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I need to go on record that wartime German engineering produced some remarkable and advanced designs and concepts. Take for example the Type XXI U-Boat, one does not need to look to hard at the Soviet Project-641B from the 1980's (Tango Class in NATO usage) to see its Type XXI pedagree and if longevity is a yardstick for sound design than the Eletro-boat has established its bona fides.

But the mere existance of technologically excellent weapon does not automatically make it decisive nor does it mean that deploying it would win the war for the Nazis.

Electro-boats were certainly more survivable that the older Type VII's and Type IX's but having been driven from the surface, the problems of locating convoys, command and control and massing firepower become insurrmountable and even today the diesel-electric submarine is a solitary hunter that is more a mobile minefield than a free-ranging hunter-killer. To contend, as many like to do that it would have won the war is ludicrous because it ignore everything but the impressive technology of the sub itself.

The Rheintochter family of guided SAM's were certainly very advanced for the time but the required technologies had not been created to solve the myriad of technical problems that plagued the programs.

After the war the Allies did get a huge shock by the advanced state of German R & D into infrared technologies. However, why this is so is instructive in itself. Refusing to believe the evidence that the Enigma coding machine had been compromised or that Allied airborne and surface search radar was as effective as it really was, the Germans came to believe that the Allies were using some sort of infrared device. They poured research into this area and were significantly more advanced than the Allies but this highlights a couple of issues that the Uber-Nazi lobby tends to ignore:

1. There was never anything resembling coherent research policy in the Third Reich. Without that they were doomed to fritter away resources, time and effort in "flavour of the month" projects. Germany's once superb universities had been gutted by the idealogical purges of the Nazi Party and there was never anything that resembled a specialized centre like the Radiation Laboratory at MIT nor was such an institution in line with Party dogma.

2. There was never any effort to rationally examine what the Allies were doing and how the Allies were doing it. Capturing the Booth cavity-magnitron should have been a huge boon to electronics research but it was simply copied and used to produce their own centimetric radar. There was nobody or no organization that dealt with pure research so that German electronics fell hopelessly behind.

3. Many of the greatest German technical advances were meant to counter effective Allied technology, something that the Uber-Nazi lobby does not seem to believe that the Allies were capable of doing. By way of example the V1 and V2 programs came about because of the inability of the Luftwaffe bomber forces to reach Britain with prohibitive losses and the Type XXI and XXIII U-Boats were developed to counter Allied ASW tactics and technology. It's amazing that the Uber-Nazi lobby cannot seem to accept that the Allies could do the same.

4. German aerodynamics research suffered a major blow when the high-speed wind tunnel at Peenemunde was destroyed during the RAF raid there in August 1943.

One gets tired of the Uber-Nazi lobby ascribing all sorts of incredible attributes to Nazi technology as if the mere existance of that technology was decisive in itself. Looking at individual weapons in a vacuum is exactly the wrong way to analyse history. Every weapons system has technical, tactical, strategic, logistical and doctrinal aspects but examination of those (and other factors) as they relate to Germany's weapons programs tends to cause the Uber-Nazi lobby's love affair with Nazi tech to pop like a soap bubble in a tornado. So they never bother to look at the data.

It matters not at all whether the Germans flew the first turbo jet or that the ME-262 was the first jet powered aircraft to see combat. Too many other factors mitigate against it being a war winner even if it had been introduced in 1943. It's generally forgotten in the love affair with the ME-262 that Allied piston engined fighters killed more Swallows than Swallows killed of them or that the ME-262 threat never caused the British to redeploy the Gloster Meteor squadrons (which were fully operational and doing a fine job over England knocking down V1's) to the continent. The reality is that the 262 was never much of a threat, effective counter-tactics were developed quickly and they could be largely ignored. Looks great in pictures though.

Next thing I expect to see is a post about Hitler's Magic Ring of Power...

Regards

The ME 262 was the one of the few programs that could have had a major impact. In a post above, it was pointed out that the ME 262 would suffer losses of about 1/4 of its intercepted bomber losses. Those figures sound familiar-however, those include operational losses too. Things like landing on a bomb out runway, fans coming apart during takeoff/landing, or barely qualified aviators trying to land an a/c which did not handle well at low speed. The Jet airbases were conically harassed by US fighters as it was obvious that was the best place to shoot them down, The problem was bad enough that the only units equipped with the new FW 190D were assigned the mission of top cover for the ME 262 bases.

It is my understanding that if that aircraft was available before the Allies had such air supremacy, the effect would have been decisive-at least in regards to daylight bombing missions over Germany. Of course, without those bombing missions much else would have changed. In the hands of a skilled fighter pilot, a 262 was invulnerable while attacking heavy bombers-and the 262 fire power was awesome.

This brings us to the real problem of the ME 262 development in particular and the LW in general. There were too many projects and there was a lack of overall control/guidance for the use of R&D assets. As Goering testified, it really does appear that the 262 project was delayed by 18 months simply by a lack of interest. Then, when the interest came, it was further delayed by the Hitler's insistence that it re-designed as a dive bomber. Although this gave an opportunity to further develop the a/c, it added at least 3 months and perhaps 6 months to the start of production.

The German organization that was to oversee these a/c developments (RLM?) did not have enough control-or insight in how to use its control. Large resources were squandered in the development of a large number of different types-many never utilized at all. What was happening was a whole bunch of very talented engineers were working in vacuums-frequently on divergent paths.

Compared to US aircraft R&D organization, Germany's organization was grossly inefficient. It did not have to be that way.

The other services may not have had problems to such a degree, but it was still there. For instance, what was the point of developing the mouse, or the Tiger B? 400mm artillery?

Still, German engineers came up with some fancy stuff.

ORIGINAL: Randomizer



1. There was never anything resembling coherent research policy in the Third Reich. Without that they were doomed to fritter away resources, time and effort in "flavour of the month" projects. Germany's once superb universities had been gutted by the idealogical purges of the Nazi Party and there was never anything that resembled a specialized centre like the Radiation Laboratory at MIT nor was such an institution in line with Party dogma.

Regards

You beat me to the punch.

It is ironic that the one nation that truly had an advantage in engineering capabilities, and needed that advantage more than any other nation, threw it away due to sloppy organization-so much for NAZI efficiency.

Amerika Bomber Project


The Amerika Bomber project was an initiative of the Reichsluftfahrtministerium, the Nazi Germany Air Ministry, to obtain a long-range bomber aircraft for the Luftwaffe that would be capable of striking the continental United States from Germany, a range of about 5,800 km (c.3,600 mi.).

Possibly the first public reference to the Amerika Bomber was on July 8, 1938 in a speech by Hermann Göring saying, "I completely lack the bombers capable of round-trip flights to New York with a 4.5-tonne bomb load. I would be extremely happy to possess such a bomber which would at last stuff the mouth of arrogance across the sea."

Canadian historian Holger H. Herwig claims the plan started as a result of discussions by Hitler in November of 1940 and May of 1941 when he stated his need to “deploy long-range bombers against American cities from the Azores.” Due to their location he thought the Portuguese Azores islands were Germany's “only possibility of carrying out aerial attacks from a land base against the United States.”

At the time, Portuguese dictator Salazar had allowed German U-boats and navy ships to refuel there, but from 1943 onwards, he leased bases in the Azores to the British, allowing the Allies to provide aerial coverage in the middle of the Atlantic.

Requests for designs were made to the major German aircraft manufacturers (Messerschmitt, Junkers, Heinkel, Focke-Wulf and the Horten Brothers) early in World War II, coinciding with the passage of the Destroyers for Bases Agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom in September 1940.

David Irving stated that a method of bombing New York was discussed at several Luftwaffe conferences in May and June of 1942. One idea that received a lot of attention was the Huckepack Projekt (piggyback project). Initially Field-Marshal Erhard Milch vetoed the plan due to the small payload that would be delivered for such a massive project.

However, on June 4, 1942, Erhard Milch and Albert Speer attended a lecture by Werner Heisenberg on Atomic Fission at the Harnack Hause. After the lecture, Speer asked Heisenberg if this research could design an atom bomb. Heisenberg replied that it could be done, but would take as long as two years. Speer then asked how large a bomb would need to be to destroy a city to which Heisenberg replied the size of a football.

Heisenberg requested funds, rare materials, and scientists be released from the army to continue their research. The Huckepack Projekt was brought up again at multiple joint conferences between the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine. However, after a few weeks the plan was abandoned on August 21, 1942. Air Staff General Kreipe wrote in his diary that the German Navy could not supply a U-boat offshore of the United States to pick up the aircrew. The plan saw no further development, since the Kriegsmarine would not cooperate with the Luftwaffe.

The plan failed because it is believed that Nazi Germany had no central authority over the development and construction of advanced weaponry. Because of no single authority, German scientists were forced to compete for resources that were already rare due to the war. Hitler was often swayed to spend more time, money and resources on his “miracle weapons” or projects that were exciting and new but less likely to be successful.

As a result insufficient attention was given to the Amerika Bomber project. The project failed to come to fruition, not because the transatlantic bomber was an unfeasible project, but because the Nazis were unable to manufacture enough parts to produce the aircraft. The allied bombing was so intense, near the end of the war, it disrupted the German supply chain. Also, the German war machine was running very low on supplies, particularly fuel and diverted what little was left in military defense.

The Ju 390 Amerika Bomber

The six-engined Junkers Ju 390 made its maiden flight on 20 October 1943 and performed well. This plane was intended to fly to New York, bomb the city, and then fly back to Europe again. It appears that this plane was intended to carry a proposed Atomic Bomb, which never came to fruition.

I don't think that the Amerika Bomber even deserves to be dignified with the term project and would submit that in 1942 Germany the idea of a trans-Atlantic bomber was entirely unfeasable.  Good thing that they squandered their resources and efforts in bureaucratic wishful thinking and trying to place pie in the sky.

The true purpose of any prototype should be to test new technology but this tail-dragging, twin-tailed airliner wanna be with its weight-wasting dual truck-twin main landing gear and high-drag ailerons located behind the wing training edge is a mish-mash of poor aerodynamic design choices.

Almost all of Germany's trans-Atlantic experiance was to South America using medium sized flying boats carrying mail only.  Lufthansa flew one Berlin-New York proving flight using a much modified FW-200 Kondor airliner, the trip took some 25-hours (round trip flying time was over 40-hours) and the payload was about 150 kg of mail.  So essentially they were planning to build a bomber to fly a route about which they knew almost nothing, without navigation aids at ranges that had never been achieved (and would not be until the B-36 entered service).  In wartime...

What an excellent concept, glad they were not on our side.  This wasn't a plan, it was a publicity stunt and it failed because at that time and place it was impossible for it to succeed.

Regards

Edited for clairity

ORIGINAL: Randomizer

Electro-boats were certainly more survivable that the older Type VII's and Type IX's but having been driven from the surface, the problems of locating convoys, command and control and massing firepower become insurrmountable and even today the diesel-electric submarine is a solitary hunter that is more a mobile minefield than a free-ranging hunter-killer. To contend, as many like to do that it would have won the war is ludicrous because it ignore everything but the impressive technology of the sub itself.


After the war the Allies did get a huge shock by the advanced state of German R & D into infrared technologies. However, why this is so is instructive in itself. Refusing to believe the evidence that the Enigma coding machine had been compromised or that Allied airborne and surface search radar was as effective as it really was, the Germans came to believe that the Allies were using some sort of infrared device.

No. Actually, around 1942/1943 (IIRC) German submarine commanders reported that Allied bombers and sea-planes would just appear from "nowhere", often from above the ceiling, trying to strafe or even bomb the U-boats. They suspected them to use a Radar, the possibility that the Allies could use radio direction finding was ruled out for quite some time (the Allies were using Huff-Duff since 1941 in fact), because various attacks happened even when radio silence was imposed.

Radio messages (meant to reach either the Uboat supreme commander Dönitz, or friendly subs in the area) often sealed a particular Uboat's fate, because the Allies used Huff-Duff to locate a sub or a group of subs, then - when they got in range - they used H2S to pinpoint the sub, bombed it or released depth charges, where the destroyers then took over with sonar to hunt it for hours.

As the German focus was on Radar, they came up with the Metox (1.8 - 4 meter waves), a warning device (passive radio antenna system) that could detect active radar devices. As the Brits constantly changed and refined the Radar technology, the Germans came to the wrong conclusion that the Metox' own characteristic radiation may be detected by imaginary devices on Allied ASW ships and planes. That was not the case.

In fact, the Brits had developed the Magnetron, allowing for wave lengths of 9,1 cm (initially), 3 cm and even 1,5 cm later on towards the end of the war, where the latter enabled them to even detect rain clouds.
The H2S Mark III emitted a 3cm wave which finally enabled bomber crews to distinguish between building areas and undeveloped areas (probably around 1944).

In turn, the German NAXOS device (1943?), used by Uboats and nightfighter planes (since British bombers used Radar for navigation and target acquisition), was able to detect the British H2S radar, giving a submarine the chance to dive and escape. The German nightfighters used the signals emitted by the H2S as beam that would lead the fighters to the spearheading units of the British bomber squadrons, as usually only these pathfinders (who were supposed to mark the target areas) had their H2S enabled. The German nighfighters received active radars later on, after the Naxos had become less effective.

The Magnetron was known in Germany, it received a patent in 1935. But the German military favoured the Klystron and employed it in their fixed Radar installations, given - they were not aware of the existence of H2S. The Germans were able to retrieve a H2S device from a crashed bomber (the screen had been destroyed on impact) in February 1943, but they could not figure purpose nor method of operation. Around one year later, the germans got their hands on a working screen, put the set on a flak-tower and were terrified when they turned on the device: They could see the surroundings along with all nearby flak-towers.

2. There was never any effort to rationally examine what the Allies were doing and how the Allies were doing it.
[]...... Capturing the Booth cavity-magnitron should have been a huge boon to electronics research but it was simply copied and used to produce their own centimetric radar.

Actually, they captured Allied equipment, tested and sometimes even incorporated them into their units, eg. Russian tanks, for one reason: They were more reliable and built for Russian winter conditions. Other equipment turned out to be inferior, so the Germans didn't bother to deal with that.
But even a thorough examination sometimes won't be sufficient to understand method of operation and purpose of a particular part.

There was nobody or no organization that dealt with pure research so that German electronics fell hopelessly behind.

Actually, German Radar technology was somewhat behind, indeed, but the Klystron used by the Germans was first favoured by Churchill himself, too, as he did not think the Magnetron would be superior. The British team developing the Klystron-approach argued that the Klystron would be the perfect device as it could be put into a leight-weight device, offering a level of miniaturization the Magnetron-team couldn't deliver. That might have been the main argument that won Churchill over - initially, I guess.

Call it coincidence or destiny, but at one point Churchill suddenly changed his mind, and placed an order for the H2S radar which used the magnetron, almost overstraining the H2S-team. The Klystron provided a shorter max range and quite some inaccuracy, compared to the Magnetron. So IMHO, this was a lucky outcome, as Churchill wasn't exactly well versed regarding technical details, he often appeared to be ignorant when it came to new inventions, many accounts describe him as a difficult person to deal with .... like a typical politician, despite his military background.

German research:
There were various research centers ran by the military, eg. the torpedo Research Center of the Navy, Luftwaffe and Army Centers working on the V-missiles, a tank test ground/range and artillery test range - both run by the Army, and various test squadrons performing prototype testing and testing of pre-production models. In addition to that, private companies conducted their own research, in quite some cases without government funding, until concepts were picked up by governmental or military agencies. Given, the coordination of armament efforts wasn't optimal, model parts and designs often weren't streamlined in order to offer interchangeability of parts or full mass production. When Albert Speer was appointed, coordination and streamlining improved, resulting in the German armament production-output peaking around mid-1944.
Also, research teams in universities contributed to the overall-effort.

The Allied structures were closer to the German organization than you think. The Ordnance department or the war department published a call for bids, where then armament factories submitted their designs. The Allied approach, especially the US approach, was then to employ large scale assembly lines, requiring a massive amount of manpower, or a sophisticated assembly line. German arms and vehicles often required extensive manual labour (where the amount of qualified workers had been reduced constantly, due to the military situation), because of their complicated designs and general lack of streamlining. It wasn't until 1943 that the Germans tried to optimize production processes.

You have to keep in mind that the Germans simply didn't need mobile radars until let's say around 1942, because German units were mainly on the offensive until late 1942. The Brits, in turn, had a strong interest in protecting their vital supply lines, so they were forced to come up with a solution to minimize the effectiveness of the German submarines, or - during the Battle of Britain in 1940 - the effectiveness of the German airforce, by installing the Chain Home system and introducing a new org. for their fighter groups. Both, radar and organization of fighters, was a reaction to the German threat, a reaction you imply to be an exclusive procedure in Germany only.

Further development of technologies during wartimes is mostly triggered by the strength or even superiority of enemy units. If you can clobber your enemy with a broomstick, you don't develop a flying broomstick with a laser gun. [:D]
Armament production is in fact a series of processes aiming to counter a particular enemy weapon or superiority, be it a defensive or offensive weapon.

The Germans ignored some technology paths that could have been decisive or promising at least, and they were quite ignorant and conceited when it came to the question whether vital products were compromised/flawed or not.

The German scientists did not think the Enigma code could be cracked: they did not think the Brits would employ such a massive computer like they used in Bletchley Park, they did not come up with the thought that the original plans of the Polish "Bomba" could end up in British hands, or that a German sub could be captured - along with the codes and an original Enigma (the possession of the codes was the vital prize, not the capture of a working Enigma).

The German torpedo developers refused to modify the magnetic detonators for quite a while, as the torpedos that had been tested in their testing facility never failed. Sub commanders switched back to the mechanical fuse, as the magnetic ones weren't reliable enough.
Quite interestingly, the US subs in the Pacific experienced the very same flaws, forcing them to switch back to the old detonators, too. US test facilities claimed that they didn't experience the amount of duds experienced by US subs, same with the German research center. Both organizations were afraid to admit flaws in their test setups.

Allies and Axis ordnance agencies had to canalize efforts make decisions about what particular weapon design could turn out to be a useful arm in the field. The 76mm gun-upgrade for the Sherman, for example, was rather a failure, as its performance was pretty disappointing. US Ordnance passed when the Brits offered to share the guns they put in their Sherman Firefly variant. One could say that the US agency did not do their homework in that case. And that's exactly what happened on all sides, in many cases. The industrial power of the United States, which also boosted the British and some of the Russian efforts, was a massive backup that enabled the Allies to face the Germans with a seemingly neverending flow of arms, despite the fact that some of these mass products were inferior to some of the German counterparts.

The amount of factory output doesn't necessarily reflect a higher level of coordination or organization, but rather a wealth of resources and manpower, maybe assisted by simplified weapon design. It's true that German agencies often competed (with) or fought each other, but it wasn't like all the development teams totally worked in their own nutshells.
Quite contrary, some German companies, when ordered to takeover the production from other companies, were able to switch from let's say producing halftracks or trucks to a fully fledged production of airplanes (parts) or small arms within relatively short time frames. The economy of scarcity actually forced many companies to be more inventive.

.... V2 programs came about because of the inability of the Luftwaffe bomber forces to reach Britain with prohibitive losses

No, the V2 was based on a specification profile issued by the German "Heer" (Army branch of the Wehrmacht) in 1936. Versions A1-A3 were developed and tested until 1939, where the prototype A2 performed 2 successful take-offs in 1934. A3 take-offs all failed in 1937, but the redesigned A5 (in fact a modified A3) was successfully launched in 1938.
The development of the A4 (later designated V2) started in 1939, where the first take-offs in March 1942 failed, only the launch in October 1942 appeared to be successful. The development of the V flying bombs and missiles was initiated way before the Germans ceased to bomb British cities.

Also, German bombers started to bomb locations in Britain in early 1944, again, and - interestingly - in numbers. German bombers could reach British soil anytime, they just didn't have enough fuel to keep up a high number of sorties for more than 1 or 2 months. Furthermore, the bombardments had only a limited strategical value, means they could only serve in an attempt to lower the British morale.

... the Type XXI and XXIII U-Boats were developed to counter Allied ASW tactics and technology. It's amazing that the Uber-Nazi lobby cannot seem to accept that the Allies could do the same.

Well, the German XXI submarines were actually the result of a consistent further development with the task to turn submarines into real underwater vessels, instead of having to deal with the consequences that had to be faced when conventional submarines were deployed:
German and Allied submarines were rather boats with dive capabilities. The XXI's submerged speed was way higher than the speed maintained when surfaced. These boats' unmatched underwater speeds and low acoustic profile allowed for unusual manoeuvres and surprising approaches which made it hard to detect the subs with sonar.
The very last combat patrol performed by a XXI sub from April to May 1945 is a good example: The sub was able to close in on an Allied cruiser that was protected by a large group of destroyers. The German commander could calmly observe the cruiser and chase it, without being detected, solely due to its silent operation mode and speed. The German commander handed over the sub in a port in Norway, because he had received the message to cease all hostilities BEFORE he observed the cruiser, and he ran into the cruiser's commander - telling that he could have easily sunk the cruiser. The commander of the cruiser did not believe that claim, but was terrified when he heard details, proving that the report was true.
The XXI design influenced most if not all submarine designs after the war, and even the newest conventional German submarine (today) could close in on a US carrier group without being detected, during a military exercise in the Carribean a few years ago. The German commander took a normal camera and took a pic of the US carrier (as proof), leaving the US commanders astounded, maybe even terrified.
The XXI-design was more than just a reaction to Allied developments, it was a ground-breaking invention/solution way ahead of all submarine equipment used by the Allies at the time.

The Brits were just smart enough to direct British and US bomber groups to those shipyards where the XXIs had been assembled.

German aerodynamics research suffered a major blow when the high-speed wind tunnel at Peenemunde was destroyed during the RAF raid there in August 1943.

Afaik, the facilities had been moved to underground installations after the bombardment, just like so many facilities.

It's generally forgotten in the love affair with the ME-262 that Allied piston engined fighters killed more Swallows than Swallows killed of them or that the ME-262 threat never caused the British to redeploy the Gloster Meteor squadrons (which were fully operational and doing a fine job over England knocking down V1's) to the continent.

Thing was, the Brits hesitated to deploy bigger Meteor units to the continent (bigger than the small unit that had been re-deployed to Holland in Febr. 1945, actually), because they were afraid that the Germans could get their hands on their "secret weapon". The Me 262 had a higher max speed, was more agile and versatile, just the Jumo 004B engines turned out to be less reliable.
The Meteor suffered of a high level of what might translate to yaw vibrations, that occur at high (subsonic) speeds, which limited its fighter capabilities. The Meteor was rather a plane for training and evaluation purposes, or a ground-assault plane, than a fighter.

The reality is that the 262 was never much of a threat, effective counter-tactics were developed quickly and they could be largely ignored. Looks great in pictures though.

What counter-tactics? The 262s would have been a serious threat - if not a decisive weapon during the course to restore air superiority on the continent, if the Germans would have managed to come up with enough aviation fuel.
The Allied bombers were basically sitting ducks in the air, when they were approached by the Me 262s. They had no guns with auto-tracking, so the only counter-tactic was to employ changes in flight formations, but these had been introduced in 1942 or 1943 already.

Did the Ju 390 Amerika Bomber Make a Test Flight to New York in 1944?

The first public mention of an alleged flight of a Ju 390 to North America appeared in the 11 November 1955 issue of the British magazine RAF Flying Review, of which aviation writer William Green was an editor. The magazine's editors were skeptical of the claim, which asserted that two Ju 390s had made the flight, though in March 1956, they published a letter from a reader which claimed to clarify the account. This letter stated that a single aircraft had made the flight and that it had reached a point about 19 km (12 mi) off the US east coast, just north of NYC.

According to Green's reporting, in June 1944, Allied Intelligence had learned from prisoner interrogations that a Ju 390 had been delivered in January 1944 to FAGr 5 (Fernaufklärungsgruppe 5), based at Mont-de-Marsan near Bordeaux, and that it had completed a 32-hour reconnaissance flight to within 19 km (12 mi) of the US coast, north of New York City.

This was, however, rejected just after the war by British authorities. Aviation historian Dr. Kenneth P. Werrell states that the story of the flight originated in two British intelligence reports from August 1944 which were based in part on the interrogation of prisoners, and titled General Report on Aircraft Engines and Aircraft Equipment; the reports claimed that the Ju 390 had taken photographs of the coast of Long Island. These photos have never been discovered.

The claimed flight was mentioned in many books following the RAF Flying Review account, including William Green's own respected Warplanes of the Second World War (1968) and Warplanes of the Third Reich (1970) but without ever citing reliable sources. Further authors then cited Green's books as their source for the claimed flight. Green himself told Kenneth P. Werrell many years later that he no longer placed much credence in the flight.

Werrell himself later examined the available data regarding the Ju 390's range and concluded that although a great circle round trip from France to St. Johns, Newfoundland was possible, adding another 3,830 km (2,380 mi) for a round trip from St. Johns to Long Island made the flight "most unlikely".

Karl Kössler and Günter Ott, in their book Die großen Dessauer: Junkers Ju 89, 90, 290, 390. Die Geschichte einer Flugzeugfamilie ("Great Dessauers...History of an Aircraft Family"), also examined the claimed flight, and thoroughly debunked the flight north of New York. Most importantly, it was nowhere near France at the time when the flight was supposed to have taken place. According to Hans Pancherz' logbook, the Ju 390V1 was brought to Prague on November 26, 1943. While there, it took part in a number of test flights, which continued until late March, 1944. Secondly, they also assert that the Ju 390V1 prototype was unlikely to have been capable of taking off with the fuel load necessary for a flight of such duration due to strength concerns caused by its modified structure; it would have required a takeoff weight of 65 tonnes (72 tons), while the maximum takeoff weight during its trials had been 34 tonnes (38 tons). According to Kössler and Ott, the Ju 390V2 could not have made the US flight either, since they indicate that it was not completed before September/October 1944.


SUPPORTERS OF THE FLIGHT

Supporters note that the mission was designed to deliver a single bomb to New York and that such a bomb could only have been the atomic weapon under development. Japan and Germany at the time were using the "Harteck Process" of gaseous uranium centrifuges. Germany in 1944 was shipping both uranium ores and centrifuges to Japan by U-boat.

Supporters of the New York flight also say the mission was kept secret so as not to tip off the US Government to provide better air defences. It was an ultra top secret test flight for the delivery of an atomic bomb. Corroboration is gleened from the so-called Sanger sub-orbital bomber designed to attack New York from space with only a single bomb. Only one type of bomb was worth all the time and expense involved. Supporters say a mission so secret would never have found it's way into FAGr.5 logbooks.

Supporters note the top secret unit, II/KG200 also flew the Ju-390 as did Junkers company test pilots in Czechoslovakia.

Following the war, Hitler's armaments minister Albert Speer also claimed to author James P O'Donnell that a Ju-390 aircraft flown by Junkers test pilots flew a polar route to Japan in 1944.

THE SANGER AMERIKA BOMBER

The Sänger Amerika Bomber (or Orbital Bomber, Antipodal Bomber or Atmosphere Skipper) was designed for supersonic, stratospheric flight.

In June 1935 and February 1936, Dr. Eugen Sänger published articles in the Austrian aviation publication Flug on rocket-powered aircraft. This led to his being asked by the German High Command to build a secret aerospace research institute in Trauen to research and build his "Silverbird", a manned, winged vehicle that could reach orbit. Dr. Sänger had been working on this concept for several years, and in fact he had began developing liquid-fuel rocket engines.

From 1930 to 1935, he had perfected (through countless static tests) a 'regeneratively cooled' liquid-fueled rocket engine that was cooled by its own fuel, which circulated around the combustion chamber. This engine produced an astounding 3048 meters/second (10000 feet/second) exhaust velocity, as compared to the later V-2 rocket's 2000 meters/second (6560 feet/second). Dr. Sänger, along with his staff, continued work at Trauen on the "Silverbird" under the Amerika Bomber program.

An interesting flight profile was envisioned for the "Silverbird". It was to be propelled down a 3 km (1.9 mile) long monorail track by a rocket-powered sled that developed a 600 ton thrust for 11 seconds. After taking off at a 30 degree angle and reaching an altitude of 1.5 km (5100'), a speed of 1850 km/h (1149 mph) would be reached. At this point, the main rocket engine would be fired for 8 minutes and burn 90 tons of fuel to propel the "Silverbird" to a maximum speed of 22100 km/h (13724 mph) and an altitude of over 145 km (90 miles), although some sources list the maximum altitude reached as 280 km (174 miles). As the aircraft accelerated and descended under the pull of gravity, it would then hit the denser air at about 40 km (25 miles) and 'skip' back up as a stone does when skipped along water. This also had the added benefit of cooling the aircraft after the intense frictional heating encountered when the denser air was reached. The skips would gradually be decreased until the aircraft would glide back to a normal landing using its conventional tricycle landing gear, after covering approximately 23500 km (14594 miles).

The final test facilities for full-scale rocket engine tests were being built when Russia was invaded in June 1941. All futuristic programs were canceled due to the need to concentrate on proven designs. Dr. Sänger went on to work on ramjet designs for the DFS (German Research Institute for Gliding), and helped to design the Skoda-Kauba Sk.

Although the Luftwaffe did its best to stop Dr. Sänger from publishing his research results, a few copies went unaccounted for and made their way to other countries. After the war, he was asked to work (along with mathematician Irene Bredt) for the French Air Ministry, where in a bizarre plot, he was almost kidnapped by Stalin, who recognized the value of the Amerika Bomber.

As impressive as the Silverbird concept was, it never went beyond the design stages. Several test mock-ups were built and tested in wind tunnels during the 1950s, but with advances in conventional jet engines, mainly fuel consumption, the designs mock-ups never made it to the drawing board. But the idea never went fully away. Today, the United States utilize Sanger’s concepts in its impressive Shuttle Re-entry Vehicle.



Watch a Video of a Sanger In Flight

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N38oSFwlYhE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1QvPw85-rg


The Sanger Bomber

Sanger's bomber would have burned up in the atmosphere - German scientists at the time had no idea about the temperatures involved in reentry & they didn't have the materials necessary to protect the craft on the way down.

And for the ME-262, very much like the F22 now, the amount of maintenance necessary to keep the craft in the air far outweighed the benefits of the jet. Again, the lack of raw materials to fully develop the technology was the killer. I believe the turbines had a life of about 35 hours of flight time before they were rendered unusable.

Again, despite everything the Germans were able to accomplish, they were severely on the wrong end of the economic spectrum - a few hundred ME262s were overwhelmed by thousands of advanced piston-engine designed & handicapped by the need for large and long runways - more ME262 were shot down either landing or taking off then were shot down in the air.

Oh you doubters are so so so frigging wrong   http://www.ironsky.net/ 

http://www.ironsky.net/site/stream720p.qt

ORIGINAL: Warfare1

Following the war, Hitler's armaments minister Albert Speer also claimed to author James P O'Donnell that a Ju-390 aircraft flown by Junkers test pilots flew a polar route to Japan in 1944.

Albert Speer claimed quite some things, which often turned out to be attempts to twist historical details, in order to distract or to cleanse himself from his own sins (ie. his involvement in or knowledge of warcrimes). I could imagine that a flight to Tokyo really happened (using the route over Syberia), but they had to reduce weight and couldn't carry any substantial payload. I doubt that the Germans attempted to fly their Uranium to Japan, in fact some (if not most) of the Uranium had been put on a sub, along with a disassembled Me 262, its blueprints and some small arms, in an attempt to ship it to Japan, in December 1944. The sub had to return to the port after it got damaged and couldn't sail before February or March 1945, I think. After learning about the unconditional surrender, the commander decided to abort the mission and handover the sub (and the uranium) to a Canadian vessel or American vessel. The US freight list still listed the uranium after it had reached the US port, but all traces disappear after reaching some US army facilities. There wasn't enough time to use the uranium for the first atomic bombs, but I am convinced the "German" uranium ended up in one of the later types of US atomic bombs.

The developers of the 390 came up with a confusing amount of different max ranges, at one point their statements changed weekly, in order to win over Göring or Hitler for serial production.
The only way to get the bomber/and crew back to Axis territory was to use an airfield on the Azores AND to refuel the plane in the air, or - alternatively - tow the 390 with a second 390, in order to save fuel. There is no evidence that a 390 for towing purposes had been tested or even existed, and I doubt that a 390 could economally tow a plane of the same size. Refueling in the air was a difficult process back then, also ... the Germans had successfully tested refueling in Czech once only.

The only real option to get an "America bomber" up and running was to ditch the plane somewhere on the East coast and pick up the crew with a submarine. The German navy denied to provide a sub for that purpose.
The most promising setup for this option was to have a Heinkel He 177 tow a Dornier Do 217, where the latter was supposed to land on US soil. The payload was supposed to be either an atomic bomb or a radiologic Bomb (a "dirty bomb"). The project had been abandoned because the Germans had to give up the airport in Bordeaux, and because there wasn't even enough fuel for the He 177.
Btw, a German atomic bomb didn't even exist, at that point.

ORIGINAL: paullus99

The German General Staff had a pretty good idea how the next war was going to be fought....

Yes and no. Around 1935, Guderian - for example - envisaged that halftracks could be useful or even vital for transport and protection of the infantry elements of a given tank unit, allowing the foot units to closely follow the spearheading tank contingent. The General staff liked the idea of adapting the existing artillery tractor (which looked like an early halftrack) and changing the design to an armored tracked-vehicle, but it still didn't result in getting a production model before 1938. Guderian also did not get through with his idea to equip all units with (armored) halftracks.
Same with the tanks, Hitler was fascinated by Guderian's visions, which involved to build light and medium tanks. Guderian played a major role when the German tank arm was developed, he authored studies covering motorized warfare and tactics and played a significant role during the development of particular tanks.
The General staff showed less interest, but Hitler had read Guderian's tracts and supported him right away.

The combined arms approach was an idea favoured and driven by some, but not necessarily by the General staff. The commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht Blomberg, and the commander-in-chief of the Army Fritsch, who got sacked in 1938 (Hitler had long sought to become commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht, so a series of intrigues were started to get rid of Blomberg and Fritsch), had rather conservative concepts - partially.
Guderian and Erich von Manstein were among those who tried to bring the concept of mobile warfare to life, employing "motorized infantry divisions" (pre-war term) was just one of the various details that emerged from their progressive ideas.

ORIGINAL: paullus99

[]... a few hundred ME262s were overwhelmed by thousands of advanced piston-engine designs....

Actually more than 1100 MEs had been produced.
Even if let's say 10 or 20 conventional Allied planes were chasing a Me 262 they couldn't accomplish anything... the MEs outperformed the fastest piston-engine planes by around 150 km/hour. A ME could evade whenever it wanted, well in theory. [:D]

...more ME262 were shot down either landing or taking off then were shot down in the air.

I doubt that. It rather seems like the majority of MEs didn't even take off.... due to lack of fuel.
The US Airforce scrapped a massive amount of Me 262s after the war, selling the metal to local scrap dealers. That scrap-job was so efficient, that the US did not possess an intact Me 262 in 1948, so they had to get German developers when they wanted to build a flyable replica the same year.

I'll dig up the statistics later - but yes indeed, the USAAF & RAF shot down more ME262s either taking off or landing (once ME262 fields were identified, US fighters were assigned to loiter over or near those fields & hit the jets when they were most vulnerable), than ME262s were shot down in dogfights.

And due to its high speed & poor turn radius, ME262s were limited to mostly head-on passes at formations of US Bombers - which was still fairly dangerous due to the forward mounted MGs that most allied bombers had at the time.

Despite its technological charm, the 262 was not a "mature" aircraft & suffered from numerious bugs and defects, including poor materials used in its construction - especially its turbine blades. It was an impressive aircraft, but definitely not a "war-winner" in its historical setting.

Goodguy wrote:

No. Actually, around 1942/1943 (IIRC) German submarine commanders reported that Allied bombers and sea-planes would just appear from "nowhere", often from above the ceiling, trying to strafe or even bomb the U-boats. They suspected them to use a Radar, the possibility that the Allies could use radio direction finding was ruled out for quite some time...

These thing take time and Germany's advanced IR research was started when airborne radar was still thought to be impractical. In this context I do not dispute your argument but find it irrelevant.
Goodguy wrote:

The Magnetron was known in Germany, it received a patent in 1935. But the German military favoured the Klystron and employed it in their fixed Radar installations, given - they were not aware of the existence of H2S...

The device in question was the Booth cavity magnatron that facilitated centimetric radar, it fell into German hands as the Rotterdam Apperatus and was widely copied but no research efforts were made to exploit this powerful electronic valve's potential. That's my whole point here, the rest of your observations are interesting but non sequitor.
Goodguy wrote:

No, the V2 was based on a specification profile issued by the German "Heer" (Army branch of the Wehrmacht) in 1936...

Once again, entirely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. It matters not what the initial project goals were, the V2 (and V1) recieved funding and resources to enable them to deliver high explosives to England, something that the Luftwaffe could no longer do regularly or without suicidal losses. Period.
Goodguy wrote:

Well, the German XXI submarines were actually the result of a consistent further development with the task to turn submarines into real underwater vessels, instead of having to deal with the consequences that had to be faced when conventional submarines were deployed...

This is a strawman argument. The Type XVIII was the designed submarine with its H2O2 Walther turbines it would have been capable of high-speed transits and able to operate in the open ocean against convoys but it was never built as the technical problems proved insurmountable. The Type XXI was still a conventional diesel-electric submarine but one with a high sprint speed and it would have suffered exactly the same operational restrictions imposed on diesel boats to this day. They are creatures of the shallows and choke points, their prey has to come to them because they lack the endurance to actively hunt. Without reliable communications (VLF/ELF radio transmission rates are far to slow for passing tactical info) hunting convoys in the Atlantic would be ineffective, the Type XXI could not operate on the surface (where it was slower than a Type VII) and the lacked the battery endurance to chase and overhaul even those convoys that the could detect acoustically.

The only place where the Type XXI would have been effective was in the shallow waters off Britain and North America, exactly the areas where Allied ASW assets could reach the greatest concentrations. The U-Boat inshore campaign from August 44 through Feb 45 give a pretty good picture how this would have turned out. Type VII's and Type XXIII electro boats sank a few ships but the problems of target acquistition remained. Few boats survived the Allied tactic of swarming any U-Boat contact with overwhelming air and sea ASW and holding them under until the boat needed to raise its snort or asphyxiate then pouncing with massed Hedgehog and Squid salvoes. Evidence of this is the codex to KK Schnee's only Type XXI patrol. Encountering the RN task force was pure chance and I do not question the tactical superiority provided by the sprint capabilities of the Type XXI. However, his orders where to sail to New York, a shallow water choke point, and not convoy hunting in the open ocean.

So if the Type XXI's could not operate against convoys on the high seas they would need to go where the Allied ASW was strongest. Doesn't sound like a war winning strategy to me but your mileage may vary.
Goodguy wrote:

What counter-tactics? The 262s would have been a serious threat - if not a decisive weapon during the course to restore air superiority on the continent, if the Germans would have managed to come up with enough aviation fuel.

The ME-262 needed a long PAVED runway and so these could (and in fact did) become targets. As I wrote before, the Allied counter was to kill the 262 where it lived and at low altitudes where its performance was at its worst and pistion engines were operating at their best. As for the Meteor, it certainly had flaws but had the requirement for it to operate over the Continent been percieved, it would have been sent, aerodynamic and control issues notwithstanding. That it was not deployed is evidence that it was never needed and that the threat posed by the ME-262 was more mythological than real.

As for fuel... Since jets could effectively burn low quality kerosene rather than high octane AVGAS this may have been less of an issue than it might seem. However, early jets required well trained pilots and the Luftwaffe's pilot training program was in tatters. ME-262's flown by the cream of the fighter forces might have wrecked havoc for a while but when they were dead or burnt out there would have been nothing left to carry the war but poorly trained rookies. The Japanese had similar problems, good planes but poor pilots and no fuel to train them up to an acceptable skill level.

On to the Amerika Bomber...
No doubt that it flew to New York. It went via the secret Nazi base built under the Antarctic ice cap and carried the Ark of the Covenent and 7-tonnes of Nazi gold. It also carried Hitler's missing testicle to provide the DNA so that Nazi-Uber-Scientists could clone him from little baby ducks. Then it went to Broadway where it bombed like a bad musical and nobody noticed.

The drivel that you find on the Internet never ceases to amaze, nor that some people might actually believe it.

Regards

ORIGINAL: Randomizer
As for fuel... Since jets could effectively burn low quality kerosene rather than high octane AVGAS this may have been less of an issue than it might seem. However, early jets required well trained pilots and the Luftwaffe's pilot training program was in tatters. ME-262's flown by the cream of the fighter forces might have wrecked havoc for a while but when they were dead or burnt out there would have been nothing left to carry the war but poorly trained rookies. The Japanese had similar problems, good planes but poor pilots and no fuel to train them up to an acceptable skill level.

This was another big surprise for the Allies, there was no shortage of fuel for the new jets. There was a chronic shortage of the a/c after deployment. It was in October '44 that the first, and for all practical applications, the only JG equipped with the 262 went into action in northern Germany. By the time it was deployed there were not even 150 of the 262's even built yet. The actual situation with that unit was that it seldom had more than 2 dozen operational a/c-hardly a strategic threat. With losses of 4 to 8 planes per flying day, the number deployed were not going to increase very much-IIRC, 585 jets were built by the end of '44.
The engines had a short service life which required rebuilds after about 30 hours of use-much more frequent than the piston motors. This further hampered efforts to build up an operational reserve.

On to the Amerika Bomber...
No doubt that it flew to New York. It went via the secret Nazi base built under the Antarctic ice cap and carried the Ark of the Covenent and 7-tonnes of Nazi gold. It also carried Hitler's missing testicle to provide the DNA so that Nazi-Uber-Scientists could clone him from little baby ducks. Then it went to Broadway where it bombed like a bad musical and nobody noticed.

The drivel that you find on the Internet never ceases to amaze, nor that some people might actually believe it.
Regards

Although I would not bet my soul on the test flight of that bomber flying nearly all the way to New York actually having occurred, I can say with absolute honesty that I read about that mission long before anyone ever heard about an Internet/WWW.

The Me 262

1) Most of my sources indicate that a little over 1400 Me 262s were built during WWII [Wolfgang Wagner, "The First Jet Aircraft," Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 1998].

2) On 17 August, 1943 production of the Me 262 was just getting into full swing when the USAAF bombed the Messerschmitt factory at Regensberg, destroying important tooling.

3) The Messerschmitt development programs were transferred from Augsburg to Oberammergau which caused even further delays.

4) Adding to the mix of delays was Hitler's insistence that the Me 262 be built NOT as a FIGHTER but that the Me 262 be built as a BOMBER.

5) It wasn't until May, 1944 that Hitler allowed some Me 262s to be produced as fighters, at the astonishing rate of only ONE FIGHTER for EVERY TWENTY BOMBERS.

6) Finally, it wasn't until 4 November, 1944 that Hitler allowed the Me 262 to go into unlimited FIGHTER production.

Despite problems with the Me 262, by the time 1945 rolled around it became a formidable jet plane. However, at this point it was a case of too little, too late. Even so, in 1945 the Me 262 was still able to down significant numbers of bombers even with massive fighter escort.

If not for the constant delays in production including that of Hitler's meddling, the Me 262 could have been produced in numbers by late 1943. This was long before D-Day. The Me 262 could have caused high losses among the Allied bomber formations (something the Allied leadership greatly feared). The reduction in bombing would have meant less loss to German production.

While the Me 262 would not have been a war winner all by itself, most historians agree that it would have presented a significant threat if introduced in 1943.

ORIGINAL: Randomizer

These thing take time and Germany's advanced IR research was started when airborne radar was still thought to be impractical. In this context I do not dispute your argument but find it irrelevant.
.....The device in question was the Booth cavity magnatron that facilitated centimetric radar, it fell into German hands as the Rotterdam Apperatus and was widely copied but no research efforts were made to exploit this powerful electronic valve's potential. That's my whole point here, the rest of your observations are interesting but non sequitor.

Non sequitur, btw... [;)]

It's not irrelevant. The Germans did not feel that there was a need for developing (mobile/airborne) active radars for use in planes before 1942/1943.
The majority of the bombings carried out by the RAF were so-called "strategic" bombing missions, targeting major cities and harbours. Since these bombings were carried out at night, the Brits relied on means to navigate and identify targets. The H2S employed the Magnetron you are talking about, it underwent continious further development, and while the early version, starting in the 1.5 to 4 meters range, proved to be a capable device to hunt surfaced submarines already, the shorter wave lengths of 3 cm and 1.5 centimeter towards the end of the war turned out to be the real deal regarding navigation and target acquisition during night missions.
Although the RAF's plan to break the German morale by bombing their cities failed, the German leadership and the RLM were pretty concerned about the impact the continious raids on civilians might have, so they finally put in some effort to equip planes with Radar detection devices (Naxos,Metox) and active Radar later on, in an attempt to hamper the RAF's night bombings.

In turn, the USAF's focus was on bombing targets like armamanent factories, oil refineries (one of them resides 1 km from my house, all tank farms and the most important installations had been sheltered with concrete shelters, some of them are still there), ball-bearing production facilities, Krupp's steel works, and so on. While the USAF also conducted raids on major cities, the main effort was still put into reducing Germany's manufacturing capacity.
The USAF conducted daylight missions, so there was no need for the German Luftwaffe to employ Radars.
If the Allied night bombings in let's say 1941 would have reached the same intensity as the bombings from around early 1944 to 1945 you can bet that the Germans would have put more effort into radar development.

.... it matters not what the initial project goals were, the V2 (and V1) recieved funding and resources to enable them to deliver high explosives to England, something that the Luftwaffe could no longer do regularly or without suicidal losses. Period.

It does matter where you claim that many German developments were just a German reaction to the introduction of Allied weapons. Your claim is valid for the Radar development, they were behind, but German technology was on par or even more advanced in other fields. I am not interested in backing up Nazi-fanboys, I'm rather interested in collecting facts.
The Me 262's design is from 1939 and pretty similar to the final product that entered service in 1944.
The V2 missile had been designed in 1935 and tested for the first time in 1937.

This is a strawman argument. The Type XVIII was the designed submarine with its H2O2 Walther turbines it would have been capable of high-speed transits and able to operate in the open ocean against convoys but it was never built as the technical problems proved insurmountable.

Well, the XVIII-project had been halted in favour of producing the XXI types. Two submarines were almost finished and transfered to the "Germania shipyard" for completion in December 1943, but never finished.

Quite contrary to your statement, the Walter engine was supposed to be put in the XXI too, but the engine did not get to series-production readiness in time, so the XXI had been "downgraded", means the diesel-electric engine employed in that type was a compromise, which had been made to get the XXI ready asap.

The Type XXI was still a conventional diesel-electric submarine but one with a high sprint speed and it would have suffered exactly the same operational restrictions imposed on diesel boats to this day.....
[]....... the Type XXI could not operate on the surface (where it was slower than a Type VII) and the lacked the battery endurance to chase and overhaul even those convoys that the could detect acoustically.

You're wrong. Maybe you should read "Die Boote im Netz" by Günter Böddeker. The author collected material over years and he got to read personal accounts authored by Dönitz (his war diary), he interviewed veterans and viewed a ton of documents. He didn't get to check Allied materials that had been cleared during the last 10 years (as the book was published in the 1980s), but he still managed to put up an accurate description of the submarine arm, down to several hundred descriptions regarding the destiny of single U-boats and the location where they had been sunk, captured or destroyed by their own crews.

For the XXI's form, the Germania yard came back to a Germania concept from 1908 (!), namely the submarine "Kobben", which had been built for the Norwegian Navy the same year.

Speeds:

• XXI type:
  surfaced:
  15.37 kn (diesel)
  17.94 kn (electric)
  18.04 kn (electric+diesel)
  
  submerged:
  16,5 kn (electric, some sources indicate 17,2 kn)
  6.1 kn (silent running electric engine)
  10.42 kn (diesel with snorkel)
  
  range surfaced: 28,700 kilometers at 10 kn
  
  range submerged: 630 km (340 sea miles) at 5 kn
  487 miles at 3 kn
  120 miles at 8 kn
  15,100 miles at 10 kn using the snorkel
• VIIc type:
  surfaced:
  18.6 kn (diesel)
  
  submerged:
  8.5 kn
  
  range surfaced: 10,000 kilometers at 12 kn
  range submerged: 150 kilometers at 4 kn

As you see, the surfaced speed "disadvantage" of the XXI was in fact a minor factor, as we're talking about 3.x knots only. This was still faster than most of the convoys which used to travel with 11 knots and less, mostly at 8 knots, (except for big sealiners converted to troop transport ships, and military vessels). And the enormous submerged speeds made it easy to manoeuvre and evade ASW efforts under water, let alone the ability to catch up with a convoy while being submerged, a major advantage compared to the low battery capacity and electric engine performance that was present in the VIIc subs.

The U-Boat inshore campaign .....[] Few boats survived the Allied tactic of swarming any U-Boat contact with overwhelming air and sea ASW and holding them under until the boat needed to raise its snort or asphyxiate then pouncing with massed Hedgehog and Squid salvoes. Evidence of this is the codex to KK Schnee's only Type XXI patrol. Encountering the RN task force was pure chance and I do not question the tactical superiority provided by the sprint capabilities of the Type XXI. However, his orders where to sail to New York, a shallow water choke point, and not convoy hunting in the open ocean.

You're drawing the wrong conclusions. Long range missions had been projected after the German losses in the Atlantic had risen to a level where it didn't make sense to employ them anymore, and not because the generation of German subs could only operate at "choke points" or less protected areas. The idea was rather to get to some easy targets, hamper martitime coastal traffic, and boost morale at home.

Dönitz withdrew all subs from the Atlantic Ocean. But in the final stage, before he withdrew the subs, the VIIc subs' hit rate went somewhat closer to the rate German subs had scored during the early missions in the Atlantic ocean, in particular around March or April 1943 (bloody April, IIRC), purely because Bletchley Park couldn't read along the U-Boat communication for several weeks.
The most vital weapon for reducing the U-Boat threat was ULTRA, not radar or advanced ASW tactics. The latter helped to drive off and eventually destroy subs, but most convoys were in fact guided around the line of subs after ULTRA had reached a level where German communication could be read constantly.
Looking at the largeness of the Atlantic ocean and the routes used for the convoys, it's incredible that the usual number of 7-9 VII subs (which created the blocking line) sighted and attacked convoys again and again, for several years. Around 5-9 subs were usually on the way back to the ports, and another 7 or so were sailing to their blocking location.
The reason for trying a larger scaled attack on the US coast was that the Allied sea/recon plane cover had been expanded continiously, covering more and formerly uncovered sectors. It was not about a swarm of Allied vessels, but in fact a matter of thorough plane coverage to spot surfaced submarines, where the Allied Hunter-Killer groups and task forces then hunted down individual German subs. ULTRA was the major tool to plot locations and rough directions of German subs.
The US coast appeared to be less protected until 1944, that's why Dönitz tried to mount an offensive there. The subs were withdrawn from that theater too, as the tonnage sunk by the subs did not justify the expenditure of resources.

The few oil-tanker submarines (dubbed "dairy cows" by the Germans) the Germans had were all (maybe except for one that operated in the Indian Ocean) compromised by ULTRA, giving away meeting points (where they should refuel regular subs) through their own communication. Churchill insisted on hunting each and every tanker-sub.

If the particular XXI really had been assigned to sail to New York, then this happened in an attempt to mount a few attacks for propaganda purposes, only. I'm too lazy to get the book and check what mission it had. But this sub wasn't designed to operate in shallow waters or choke points only, it was designed to rush through the channel (undetected) and operate in the Atlantic ocean. Its new battery had a massively enhanced capacity, the XXI could travel submerged for 3 (!) days, and its range (28,000 km) had been tripled compared to the VIIc type.
You may want to read up on some sources covering the XXI.

Without reliable communications (VLF/ELF radio transmission rates are far to slow for passing tactical info) hunting convoys in the Atlantic would be ineffective....

Actually, the XXI had 3 devices:
1) a retractable direction finder which could also be used to receive ELF/VLF underwater
2) a short-wave receiver that served as direction finder as it used a convoy's radio transmissions for direction finding (MHz range).
3) direction finder/receiver which may have been used for navigation too, not sure (khz range)

Communication wasn't a problem. Transmission rates were too slow for audio transmissions, but were totally sufficient to transmit and receive encrypted messages (transmitting location, speed and direction of enemy vessels or general orders). You don't need audio communication to organize a concerted attack. Also, these messages were often kept extremely short, to avoid Allied direction finding, and because the mission orders used to be handed on paper, before a sub sailed.

So if the Type XXI's could not operate against convoys on the high seas they would need to go where the Allied ASW was strongest. Doesn't sound like a war winning strategy to me but your mileage may vary.

Well, I outlined the specs of the XXI above, and the strongest ASW / plane cover was in the channel, in 1944. The Northern route around England had been used in 1943 already, and was exclusively used after the submarine yards in France had been evacuated. Getting to the Atlantic Ocean wasn't the problem, but the effectiveness of ULTRA, Allied air cover, Hunter-Killer groups (which were often directed with the use of ULTRA infos) and a shrinking number of subs had reduced the German subs' ability to effectively chase convoys in the Atlantic Ocean. Nonetheless, the submarine arm was still on the offensive when all other arms had already gone into the defensive.

The ME-262 needed a long PAVED runway and so these could (and in fact did) become targets. As I wrote before, the Allied counter was to kill the 262 where it lived and at low altitudes where its performance was at its worst and pistion engines were operating at their best.

More than 1100 Me 262s had been built. Around 100 MEs were lost, this number includes destruction on the ground, accidents, combat losses or pilot ejections due to engine failure. You make it sound as if hundreds of MEs had been killed the way you described.

As for the Meteor, it certainly had flaws but had the requirement for it to operate over the Continent been percieved, it would have been sent, aerodynamic and control issues notwithstanding. That it was not deployed is evidence that it was never needed and that the threat posed by the ME-262 was more mythological than real.

With more sorties, the 262 could have made a difference. You might want want to read the Allied Strategic Bombing Survey, it's been published on the US Army website.

As for fuel... Since jets could effectively burn low quality kerosene rather than high octane AVGAS this may have been less of an issue than it might seem.

For this claim, you might want to read the US Army analyzis covering the Battle of the Bulge. It contains various figures detailing the fuel situation in Germany. While the Germans had to save up and collect motor engine fuel for 3 months, and use their POL reserve, in order to mount an offensive of that scope, the lack of aviation fuel (and this includes kerosene) hit the Luftwaffe as early as 1942, where sorties had to be reduced for more than a month. I advise to study these original figures, you can access the entire Ardennes US Army report on the US Army webby, as well.

The general lack of aviation fuel (which was imminent in 1943 already) led to a situation where pilots - who were supposed to fly Me262s - had to observe the trainers (who flew the Me262) from the ground, pretty much in a "observe and imitate" manner. There were 2-seat training versions of the Me 262, but they weren't used due to a lack of sufficient numbers of training planes and due to the fact that there was not enough fuel to run them. The scarce fuel resources were reserved for combat units. Plane supervisors, who did not have flight experience, used to explain the instruments and controls and the trainees asked active pilots for details about engine settings and altitudes for approaches. The few aces concentrated in the expiremental KG (squadron) and in one of the other squadrons didn't help, as the Germans needed a way higher number of trained pilots.

However, early jets required well trained pilots and the Luftwaffe's pilot training program was in tatters.

Correct.

The Japanese had similar problems, good planes but poor pilots and no fuel to train them up to an acceptable skill level.

Actually, most of their planes were outdated in 1944, they lacked armour protection and firepower, losses couldn't be replaced sufficiently.

The drivel that you find on the Internet never ceases to amaze, nor that some people might actually believe it.

Lol, Well, I don't follow Warfare 1's approach to pick up each and every myth, mostly from dubious internet sources or magazines.
But one or another weapon actually had potential, and even some of them were either superior and/or way ahead of its time.

quote:

The drivel that you find on the Internet never ceases to amaze, nor that some people might actually believe it.

Lol, Well, I don't follow Warfare 1's approach to pick up each and every myth, mostly from dubious internet sources or magazines.
But one or another weapon actually had potential, and even some of them were either superior and/or way ahead of its time.

Just to put the record straight:

I am not a Nazi fan-boy, nor a defender of Nazi technology, war aims or policies; that they were defeated is a blessing.

I posted that initial website in my first post of this thread simply because it contained most of the issues, topics, research and weapons that were attributed to the Nazi war effort.

I simply wanted to use it as starting point; not because I believed everything it contains.

Much of what Nazi research produced is rather puzzling: the Maus for example.

Yet, within the wider realm of fantasy research there existed very real weapons that potentially could have caused significant threats to the Allies (the Me 262).

I also wanted to show just how advanced Nazi/German research was (the Sanger; the Me P.1101, etc...) even though these weapons never reached any useful stage.

And I wanted to draw out a meaningful discussion on this topic. When you view my postings in this thread they are meaningful and balanced (the He 178, Me 262, etc). I even presented both views for whether the Amerika Bomber had even flown to New York. I, too, had heard about this supposed flight long before it was posted on the internet.

I am grateful that most discussion on this topic has been insightful and useful and has remained very civil. Thanks.

There was another rather advanced concept-heat seeking AA missals. According to A Speer, the developement of this surface to air missal was nearing completion in '42 (IIRC). It was postponed in favor of the V2 project. Speer stated that he believed it could have been deployed by the spring of '44 by the thousands. As it was much smaller, it should have been very much easier to mass produce rather than the large rockets. The program was kept alive though, and was planned for deployment in '46.

No doubt the guidance system would have been primitive, but just how much so? If it had worked at all it would have been much more deadly that standard AA.

Perhaps one of you German fellows have come across some in depth info regarding "Waterfall".

Great thread BTW-I hope it keeps on growing.