The "myth" of superior German equipment?

[Alpha77]

You often read and hear, that the German material (here mostly in WW2) is very good and superior to that of the Allies. Interestingly these views often come from British and US people. They also seem to find the German uniforms often kind of "cool", means cooler as their own. I recently saw a an interesting documentary about real big reenactments in Britain. They also interviewed some people and these were mostly British ones, that said, well they rather want to play Germans because their equipment was so good, they were somehow "cool", even if they lose badly in the end anyway (means they will be "captured" or "killed" in these renactments)......

I also found the tenor of opinions interesting that they like the WW2 time (and before and also shortly after) because in this time Britain was still a worldpower and the people kept more together than today. Also they said, they think that todays times are too hectic and only money counts (I share most of these views, but this is more OT information and not the main topic here).

-> I perfectly understand the desire to escape todays times and go back to the past (however if WW2 was such an attractive past, as these Britons seem to think could be disputed [;)])

But back to the materiel........ if we really would analyse the materiel of Germany and the other main powers (Ussr, USA, Britain), most would find that the Allied stuff was mostly better or at least in the same league than the German ones. With some exceptions of course. Also we could make a case that there was a period when Germany was superior in warmaking materials. Maybe from 41-43 ?

I could bring up all the examples in detail (like the famed Tiger, MG42, the "mighty" Panzer in 39+40, the U-boats, even the ME262 was not *that* succesful etc)....but would like to hear opinions first. Maybe it is more a feeling or a myth than reality ? Granted in some cases like of jets and rockets Germany might have been the first one who developed that stuff and had some visions of the future, but in the end all those weapons were a) too expensive to develop and b) used wrongly and c) the Allied would come up with their own jets only slightly later --- Gloster Meteor eg.

[Ronald Wendt]

I think it all is a matter of the moment you take to judge. Also doctrines were important. The T-34 and KV-1 were better than the German tanks of the time, but that did not help the Russians much in the first months of Barbarossa.
At the end of the war both sides had learned a lot and improved the hardware, but you also need to man machines, and have fuel to move them. Germany couldn't do that in the way the Allies could.
Experience of crews and commanders also matters and Germany had much more of that in the first stages of the war.

[gabeeg]

I think there was a lot of equipment that Germany developed that was better than what the allies had in the same time period...but the meaning of "Better" is up for argument.   The Panther was one of the best tanks of the war (at least right there with the T-34)...but it was over engineered and required harder to come by alloys, was slower to produce and had a lot more bugs to work out do to the over engineering....better design, better tank...poorer implementation as a war fighter.  Same goes for the Jet bombers and fighters...over engineered.    It ended up being the mass produced but inferior sherman and the simple and mass produced T-34 that could not be stopped...there were just not enough Panthers  (and king tigers, tigers, etc) in the field to stop the mass produced, simple but on the stats sheet inferior Sherman and T-34 (though the T-34 was a better match against the T-34 than a Sherman) 
 
The other killer was the politics involved, Germany had a leader that wanted the Panther better armoured...which added weight and this added weight made the engine and trans unreliable.  He stuck his nose into Me262 and wanted it developed as a fighter/bomber, where if left as is would have been in service earlier as a fighter and been more effective protecting German industry and cities.  He did not like the idea of an assualt weapon...and this hindered the development of the Sturmgewehr.   These were all great weapons that had a chance to make a difference...but didn't live up to the potential.

[GrumpyMel]

I think it's a mixed bag...in part the myth has been exagerated but there is also a bit of truth to that "myth" particulary in the early part of the War, as the Allied powers had let thier milltary budgets languish in the post WWI depression where Germany had spent a few years building up at the end of the 30's and essentialy was in a much better state of readiness. The second part of that was that alot of the early war German equipment was designed toward the doctrines that would actualy dominate the WWII battlefields, wheras the Allies were still designing thier equipment to fight WWI.

If you look at early war tanks for instance, this is particulary evident. Both the British and French had some models of tanks that were true monsters....thinking the Matilda & Char B1 Bis models here....all the early german tanks were both out-gunned and out-armored badly by these.  However, the Matilda's and Char's were very slow strategicaly and had limited operational range due to thier logistics requirements. Essentialy they were meant for the kind of static, trench busting warfare that had dominated the end of WWI....whereas the german tanks were all reasonably fast strategicaly with better operational range... thus they were able to outmanuver the Allies in the Battle of France on a strategic/operational level.

The French and British did have a few medium tanks (Souma's and A-13 Cruisers) that were argueably better then anything the Germans had....but very few of these were availble for the Battle of France. Most of the French tanks in '40 were R-35's or R-17's and most of the BEF's were Vickers Light Tanks....almost any tank the Germans used could beat these hands down.

In the air, in 1940 the British Spitfire Mark I was argueably superior to the Germans main fighter the ME-109E, but only by a little bit. However it cost 3 times as much (and took far longer to produce) then the ME's.....All the other Allied fighters were inferior to some degree.

I think part of the "myth" can also be derived from the fact that the Allied powers in the later part of the War (particularly the US & Soviets) tended to go for the quantity over quality approach. The Germans were somewhat neccesarly forced into trying to build up quality...although there were some exceptions to that as well. In some cases the Allies definately did have better equipment.

[Alpha77]

ORIGINAL: gabeeg

I think there was a lot of equipment that Germany developed that was better than what the allies had in the same time period...but the meaning of "Better" is up for argument.   The Panther was one of the best tanks of the war (at least right there with the T-34)...but it was over engineered and required harder to come by alloys, was slower to produce and had a lot more bugs to work out do to the over engineering....better design, better tank...poorer implementation as a war fighter.  Same goes for the Jet bombers and fighters...over engineered.    It ended up being the mass produced but inferior sherman and the simple and mass produced T-34 that could not be stopped...there were just not enough Panthers  (and king tigers, tigers, etc) in the field to stop the mass produced, simple but on the stats sheet inferior Sherman and T-34 (though the T-34 was a better match against the T-34 than a Sherman) 

The other killer was the politics involved, Germany had a leader that wanted the Panther better armoured...which added weight and this added weight made the engine and trans unreliable.  He stuck his nose into Me262 and wanted it developed as a fighter/bomber, where if left as is would have been in service earlier as a fighter and been more effective protecting German industry and cities.  He did not like the idea of an assualt weapon...and this hindered the development of the Sturmgewehr.   These were all great weapons that had a chance to make a difference...but didn't live up to the potential.

Yes, this is right - but the "political" decisions should not influence the view on the equipment. If Hitler + Nazis can be called politicians at all I mean. If you take into account these decisions by Hitler you even must lean more towards the Allied stuff !! Hitler wasted all the recources for madness projects like super battleships, German CVs, V1 rockets, or super tanks like the Maus. You can even count in the Kingtiger and Sturmtiger tanks. Interestingly the Allies overestiminated the number of availabe Tigers in Normandy to such a decree that almost any tank there was called a Tiger. It might have been also a kind of complex by Allied tank crews that rather wanted to talk about how they survived the fight against the mighty Tiger than just the bread and butter tank MKIV.....


Also we can argue that Sherman models with 76mm gun and wet storage were better or as good as the MKIV (as well Comets or even Fireflys!) .- and still they had much more Shermans + Comets + M10s than MKIVs. You need to count in all the older German tanks and Sturmgeschütze to even come to a substantial number in Normandy by German armor. And those were not decisive anyway - Rommel was right when he said that the air power would decide that campaign. Not to play down the role of the grunts, but since WW2 you can say that in "normal" or open terrain air power decides a campaign. Terrain like Vietnam or A´stan on the other hand is a bit different.....

So air power decides, you can say since early 44 the Allies had the better planes (and much more) - as the Germans still relied on the old Bf109 which was still a good fighter but inferior to most Spitfire and Mustang models. The only planes that were still able to resist and in some numbers in the arsenal were FW190 models. But how much were there still ? On the bomber front you can safely say the Allies were better, the only perfect German planes were JU88 versions. But B17s, B25, B26, Wellingtons, Beaufighters, Typhoons were as good and much more numbers of them. Still even the good Ju88 (and some few Hs129) would make no difference if the other side has complete air superiority...

[ezzler]

I'm pretty sure its true in wargames.
Panzer general came before Allied general with good reason.

[Orm]

If we discuss quality of the German war material I think MG 42 and StG 44 qualify to contend for the best in their class.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maschinengewehr_42
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP44

With that said I want to mention that when most talk about WWII material they think about tanks, aircraft or maybe rocket weapons and so on.

But in truth you should first think about artillery. World War II was an artillery war. Most battle causulties were caused by artillery. It was the artillery that dominated the battlefield and not the tanks and not the aircraft. I think a majority today belive the Allies had better quality artillery than the Germans.

So when some claim that Germany had better equipment you can always begin to talk about artillery and the importance of artillery in WWII.[:)]

[SLAAKMAN]

Political Correctness be damned!! Behold the glory of being an unapologetic Axis Fan-Mann; [:D]



















Nazi UFO Conspiracy (1 of 6)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9cfagHi-I4

[KG Erwin]

Yeah, in terms of fire control the USA probably had the best artillery arm of WWII. Then there were the Russians, who used masses of artillery during the final offensives in 1945. It was Stalin who called artillery the "God of War." I think it was author James Dunnigan who simply titled the chapter on artillery in his book "How to Make War" as "Artillery: The Killer".

In any case, there's a whole subgenre of WWII gamers who are called "Tiger Kiddies". 'Nuff said about them, as I used to be one, which led to my forum name.

[sullafelix]

The Gloster Meteors top speed after it was released to the RAF was a little over 400mph the ME 262 had a top speed of 540mph I believe. The meteor did get better with time. So I wouldn't use that as a weapon to prove your case.

The reason that German equipment was " better " was that the German idea was to make weapons that were better and capable of surviving during the war. The Allied thought process was that quantity and ease of manufacturing outweighs quality. The Germans knew that it would be one tank of theirs against 5-10 of the Allies and were building them to win in those instances. Now what would have happened if the Germans had decided in 1941 to build only panzer IVs instead of the mish mash of armored vehicles they did build. Instead of 25K of armored vehicles being built by the Germans in 1944 we see 50K or more built?

The other factor is that all the cool fancy stuff the Germans were working on were out there in the open for all to see because they lost the war. We never saw all the cool Allied stuff because it was still under wraps. We could hide our projects but with millions of Tommies and GIs wandering through Germany it was hard to keep a lid on their projects.

The allies had very well made artillery and antitank guns. That is why there was never any chance of a German counterattack working in Normandy. The Germans got through the first lines of defense several times but when their tanks met the steel wall of the Allies antitank guns it was over.

One of the pictures above speaks volumes. Who in their right mind would use all the materials from Gustav for one railway gun. You could probably make 50 tanks out of it.

[ilovestrategy]

ORIGINAL: SLAAKMAN

Political Correctness be damned!! Behold the glory of being an unapologetic Axis Fan-Mann; [:D]

You forgot the Bismark! [:D]

[Alpha77]

ORIGINAL: Orm

If we discuss quality of the German war material I think MG 42 and StG 44 qualify to contend for the best in their class.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maschinengewehr_42
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP44

With that said I want to mention that when most talk about WWII material they think about tanks, aircraft or maybe rocket weapons and so on.

But in truth you should first think about artillery. World War II was an artillery war. Most battle causulties were caused by artillery. It was the artillery that dominated the battlefield and not the tanks and not the aircraft. I think a majority today belive the Allies had better quality artillery than the Germans.

So when some claim that Germany had better equipment you can always begin to talk about artillery and the importance of artillery in WWII.[:)]

Well the STg maybe true, but I have doubts about the MG42... I shot the MG myself (only called MG3 in the Bundeswehr, it was basically the same weapon only some slight differences, like a bit slower rof), but found it personally not convincing and no prove to be a superior weapon. Yes, as supression or to stop human wave attacks like on the Russian front probably perfect. But is not really an acurate weapon, as well you need quite much ammo for it to be effective (too high rof in the original version, this is one of the reasons why the Bundeswehr lowered the rof and barrel wear even if it can be changed easily it will take time and even more spare parts are needed to carry around). However this can be a personal thing form my pov of course (I had to carry the thing and did not like to shoot it).... [;)]

[Alpha77]

ORIGINAL: KG Erwin

Yeah, in terms of fire control the USA probably had the best artillery arm of WWII. Then there were the Russians, who used masses of artillery during the final offensives in 1945. It was Stalin who called artillery the "God of War." I think it was author James Dunnigan who simply titled the chapter on artillery in his book "How to Make War" as "Artillery: The Killer".

In any case, there's a whole subgenre of WWII gamers who are called "Tiger Kiddies". 'Nuff said about them, as I used to be one, which led to my forum name.

The "Tiger Kiddies" were a SPWAW term iirc. I was none of them. I rarely used Tigers in this game at all [;)]

About the arty you are right I guess, but still the best arty would be quite useless if the enemy has control of the air and enough good planes to combat any arty that dares to shoot But maybe in WW2 the recon of arty was not *that* good to fight it effectivly from the air. In any case the arty needs to be mobile + easily to conceal if the enemy is better in the air. Guess the Allied were better at that also.

However even if the Allied were so much better in the air+arty department, of course it does not mean that single systems of the Wehrmacht were very interesting and fine machinery. Which also does explain the fascination with it, also the losing side (and a "evil" one) is often more interesting then the "good" one that won. [:)]

But: Lee Enfield, Garand, Bazooka, Browning pistols.... the Allied had also good personal weapon. But the German P38 looked better

[Anthropoid]

Anybody still have the link to those farcical WWII weapons? For example, there was one that was a Japanese airplane that was bicycle powered, and it had a basket underneath carrying a rabid dog or something [:D]

[Hertston]

ORIGINAL: Alpha77

They also seem to find the German uniforms often kind of "cool", means cooler as their own.

Quite right too. How could the Allies possibly match these guys for 'cool'? [;)]

[SLAAKMAN]

You forgot the Bismark!

DOH!! OH WAIT, NO I DIDNT UH, "FORGET" IT CAPTAIN, MAN I MERELY WAS HOLDING IT IN RESERVE! YEAH THATS IT!; [:D] [:'(]

NOW KIDS, ITS TIME FOR WORLD IN FLAMES!!!
[:'(]

[Bill Durrant]

Two words "Panzerfaust" "PIAT"

[gabeeg]

ORIGINAL: Bill Durrant

Two words "Panzerfaust" "PIAT"

LOL...good point


I have to agree with those that bring up the better allied artillery...the queen of the battlefield. The allies had a lot of it and it was good dependable stuff...then by the time the Americans got to the outskirts of Germany we had true proximity fuses. Air superiority and loads of well supplied artillery...10 shermans to each panzer and and there was just nothing the Germans could do to stem the tide even with the best equipment...this is not even mentioning the Russian horde coming from the east... Between ground attack fighters destroying anything that moved or grouped and artillery air burst laying men down like wheat...even when entrenched...it was bad times for the German defenders.

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: Alpha77

... if we really would analyse the materiel of Germany and the other main powers (Ussr, USA, Britain), most would find that the Allied stuff was mostly better or at least in the same league than the German ones. With some exceptions of course.

IMO, although US equipment was generally more reliable , better built -- than by slave labor -- and better supported in the field than their Axis counterparts, they were often less effective against the enemy.

[jomni]

With regards to the "cool" factor.  It's not about their capablities but how they looked like compared to the allied counterparts.
German design (equipment, vehicles, aircraft, uniforms) is very aesthetically pleasing with clean lines whereas allied design is more utilitarian.