While a lot of these weapons never saw the light of day, and while many more were pure fantasy, one still has to wonder at the sheer inventiveness of the German scientists.
Even more, one has to wonder what might have happened had the Nazis leadership developed a more cohesive approach to weapons' research. We know that the Germans had invented the first jet aircraft in 1939, but they did not see any practical purpose for it! The Me-262 was a superb jet fighter, but Hitler wanted it to be used as a bomber! Almost 1200 Me-262s sat on runways for lack of fuel in 1945.
What would have happened had Germany invented these weapons sooner? Or, if the war had dragged on longer?
DISCLAIMER:
PLEASE NOTE: the Greyfalcon website is included here simply because it contains most of the issues, topics, research and weapons that were attributed to the Nazi war effort.
I am using the above website as a starting point only. I am not using it because I believe everything it contains. So please keep that in mind.
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).
In this thread I also want 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.
Quotes:
We have invisible aircraft, submarines, colossal tanks and cannon, unbelievably powerful rockets, and a bomb with a working that will astonish the whole world. The enemy knows this, and besieges and attempts to destroy us. But we will answer this destruction with a storm and that without unleashing a bacteriological war, for which we are also prepared.... All my words are the purest truth. That you will see.
We still have things that need to be finished, and when they are finished, they will turn the tide.
~Adolf Hitler, March 13, 1945, addressing officers of the German Ninth Army
The wonder weapons are the hope. It is laughable and senseless for us to threaten at this moment, without a basis in reality for these threats.
The well-known mass destruction bombs are nearly ready. In only a few days, with the utmost meticulous intelligence, Hitler will probably execute this fearful blow, because he will have full confidence.... It appear, that there are three bombs - and each has an astonishing operation. The construction of each unit is fearfully complex and of a lengthy time of completion.
~Benito Mussolini, "Political Testament,” April 22, 1945, cited in Edgar Meyer and Thomas Mehner, Hitler und die "Bombe: Welchen Stand erreichte die deutsche Atomforschung und Geheimwaffenentwicklung wirklich? (Rottenburg: Kopp Verlag, 2002)
As World War II drew to a close, Nazi scientists were still working on weapons they hoped would halt the Allies advance. One such project was the Horten 229, a bat-wing shaped fighter plane, years ahead of its time able to avoid radar and inflict devastating losses on the Allied air forces. Decades on from its original test flight, an elite group of aerospace engineers explores the capabilities of the shadowy project by recreating the plane. Can the team uncover the secrets of the Nazi stealth fighter?
All extremely theoretical. A lot of good a few wonder weapons would have been against 1000's of P-51's, P-47's, Spitfires, LA-5s, MiGs & Sturmoviks. This doesn't even take into account the tens of thousands of tanks and millions of men arrayed against them.
Never Underestimate the Power of a Small Tactical Nuclear Weapon...
The idea of flying planes into skyscrapers did not originate with Al-Quaeda:
"Toward the end of World War II, with most of the German military establishment convinced that the war was already lost, an increasingly desperate Adolf Hitler ordered his engineers to begin an intense campaign to develop new types of unconventional weapons— Wunderwaffen , or "miracle weapons," as they came to be called. The program also included plans, now largely forgotten, for what was called "Projekt 'A'" a huge plane intended to fly repeat missions over the Atlantic, where it would release a smaller bomber that would continue on to carry out an attack against a target along the eastern coast of the United States. Hitler and his close associates referred to the plane as the "Amerikabomber."
"A technical drawing of the Amerikabomber, was prepared in the spring of 1944 by Fritz Nallinger, an aeronautics engineer working for Daimler-Benz, appears above. Drawings of the plane appeared in Die deutschen Flugzeuge 1933-1945, an obscure single-volume encyclopedia, long out of print, devoted to airplanes of the Nazi period. Recently brought back to light by Ulrich Albrecht, a professor of political science at the Free University in Berlin, the drawings show prototypes for a large, multi-engine mother aircraft with a smaller plane attached to its underbelly. The plans for this smaller plane, which was designed to fly almost at the speed of sound, clearly lack landing gear and weapons systems. Accompanying technical descriptions note that the plane was not expected to be "recovered"—strongly suggesting that it was intended to be used as a bomb.
[/b]"The Nazis' interest in suicide bombing was no secret.[/b] In 1943 Heinrich Himmler, the leader of Hitler's SS, had enthusiastically endorsed a plan to sink Allied ships with suicide air attacks. Hitler opposed the idea at the time, but in 1944, with the war going badly, he agreed to the formation of special squadrons of suicide bombers. A hundred and four volunteers were selected as pilots of one squadron; each signed a statement saying, "I understand that I will die at the end of my mission." Wearing all their military decorations, and listening to music and women's voices on their headphones, sixteen of these pilots flew suicide missions on April 16 and 17, 1945, in a desperate effort to defend Berlin from the advancing Red Army.
"Hitler's desire to attack the United States was also no secret. "I have never seen him so infuriated as towards the end of the war," Albert Speer, Hitler's architect and the Nazi minister responsible for arms production, recalled in his diary in 1947: "It was almost as if he was in a delirium when he described to us how New York would go up in flames. He imagined how the skyscrapers would turn into huge burning torches. How they would crumble while the reflection of the flames would light the skyline against the dark sky."
"For Hitler America was Manhattan. Apart from its people and the cosmopolitan character of the city above all it had enormous towers, Wolkenkratzer (sky-scrapers), the symbols of the financial world, like the Empire State Building. Until his last days, he dreamed about the deadly long range bomber attack on Manhattan."
"During the close of WWII, General Patton's army came upon a very unusual find at a captured German facility in France (near the V1 and V2 launch sites).
"This finding was described in Patton's biography, which included specific data and photos, and also in an official document known as the "Patton memo". In fact, General Patton specifically warned the U.S. military of unbelievable facilities being found.
"General Patton described coming upon a huge runway that was 200 feet wide, 11,300 feet long, and was made of concrete which was 14 feet thick. The memo stated that the runway was built by the Germans using thousands of slave laborers, and took several years to complete. It was his written opinion that the construction materials and labor force "surpassed that of the great pyramids" (his words). The runway incorporated a unique feature at the far end. An upward turned "ski slope" was built into the runway to allow larger aircraft with heavy cargo loads to take off more easily. This "ski slope" feature was later incorporated into the designs of British and Russian aircraft carriers.
"The U.S. constructed such a runway in 1972 for our incoming and outgoing SECRET horizontal take off and landing spacecraft at Hunter Army Airfield (Savannah GA.), which was never officially closed."
The Greyfalcon site collects tons of theories, half-arsed assembled facts, hearsay, sprinkled with quotes from newspaper articles which have to act as "sources".
While German scientists and developers had quite some interesting - albeit deathly - ideas, the general lack of resources, or - quite surprising for some secret weapon fanboys - scientists who were simply barking up the wrong tree, used to prevent major breakthroughs in quite some fields.
Atomic bomb: After the war, Heisenberg & Co and other scientists were imprisoned in a mansion (in the UK) for a while (Farm Hall), in what I'd call a luxury environment, being told by the Brits that they'd be either interrogated or shipped to another location some time. The mansion was packed with wires (bugging devices), and all conversations that unfolded during that time were recorded. The Germans didn't suspect to be recorded, so they had some heated and detailed discussions about the way/procedures to get to a working atomic bomb.
The Brits gathered that the Germans were nowhere near finishing their first bomb, nor anywhere near enriching uranium.
One of the reasons here was the fact that the Allied Bomber command (USAF in this case, IIRC) ordered to bomb the heavy water (deuterium oxide) production in Norway and Germany, besides other facilities that could serve to deliver material needed for the German experimental plant.
I'm not a physicist, but from what I understand, you need heavy water to run an experimental reactor, which, in turn, would be the first step on the way to understand the process and get enough plutonium for a bomb. The Germans had some Uranium in East Germany (not sure whether that had been mined before the end of the war), but, quite more realistic, they could have used the uranium they had collected during their Blitz through European countries, plus they had access to uranium in France.
Today's historians and scientists still doubt that the uranium at hand would have been sufficient for the entire process, let alone the number of centrifuges they would have needed to enrich enough material.
Whatsoever, if you think about how BIG the LOS ALAMOS/Manhattan project was, which involved thousands of scientists, workers etc, and that it took more than a year (IIRC) to enrich enough uranium for 2 bombs (not including the test bomb), then you know that the German effort was way below the American effort:
It was mainly still a theoretical excursion/discussion, with a tiny experimental plant in South Germany, that had been moved to that location (due to the continuing bombing raids over the Reich) some months before the scientists were captured by Allied investigators.
In order to deliver results, they had to solve the theoretical problems first, before even thinking about moving this to a fully fledged production level with mass enrichement of uranium and a proper mechanical/technical solution for the question of how such a bomb could be ingnited.
The Brits figured the Germans still had to go a long road, probably 2-3 years (or even more) just to solve the theoretical approach, as they in fact had moved to a blind alley - with their computations.
The Website mixes facts and fiction on quite a few other topics:
Submarines:
Not a single German submarine's hull was coated with synthetic rubber (Buna), and afaik it was never planned to do that, since Buna would not absorb sonar signals. Buna wasn't a secret anti-radar paste, it was just rubber that had been put on the "schnorchel" (snorkel) devices, in order to reduce the radar signature. The paste did not make the snorkel invisible to radar, but it made it somewhat harder to detect it. But even the use of Buna had been limited, pretty much like the Zimmerit paste (an anti-magnetic coating supposed to shield armour plates from magnetic mines or magnetic hollow-charges), due to lack of resources. Initially, it was planned to coat the hulls of XXI submarines with Zimmerit, as protection against sea-mines with magnetic detonators.
Torpedos:
Yes the Germans were working on wire-guided torpedos, but the only working homing-torpedo was the famous acoustic torpedo, which was hard to use, as it had a tendency to turn and "lock on" the German submarines while they were diving. A common procedure was to fire the torpedo then dive to a depth of 50 meters (minimum), in order not to get hit by their own torps. This, of course, made multiple attacks - from different angles - impossible. Later on, the mechanism that would arm the torpedo had been upgraded, which allowed for an extended "unarmed" run-time. I doubt that there were projects that envisaged Torpedos using magnetic-electric homing devices, because the technical requirements for such devices did not exist:
The first working transistor was developed in late 1945 by 2 Germans (Mataré and Welker), the first bipolar transistor in December 1947, by Bell Labs ... it seems that in a french company, who then employed those 2 German developers in 1947, Mataré and Welker, the same idea came up in mid-1947, but they did not apply for a patent before August 1948.
Conclusion: Such homing-devices could not be produced.
Flying saucers:
Well, there is a picture of the wooden Saucer and there are some sources who claim the prototype (made of wood) flew once. I could imagine that this is true, as its creator had some interesting ideas (and skills). The wooden version had propeller engines, while the final version was supposed to receive jet-engines. But the designer of the saucer faced various problems, even more serious ones than with the flying wing - the HO IX A (later designated Go 229) - , problems which had not been solved before the fully computerized american B-2 Stealth Bomber came up, a "machine" that can't be controlled without the help of a computer, as its flight characteristics rather resemble the specs of a brick than a plane, or should I say the specs of a boomerang? [:D]
I could imagine that the USAF experimented with the blueprints of the saucer (and maybe the saucer itself) on some airfield in the US (Area 51? *grin*), but if US pilots ever flew the original saucer or a prototype copy of it, I imagine them to run into the very same problems regarding aerodynamics and flight control, and these simply couldn't be solved before computers were powerful and small enough to make it into such planes.
It was different with the German flying wing, the characteristics allowed for careful flight manoeuvres at least, without sophisticated computers. But even the 1950s/1960s flying wings created in the US were all scrapped, because the problems could not be solved with only a pure mechanical solution.
I could go on and on about so-called Secret Weapons that could have turned the tide, but I gotta hit the hay now. These types of webpages are nowhere near being proper sources.
Oh, btw, even the Germans had to put their pants on one leg at a time.
My 2 cents.
"Aw Nuts" General Anthony McAuliffe
December 22nd, 1944
Bastogne
---
"I've always felt that the AA (Alied Assault engine) had the potential to be [....] big." Tim Stone
8th of August, 2006
Utter, tendentious shit : all you need to read after wondering at the strange tone used to describe the Third Reich and its prominent figures (borders on finding excuses for what they did and how they came to power "democratically"...) is to see the blurb about freedom of speech at the bottom of the front page : a true historian wouldn't be worried, as he knows he would be documenting history.
This guy is worried about being attacked for it.
Draw your own conclusions.
Anechoic coating for subs came of age in the late 50s, early 60s, iirc.
Yadda yadda 3rd Reich fanboi-ism. Not that Nazi superweapons and zombie ubersoldaten of doom, death, destruction, pointed sticks and otherwise unmigitated violent demise can't be cool, but they should be kept strictly in the domain of the fantastical, where they belong.
There are much better hypothetical scenarios for actual historical discussion.
no truth - no justice
all false belief
blinded by morality
there shall be ... no peace
Yadda yadda 3rd Reich fanboi-ism. Not that Nazi superweapons and zombie ubersoldaten of doom, death, destruction, pointed sticks and otherwise unmigitated violent demise can't be cool, but they should be kept strictly in the domain of the fantastical, where they belong.
There are much better hypothetical scenarios for actual historical discussion.
Were these weapons over the top silly in many cases? Yes. A sign of 3rd Reich fanoi-ism? No...and that sort of ridiculous hyperbole as just as silly as many of these weapon concepts.
Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily.
Hitler's secret weapon that could have made Nazi bomber planes invisible to Allied forces has been unveiled for the first time.
The stealth fighter-bomber, named the Horten 229, closely resembles the US Air Force's current B2 bomber and was estimated to be about 20 years ahead of Germany's rivals in terms of stealth technology.
But the Nazis didn't have time to put the "flying wing" into mass production before their surrender in 1945.
American forces held onto the aircraft's prototypes and equipment — and the makers of the B2 Northrop Grumman Corp have now replicated the design for a documentary.
"This was the most advanced technology that the Germans had at the end of the war, and Northrop solved the question of how stealthy it was and its performance against Allied radar at the time," Fox News reported documentary maker Mike Jorgenson as saying.
"It's significantly better than anything flying operationally probably until the 1960s."
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.
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.
Wow! like a 109 could you mean?
Chain Home Low system, or AMES Type 2 which could detect aircraft flying at minimum altitude level of 500 ft.
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.
Wow! like a 109 could you mean? Chain Home Low system, or AMES Type 2 which could detect aircraft flying at minimum altitude level of 500 ft.
The Horten could fly quite low and its stealth design gave it a very low signature on radar.
I highly recommend going to the National Geographic site where it details the tests that were done on a replica that was built by engineers over a three month period based on actual blueprints.
I saw the show on History Television last week. Fascinating. There is actual German footage of the Horten flying. I taped the show. I'm not sure when it will be available on dvd.
My favourite was the coal powered design (I think) by Arado. A heated steel basket would hold coal, the gas would feul the jet. According to the account I read "Talons of the Reich" the design would have been close to supersonic.
My favourite was the coal powered design (I think) by Arado. A heated steel basket would hold coal, the gas would feul the jet. According to the account I read "Talons of the Reich" the design would have been close to supersonic.
Thanks for that reminder.
Yes, not only was the Me-262 the world's first jet fighter, but the Arado Ar 234 was the world's first operational jet powered bomber, built by the German Arado company in the closing stages of World War II. It first flew in June 15, 1943, and in its few uses as a bomber it proved to be nearly impossible to intercept. It was used to attack the bridge at Remagen after it was captured by the Allies, and it was the last Luftwaffe plane to fly over England, in April 1945.
Attachments
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Drinking a cool brew; thinking about playing my next wargame....
@Arctic Blast: You're right, I should've left the fanboi comment out, as that refers not to the weapon concepts themselves, but to their presentation, and their being taken seriously by people looking desperately to prove German superiority for some reason or other. Like "sure, they lost the war, sure the 3rd Reich was evil, but hey, look at you losers -they were still technologically ahead of you, and all your new inventions are really just stuff they already came up with long ago..."
That tendentiousness and not so hidden "hidden agenda" behind a lot of this stuff just gets to me, and gets the better of me sometimes, too. :/
You won't get any apologies for me trying to get a chuckle out of going one-up on the over-the-top silliness, though.
no truth - no justice
all false belief
blinded by morality
there shall be ... no peace
Just like the what-ifs of history (such as the Miracle at Dunkirk - why Hitler allowed the Allies to escape from the beaches when he had them), being made aware of these German advances also allows us an opportunity to see a part of history that is rarely mentioned.
It is a warning.
Historical fact: Germany did invent the first jet in 1939. It flew. Had the Germans perfected it better in these early stages, one has to wonder about the outcome of the Battle of Britain.
Stop and think about it for a moment.
We all know about Hitler's interference with strategy during the war: his lack of resources for Rommel; diverting formations from Moscow in 1941; etc. Well, Hitler also interfered in this technological research. Thank goodness.
There is a reason why, after seeing what the Germans had developed, what they were developing, and what they had in their blueprints, that both the Americans and the Russians were grabbing as many German scientists as they could get their hands on.
Think about it.....
Drinking a cool brew; thinking about playing my next wargame....
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 truth - no justice
all false belief
blinded by morality
there shall be ... no peace
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. 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. Jet technology moved about as fast as it could move 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.
Also jets would likely have exacerbated shortages in the Luftwaffe pilot training program that was already in deep trouble by mid '43.
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. Think about that...
$0.02 - use or delete as desired.
