tiger II, as well as better long-range accuracy.
However, the war ended before the Entwicklung series program had resulted in wide-scale production of new tanks.
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This is a very solid post. Just to add to what you’ve written, during WWII Canada produced more military trucks than the entire Axis combined. One reason why Germany didn’t do more to mechanize its supply lines was its lack of oil. You can have all the military trucks in the world, but if you can’t fuel them they are useless. A strong effort was made to gear its logistics system around the resources it did have, which in this case meant coal. Supplies would be shipped by coal-powered trains to drop-off points, and then via horses the rest of the way.
During the '20s and early ‘30s, Germany had fallen behind the U.S., Britain, and even the Soviet Union when it came to implementing mass production techniques. That was partly the result of the Versailles Treaty, which helped cause economic stagnation in Germany while the Allies moved forward and advanced their own economies. Hitler sought to reverse that stagnation upon taking power. But building up industrial capacity and mass production expertise takes time. Notably, Germany produced nearly three times as many military aircraft in 1944 as it had in 1942. That increase demonstrates that Germany was at last catching up to the Allies in terms of industrialization and the implementation of mass production techniques. However, the Allies’ sheer size and access to raw materials allowed them to significantly outproduce Germany even in 1944.
Toward the end of the war, efforts were underway to allow Germany to simplify its tank designs to make them more easily mass produced. The goal of the Entwicklung program was to replace all of Germany’s tank designs with simplified yet improved E-series designs. The E-25 was to replace all Mark III and Mark IV designs; the E-50 Standardpanzer was to replace the Panther and Tiger I designs, and the E-75 Standardpanzer was to replace the Tiger II design. The main benefit to this program would have been tanks that were simpler, more mechanically reliable, and more easily produced. Improvements were also made to the tanks’ combat ability. For example, the E-75 had better armor and a more powerful weapon than the Tiger II, as well as better long-range accuracy.
However, the war ended before the Entwicklung series program had resulted in wide-scale production of new tanks.
Your post adds even more to the fact that Germany was not ready for war against Russia in 41.
Imo, Germany could possibly win anyway, but we see in retrospect that the odds for Germany winning against Russia was very much lower than (i.e.) 40%. At the very least, Germany should go into total war modus from the time Hitler decided to attack Russia, probably a few months before operation Barbarossa (?), this would at least give Germany better odds of winning.
I think the A-bomb is the only weapon that would help Germany win the war in Europe. But if Germany had invented the A-bomb before the US, the victory would also be certain. -
Yeah I’m thinking Adolf’s reluctance to use chemical weapons wouldn’t have stopped him from nuking Moscow.
And London.
And…#716
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@Subotai:
Your post adds even more to the fact that Germany was not ready for war against Russia in 41.
Imo, Germany could possibly win anyway, but we see in retrospect that the odds for Germany winning against Russia was very much lower than (i.e.) 40%. At the very least, Germany should go into total war modus from the time Hitler decided to attack Russia, probably a few months before operation Barbarossa (?), this would at least give Germany better odds of winning.
I think the A-bomb is the only weapon that would help Germany win the war in Europe. But if Germany had invented the A-bomb before the US, the victory would also be certain.I fully agree that Germany was far from ready for war against the Soviet Union in '41. In the key year of 1942, the Soviets outproduced Germany by a 3:1 or 4:1 margin in the major land weapons categories, and even built nearly twice as many military aircraft as did Germany. By '44 Germany had eliminated that production gap. In many ways, '44 or '45 would have been a much better time for Germany to declare war than '41. In the meantime, Germany could have focused its attention on the Middle East; so as to obtain critical oil supplies for the Wehrmacht. Not to mention the potential to recruit Middle Eastern men into Germany’s North Africa/Middle East force–a force which could then have been used to invade the Soviet Union from Persia.
The main problem with that plan would have been American military production. In 1941, the U.S. produced over 19,000 military aircraft to Germany’s 12,000; even though the U.S. was still technically at peace. Plans had been put in place to expand American aircraft production to a staggering 72,000 planes a year, with half of that production going to Britain to be used against Germany. By 1944 Germany had increased its aircraft production to nearly 41,000 planes a year. The U.S., however, produced over 96,000 planes that year.
Any plan to postpone invasion of the Soviet Union until 1944 or ‘45 would also have had to address the problem of the tens of thousands of American military aircraft that would have been produced in the meantime. Possibly in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack, Germany should have announced dismay at Japan’s actions, and repudiated its alliance with Japan. While those actions would not have changed FDR’s personal goals of the destruction of Germany and a postwar world dominated by the U.S. and the Soviet Union, it would have altered the political climate he faced. His opponents in Congress would have questioned the need to send large numbers of aircraft to Britain, when the more urgent need would have been to wage war against Japan. This would have been a major gamble on Hitler’s part, in the sense that he would have been relying on political factors in Washington to hamper FDR’s ability to wage an undeclared war against Germany. But isolationist sentiment in the U.S. was still strong–despite institutional elites’ efforts to change it–so these acts on Germany’s part could well have reduced the scale of America’s war effort against it.
With (fewer) American-made bombers over Germany’s skies raining death on German cities, Hitler would have had time to gear up for war against the Soviet Union. In addition, grabbing large portions of Britain’s empire would have made it more difficult for the British to obtain the raw materials they required to produce large numbers of aircraft; while providing Germany with access to those same raw materials.
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