*** Hitler's Secret Weapons ***

[Jeffrey H.]

Well, when it comes to superior weapon designs from Germany in WWII, my vote is for the MG-42. That was a great design from just about every aspect. Not much new technology there but it was a very good design.
 
The Arado 234 is a really cool looking airplane.
 

[paullus99]

The Bundeswehr was still using the MG42 for a long time after WWII & the US M60 MG was pretty much an updated MG42. Interestingly, some of the best German weapons were on the drawing board long before the Nazi's took power. The German General Staff had a pretty good idea how the next war was going to be fought & knew they were going to need to emphasis volume of firepower.

I'd like to see what the Germans would have come up with, without the whole Nazi angle - regardless of who came to power in Germany, it was highly likely that WWII would have happened, Hitler or not. There was just too much built up resentment over Versailles & the instability in Eastern Europe.

[Randomizer]

Every now and then something (it doesn't need to be a weapon) is engineered to be the optimum design in its niche. The MG-42 (later 7.62mm NATO MG1), Browning .50 cal M2 HMG, AK-47, DHC-2 Beaver bush plane and Swiss Army knives all probably fit into this catagory. The best replacement for any of them is one more of the same.

Regards.

[sullafelix]

Actually a rudimentary jet engine was made in 1910 by Henri Coanda. The Italians also flew a jet aircraft in 1940.
 

[Randomizer]

ORIGINAL: sulla05

Actually a rudimentary jet engine was made in 1910 by Henri Coanda. The Italians also flew a jet aircraft in 1940.

Please note I wrote developed and not invented. Good call on the Caproni, Italian science is often denegrated or ignored but it was Italian General Arturo Crocco, Director of Research for the Air Force who (so far as is known) first articulated the swept wing in connection with high speed flight back in 1935.

Regards

[Warfare1]

ORIGINAL: jackx

I don't think I was accusing you of anything, at least I didn't mean to.
The whole "superior 3rd Reich technology" thing just set me off the wrong way - which wasn't helped by the fact that I desperately wanted to post something, so I had an excuse to add the whole ubersoldaten hyperbole. ;x

No harm done [:)]

However, when one does look into the research the Germans were doing, it is amazing at how far advanced their thinking was (even though some of their ideas were silly - such as the Maus).

[Warfare1]

ORIGINAL: Randomizer

Actually if you make the effort to actually look at the data you will probably find that the jet engine was developed independently and virtually simultaneously by Ohain in Germany and Whittle in the UK.

While this is true, Germany flew the first operational jet plane almost 21-22 months (27 August, 1939) before the British did (in May 1941), putting them well ahead in this field.

It took years of intense R & D before jets could outperform advanced supercharged piston engines of the day and the metalurgy and materials to do so needed to be invented first. This took far more time than the mere months available between the first flight of the Heinkel jet (or its British Gloster counterpart) and the Battle of Britain.

Actually, when the He 178 was flown in a demonstration for the RLM (German Air ministry) in 1939, there was, incredibly, NO official interest shown.

Thus there was NO offical funding, research or manpower devoted to this jet plane. Had the RLM taken interest in this plane with more money and manpower it is not inconceivable to believe that Germany could have had a few operational jets during the Battle of Britain. These jets would have been hard to shoot down, thus making them useful to knock out British Radar stations. Without radar, the follow-up attacks by conventional Me-109s and bombers would have been more effective.

Jet technology moved about as fast as it could move

This is not quite the situation. Research could have moved much faster than it did.

Germany, even from the early days of jet research, was hampered greatly by in-fighting and politics between aircraft and engine manufacturers, and between them and the Luftwaffe and German Air Ministry. All of this looked like tribal warfare. There was favouritism, cancelled orders, product switching, etc, all of which greatly slowed down the development of not only jet research, but also spilled into many other areas of weapon manufacturing. Add in Hitler's meddling and Goering being in charge of the Luftwaffe and you have a recipe for disaster.

and even if the ME-262 had of appeared in 1943, the Allies developed quickly tactics to kill them where they lived, attacking them on the ground and during their long take-off rolls and slow climbs to altitude where the jet engines performance finally exceeded that of the big Merlins and R-2600 radials.

I think you are over-stating the case. The Allies destroyed some Me-262s on the ground, but then ALL air forces were able to attack other enemy planes while they were still on the ground (catching them by surprise). This, however, does not win air battles or wars.

Had the Me-262 been available in numbers in late 1943, I am afraid that the Allied bombing offensive would have suffered greatly. And the Allied leadership knew this.

For example, on March 18, 1945 just 37 Me-262s attacked a bombing run of 1,200 Allied bombers being escorted by over 600 fighters (almost a 60:1 Allied advantage using their best fighters) and the Me-262s shot down 12 bombers and one fighter for a loss of just three Me-262s.

One can well imagine the destruction to Allied bombers if the Germans were able to employ 200 Me-262s at a time in 1943-44.

Also jets would likely have exacerbated shortages in the Luftwaffe pilot training program that was already in deep trouble by mid '43.

Clearly, Germany was suffering from veteran pilots. However, since jets were the most advanced aircraft, it only makes sense to have pilots fly them.

Focusing solely on Nazi what ifs totally ignores the corresponding (and reactive) Allied what ifs and skews the narrative to where rational discussion is impossible and mythology replaces hard evidence.

I think those who read history and who consider themselves to be wargamers enjoy "what-ifs".

Considering that Germany, Italy and Japan were the aggressors, I think more attention is placed on them. When one reads the history of WW2, one quickly sees the mistakes that were made, and how lucky certain sides were, etc.

I don't see how any of this can preclude rational discussion, as we are doing right now.

I am not a fan-boy of, an apologist for, nor a defender of, German technology. However, when one sees what was being developed and how lack of direction, funding, meddling, etc hampered progress in certain fields, one realizes how lucky we were.

Think about that...

I have. Thanks.

[Warfare1]

ORIGINAL: paullus99

Interestingly, some of the best German weapons were on the drawing board long before the Nazi's took power. The German General Staff had a pretty good idea how the next war was going to be fought & knew they were going to need to emphasis volume of firepower.

I'd like to see what the Germans would have come up with, without the whole Nazi angle - regardless of who came to power in Germany, it was highly likely that WWII would have happened, Hitler or not. There was just too much built up resentment over Versailles & the instability in Eastern Europe.

This is probably one of the more interesting insights in this thread.

Indeed. What might have happened.

Just not having Hitler meddling in the military sphere pretty much would have given Germany an advantage [;)]

[darken92]

Some how I doubt any regime that thinks burning books is a good thing will ever win the "race" in any field such as development of "Secret Weapons".

[Warfare1]

ORIGINAL: darken92

Some how I doubt any regime that thinks burning books is a good thing will ever win the "race" in any field such as development of "Secret Weapons".

Very true.

And lets not forget their racial policy, causing many of Germany's top scientists to emigrate to the US, including many who eventually worked on the US Atomic Bomb.

[Randomizer]

It's amazing of course, what happens when one apperantly rejects all Allied research and counter-measures and accepts weapon performance provided by Nazi propaganda as impartial facts. You say:

This is not quite the situation. Research could have moved much faster than it did.

There is a couple of minor issues with this contention. Lets look briefly at the Amerika Bomber...

The first bomber with oceanic (as opposed to merely continental) range was the American B-36 powered by 6-turbo compounded piston engines (the four podded jets were mounted later and used primarily on take of and during attack flight profiles). The B-36 saw squadron service in 1948 but suffered many major problems and was not considered fully operational until 1951 - six years after the end of the war. The first operational jet bomber with oceanic range was the B-52 which entered squadron service in 1955, a full decade after the war. (The B-52 program was remarkably trouble free thanks to years of R&D and the lessons learned in the B-47 program). You seem to imply that German scientists could have made this happen faster but offer no evidence or examples as to how.

Compare your Nazi Amerika bomber to the Boeing B-47 or Vickers Valiant, both conceptualized during the war but taking years to research and build. How could the Nazis have done it better, faster?

In the early post war years when the Soviets (who had a good many tamed ex Nazi scientists) needed a high performance jet engine for the MiG-15 they chose not the Junkers family that were being produced already in quantity but the British Rolls Royce Nene, a wartime design superior in every respect to the Junkers Jumo.

If German wartime jet engineering was so great how is this possible that the Nene was so very superior an engine?

The ability to manufacture essentials like turbine blades that would last was a problem into the 1970's and the ME-262 engines had core and turbine blade lives measured in double-digit hours. Even if the Amerika Bomber could have carried enough fuel to fly a useful payload on a great circle route from Norway to New York, bypassing Allied airfields on Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New England it's likely that its own engines would have fried on the return trip.

How is this a superior weapon?

The decision not to pursue jets made a great deal of sense at the time, the jet engine offered future potential but the science of aerodynamics was still learning about problems like high-speed flutter and mach-shock which started to kill pilots as conventional aircraft speeds increased. Early jets offered few advantages over the known technology of the high compression supercharged piston engine and many disadvantages like poor acceleration, short endurance and bad low-altitude performance and low speed handing characteristics. The means and methods to overcome these problems took far more real-world time than the Nazis had.

Let us also not forget that when Werner Heisenberg's team discontinued nuclear weapons research in 1942 to concentrate on an "atomic engine" for submarines or electric power production, the principal (and totally ineffective) weapons program came under the SS who forbade its researchers from using "Jewish Science" (aka quantum physics) thus ensuring that there would be no Nazi bomb.

To reiterate, none of the above matters when one takes propaganda as fact and denies any possible or effective Allied reaction or counter-measures and discounts the all the highly successful R&D that was completed by scientists opposed to the Third Reich. Some seem to think that super-Nazis are much more interesting; believe whatever you wish.

[Raverdave]

People always seem to rave about the Nazi Super weapons and how they were supposedly prolific in the designs that they produced.  But a quick delve into what the allies we also producing shows just as much ingenuity as the Germans.  The most classic example is the Atomic bomb. 

[GoodGuy]

ORIGINAL: Warfare1

Researchers believe the Ho 229's stealth capabilities would have allowed it to appear invisible to British Royal Air Force radars if it were to fly a few dozen feet from ground level.

Lol, that's an instant classic, for sure.
If I could fly a random German plane, be it the most ugly flying brick and the slowest plane on earth, a few feet above ground level, my plane would have the same level of "invisibility" as the Ho 229:

In the 1940s, extremely low flying planes could not be detected, as even the British mobile radar stations (Chain Home Low) did not work below 500 feet.
But even today the British IDS Tornados and the German ECR-Tornados, with their capability to perform "zero" altitude flying, featuring an auto-pilot system that uses a terrain following radar (TFR) to avoid detection, use this method:

They fly below the enemy's minimum radar level, 60 meters above the ground. The missions flown in Kosovo 1999 perfectly demonstrate how effective such a plane is, as Serbia's fixed and mobile radar and SAM stations had been destroyed that way.
A few RAF Tornados had been shot down (by AA guns) during Desert Storm, so the RAF switched to high-level bombing missions, mostly firing rockets from areas well outside Iraqi missile ranges, due to one reason (afaik): The RAF (unlike the German airforce) does not employ ECR-tornados, so their IDS-versions do not have the "Emitter Location System", a system that can precisely locate radar systems of tracked AA guns, SAM sites and long-range radar stations.

That said, it would have been quite risky to fly the fragile Ho 229 at similar low altitudes (without a modern auto-pilot), exposing them to possible downwinds or AA fire (ships, land installations) especially since there was no TFR, back then. The Ho 229 was designed to be a fighter, not a bomber. Also, the so-called anti-radar paste, claimed (by Reimar Horten - in 1980) to be applied to the 229's hull, the powdered coal mixed with glue, was supposed to act as filling or smoothing cement and used to save weight, Karl Nickel, a Horten employee responsible for conducting aerodynamic calculations and other tasks, confirmed the weight saving aspect, and ruled out any anti-radar function. Interestingly, all Ho 229s that can be seen on a few pictures were unpainted. The only Ho 229 that was painted was the one that was presented as booty on shows in the US ; it had been painted in the US.

The 229's frame consisted of a main steel bar and welded steel tubes, with the rest consisting of wood covered with a thin metal plating. Other parts like the fuel tank, cockpit tube, instruments, guns and engines, etc consisted of metal, too.
I can imagine that the design of the frame alone could create a somewhat lower radar profile.
The National Geographic Channel conducted some tests early this year, where they created a mockup (100% wood) which had an around 20 percent lower radar profile. The next step was to apply a metallic silver paint all over the model's front, where then some tin foil was supposed to simulate metal parts like tank and engines. The only real metal part was a primitive Ersatz for the dashboard, a metal plate with painted instruments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z07Kt4pj ... B1&index=0

The 229 hull's surface consisted of a metal plating, and although the guys in the Northrop workshop claim that the silver paint would have "electrical" characteristics similar to the original metal platings, I don't believe that electrical properties necessarily correspond to the level of reflection a metal surface would deliver. I rather think that the makers of the doc wanted the German fighter to be the first stealth fighter in history, and the guys at Northrop were so kind to word their statements in a way that the maker could interpret it the way they did.

A 20% lower profile does not make a plane stealth. The statement in part 5, that the 20% lower profile PLUS the speed would reduce the warning time from 19 to 8 minutes sounds reasonable, but the film makers focus should have been on speed and the question whether the controls allowed for continuous ultra low-level flight or not. If they would have done that, the whole doc would have been either obsolete, or they would have had to change the title, I believe.

But "Germany's fast flying wing" doesn't sound spectacular enough, does it? [:D]

The original middle section of the Ho 229 in the TV doc actually is the V3 prototype based on the Horten Plans but made by the Gotha factories, so I would call it Go 229. The Go 229 concept was a competing further development of the original Ho 229, which featured design changes, ie. Gotha put in Jumo 004B jet engines instead of the planned BMW 003 engines, they put in a wider pilot seat, and the interspace between the 2 engines had been stretched. You can see those versions on the rendered screenshots posted by Warfare1. It almost looks like the engines had been put on top, where the original Horten design had the engines fully integrated into the hull.

In later sketches - probably starting with V6 or V8, Gotha even incorporated a conventional side rudder and pitch elevator, in an attempt to solve problems with the plane's aerodynamics. The documentary twists some historical details, and exaggerates regarding the alledged stealth capabilities. Also, I doubt you could shred a chain home low-station with a few MGs, as shown in the doc, the Germans sent Stukas and Me 109s to bomb them - in 1940. In turn, the Ho 229 did not have a bomb bay, nor mountings to hold bombs.

While Gotha started to work on the prototypes V3-V5, the Horten brothers had already turned to design a way larger version of the 229, basically a long-range bomber with a bomb bay, after the test squadron IX had been disbanded (IIRC in February or March).

With all these "secret weapons", you have to try to get to the bottom regarding purpose of the weapons/vehicles, historical evidence and rep of the sources.


Me 262:

An earlier Me 262's serial production was hampered by the fact that Hitler wanted it to serve in a "Blitzbomber" role, a role that demanded a setup that capped the 262's max speed by 200 km/hour. The initial bomber role of the 262 negated the speed advantages of the fighter concept.

Still, the low numbers of fighter versions delivered to a few squadrons in mid/late 1944 inflicted quite some losses among the Allied bombers, that a general of the US bomber command stressed that the Allies would not be able to sustain such high losses for more than 1 month, in case the Germans would be able to keep up the initial number of sorties. So, this part of Warfare 1's statements/assumptions is halfway correct, if he says it would have changed something. Sufficient amounts of aviation fuel, and a strict policy focusing on the 262's fighter role, could have at least prolonged the war, as it would have taken the pressure off the German armament factories and oil refineries. But an airforce can't win wars.

Still, in 1943, the loss of 8-10% of the total number of bombers participating in one of the mass bombing raids on German cities (eg. "1000-bombers-attack on Cologne", which in fact involved something between 800 - 890 bombers) was regarded as mission failure. With the German nightfighters coming up in 1943, even the Brits reduced the number of sorties, until they managed to fool the warning radars and the nightfighter's radars with chaffs.
The performance of the Me 262 fighters was promising, but afaik the few Me 262 in service did not inflict losses anywhere near 10 percent, original reports of Me 262 sorties like 12 kills (with three 262s lost), display that the ratio was good, but anything than optimal.

Luckily for the Allies, the lack of aviation fuel forced the Germans to keep the number of sorties on a really low level. Around 1100 Me 262's had been built (the production output in early 45 was higher than in 1944), but only a tiny share of them actually saw combat.

@ Warfare 1:
The Arado Ar 234 was ordered by the Luftwaffe in order to serve as high-speed recon plane. The first 234's sent to England, in July 1944, were the unarmed prototypes V5 and V7. Their mission was to take pictures of the entire British (southern) coast line and hinterland. The technique (to make a series of pictures the recon eval officer would then just put together) used there is still being used in the drones and in recon Tornados used by the German Bundeswehr, actually.

The German Luftwaffe used to put up a list of minimum requirements, - and, on quite some occasions after Hitler's or Göring's intervention, even expanded such lists, often demanding dual roles or even multi-purpose planes, hence the Arado 234 prototype V10 was already designed as a bomber, maybe in anticipatory obedience.
Whatsoever, it was then able to serve as level bomber, since it had received a BZA bombsight and 2 mountings to hold one bomb under each engine. Another Version was designed as night fighter (with radar), and the bomber version's capabilities were expanded so that it could serve as dive bomber, too.
The max. bomb load was 1500 kg, a pretty low amount compared to the enhanced He 111 bombers, which could carry a max payload of up to 3250 kg. The plane was a recon plane, and - if at all - halfway useful as tactical bomber. The failed attack on the Remagen bridge shows that a highspeed approach on a target demands advanced targeting devices (ie. head-up-display), which weren't available back then. Dive bombing-runs had to be carried out at lower speeds, making the plane vulnerable to enemy AA fire. German Fighter bombers conducting ground-attacks in early 1945 with rockets were way more successful, so the commitment of Arado bombers was either reduced or even completely halted. Most of the Arados were re-deployed to Norway in early 1945, conducting recon missions over Scotland and North East England.

He 177:

Btw, one production model of the only German conventional long-range heavy bomber He 177 "Greif", which could have been used to bomb Stalin's factories in the Ural - if they would have been produced in large numbers, was modified to offer sufficient space for holding a future atomic bomb.

My 2 cents

[GoodGuy]

ORIGINAL: Randomizer

....conceptualized during the war but taking years to research and build. How could the Nazis have done it better, faster?

[]..... How is this a superior weapon?

Good post. Thing is, some of the German concepts were really ahead of its time. But like you said, it takes years to turn a sketch or a design into a fully fledged serial production model. As you pointed out, materials, which could stand the heat/mechanical stress present in a jet engine, had to be developed first, and additionally, developers had to understand and overcome aerodynamical effects.

The British Comet, for example, had conventional straight wings, while the German flying wings, and even the Me 262s, had tapered wings. This allowed for higher max speeds and better control of the planes. The Comet had serious aerodynamical flaws, which were reviewed after the war. In turn, the Me 262's Jumo engines would often die down if the pilot performed an aggressive dive (where the front part of the Jumo froze, IIRC) and couldn't be restarted, in many cases.
The Ho 229's hydraulics were powered by the right jet engine, so when the right engine failed, the landing gear could not be lowered. The test pilot flying the Ho 229 died during the very last flight: The plane's right engine failed, the pilot could lower the gear with the remaining backup pressure, but the plane still crashed. The hydraulic device may have powered parts of the controls, too. Whatsoever, even the German jets were still suffering of quite a number of misconceptions, weaknesses and unsolved problems.

The German rocket propelled planes were also ahead, given with doubtable performance, the 300 something rocket planes that had been produced didn't just suffer of similar fuel shortages, although they did not use regular aviation fuel, but the mere 2 or 4 minutes time-frame left for the actual combat allowed for a few bursts only, where even the "Schrägemusik" devices that had been mounted later on could not pull off more than a few kills. Production and deployment of these planes were regarded as mistakes.

A promising design or even a ground-breaking design doesn't necessarily turn into a superior weapon. There's no "A" for effort (designing a weapon) or for the idea, means the environment (resources, envisaged role, vision of the commanders, skill of future users, etc. etc.) are also major factors deciding about whether a given weapon is superior or not. Almost perfect concepts that did not take years of R+D before they materialized are pretty rare in military history, most of the concepts with extremely short "turn-around" times were either makeshift solutions, or rushed out products where disdvantages and weaknesses then required constant repairs/retouching.

Good plane concepts (quickly making it to serial production level) coming to my mind would be one or another plane from some of the Russian design offices, where the turn-around time was less than 6 months in some cases, even 3 months in one case, IIRC. But all these planes featured conventional (piston-engine) concepts, nothing ground-breaking there. [:D]

[SLAAKMAN]

Fantastic topic. Keep the info coming! [:D]

[Warfare1]

The Heinkel He 178 was the world's first aircraft to fly under turbojet power, and the first practical jet plane, the pioneering example of this type of aircraft. It was a private venture by the German Heinkel company in accordance with director Ernst Heinkel's emphasis on developing technology for high-speed flight and first flew on 27 August 1939 piloted by Erich Warsitz.

[Warfare1]

The Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe ("Swallow") was the world's first operational jet-powered fighter aircraft. It was produced in World War II and saw action starting in 1944 as a multi-role fighter/bomber/reconnaissance/interceptor warplane for the Luftwaffe. It has been considered the most advanced German aviation design in service and according to some Allied historians it was a plane that might have won the war by giving air supremacy back to the Luftwaffe, being much faster and more heavily armed than Allied fighters in service at that time. But it had a negligible impact on the course of the war due to its late introduction and the small numbers in service. The Me 262 influenced the designs of post-war aircraft such as the North American F-86 and Boeing B-47.









NIGHT FIGHTER VERSION

[Warfare1]

VIDEOS

Me 262 vs B-17

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/49964/wwi ... 2_vs_b_17/


Me 262 Flies Again

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYXd60D_kgQ

[Jeffrey H.]

ORIGINAL: GoodGuy

Researchers believe the Ho 229's stealth capabilities would have allowed it to appear invisible to British Royal Air Force radars if it were to fly a few dozen feet from ground level.

Lol, that's an instant classic, for sure.

If I could fly a random German plane, be it the most ugly flying brick and the slowest plane on earth, a few feet above ground level, my plane would have the same level of "invisibility" as the Ho 229:

[/quote]

I think the basics of stealth technology are present in the design of the Ho 229, weather intentional or not. Buried engines and minimal edge structures being the biggest eye catching features.

I wonder if there is any direct evidence that the design of the Ho 229 was intentionally influenced to reduce the RCS signature ? Has that been proven ? I am just wondering.

In general the flying wing is a good design for aeroplanes, so that alone may have been enough reason to invest in a few prototypes. Also, wooden construction with steel framing made a lot of sense considering the state of availalble materials in Germany at the time.

I don't see what good coal dust mixed with elastomer would do towards absorbing electrical energy. At least there needs to be some electrical conductivity, so that the electrical energy can be dissipated as it is transferred to mechanical energy inside the conductors. Does coal dust conduct electricity ? I know from experience that todays radard absoring coatings are often categorized as IFEs which is an acronym for iron filled elastomer. That's public knowledge.

[Warfare1]

ORIGINAL: Randomizer

It's amazing of course, what happens when one apperantly rejects all Allied research and counter-measures and accepts weapon performance provided by Nazi propaganda as impartial facts. You say:

This is not quite the situation. Research could have moved much faster than it did.

There is a couple of minor issues with this contention. Lets look briefly at the Amerika Bomber...

The first bomber with oceanic (as opposed to merely continental) range was the American B-36 powered by 6-turbo compounded piston engines (the four podded jets were mounted later and used primarily on take of and during attack flight profiles). The B-36 saw squadron service in 1948 but suffered many major problems and was not considered fully operational until 1951 - six years after the end of the war. The first operational jet bomber with oceanic range was the B-52 which entered squadron service in 1955, a full decade after the war. (The B-52 program was remarkably trouble free thanks to years of R&D and the lessons learned in the B-47 program). You seem to imply that German scientists could have made this happen faster but offer no evidence or examples as to how.

Compare your Nazi Amerika bomber to the Boeing B-47 or Vickers Valiant, both conceptualized during the war but taking years to research and build. How could the Nazis have done it better, faster?

In the early post war years when the Soviets (who had a good many tamed ex Nazi scientists) needed a high performance jet engine for the MiG-15 they chose not the Junkers family that were being produced already in quantity but the British Rolls Royce Nene, a wartime design superior in every respect to the Junkers Jumo.

If German wartime jet engineering was so great how is this possible that the Nene was so very superior an engine?

The ability to manufacture essentials like turbine blades that would last was a problem into the 1970's and the ME-262 engines had core and turbine blade lives measured in double-digit hours. Even if the Amerika Bomber could have carried enough fuel to fly a useful payload on a great circle route from Norway to New York, bypassing Allied airfields on Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New England it's likely that its own engines would have fried on the return trip.

How is this a superior weapon?

The decision not to pursue jets made a great deal of sense at the time, the jet engine offered future potential but the science of aerodynamics was still learning about problems like high-speed flutter and mach-shock which started to kill pilots as conventional aircraft speeds increased. Early jets offered few advantages over the known technology of the high compression supercharged piston engine and many disadvantages like poor acceleration, short endurance and bad low-altitude performance and low speed handing characteristics. The means and methods to overcome these problems took far more real-world time than the Nazis had.

Let us also not forget that when Werner Heisenberg's team discontinued nuclear weapons research in 1942 to concentrate on an "atomic engine" for submarines or electric power production, the principal (and totally ineffective) weapons program came under the SS who forbade its researchers from using "Jewish Science" (aka quantum physics) thus ensuring that there would be no Nazi bomb.

To reiterate, none of the above matters when one takes propaganda as fact and denies any possible or effective Allied reaction or counter-measures and discounts the all the highly successful R&D that was completed by scientists opposed to the Third Reich. Some seem to think that super-Nazis are much more interesting; believe whatever you wish.

Interesting post. Thanks.

However, your post regarding jet engines for trans-atlantic flight is moot at this point, considering that the main plane considered for this long-range flight were to have conventional engines.

For example, the Junkers Ju 390 was selected to be a long-range bomber. It was one of the aircraft (along with the Messerschmitt Me 264 and Focke-Wulf Ta 400) submitted for the abortive Amerika Bomber project.

The six-engined Junkers Ju 390 made its maiden flight on 20 October 1943 and performed well.