What if Germany had it's advanced technology earlier on?

Forgot to add something as per America's armed forces in 1940. In addition to the standing "regular" army and navy were the reserve units of same. These were the 18 National Guard Divisions (plus one more assembled from smaller National Guard units), as well as 29 National Guard Army Air Forces squadrons which started serving in 1940, and did so until the end of WW2. I am unsure of the Naval reserve numbers, but ran across those and had to add them to the argument/discussion.

 

You are right, typo. hehe, here I have gone and changed history.

 

For the better, i reckon. I know we'd be speaking German now, but at least we wouldn't have these endless what-ifs. Most importantly, Heidi wouldn't be worrying about proper grammar when posting in this forum, should it still exist.

 

A hypothentical war between Germanic-Europa and North America would likely be off into the fifties as both sides would have developed huge navies. I imagine that Germany could make a large Navy if they had Europe under their influence/Control as they would have had access to the excellent ports of Amsterdam, Brest, Hamburg, Kiel and Koenigsberg.

The nuclear bomb discussion is on the idea that the Germans could have had working reactors by 1948 in the latest which would have given them much time to develop weapons using it.

Now if we were looking at bombing raids I could see the Germans having an easier time bombing cities such as Boston, Newark, New York and Washington( If they could squeeze a task force in) as they were directly across the Ocean and and they werent miles inland.

America would have a more difficult time with this as they would have to face fighter wings from occupied Britain, France, and Benelux to reach Germany which could have led to many problems.

 

That's assuming the US would let Hiterlite Germany survive into the 1950's, which is neither a logical nor reasonable assumption. By 1940, the US had determined that Nazism was a distinct and deadly threat to the continued existence of Western-style democracy, and that it had to be wiped out as soon as possible. It's wrong to assume that the US would stay out of the war, or that it would let Germany subjugate Russia, or the rest of Europe. In fact, the Atlantic Charter, which was a statement of US war aims, issued in August, 1941, specifically mentions the "destruction of the Nazi Tyranny" four months before the US became a belligerent.

In the summer of 1940, the US began building the Two-Ocean Navy with the intention of fighting the war against the Axis on two fronts, and alone, if necessary. At the same time, the US Army and Air Force also began rearmament programs that dwarfed anything Germany could accomplish in any reasonable amount of time. The US Navy, Army and Air Force were to b overwhelmingly powerful within three years; Germany could not even come close to matching this feat of production in the same time frame. The US would not have let Germany build up any kind of offensive navy, nor would it stand idly by while Germany occupied the maritime countries of Europe.

As for the atomic bomb, the US began a race in 1941, to beat Germany to an operational nuclear weapon; A nuclear reactor in Germany by 1948 is going to be four years too late. Germany, if it persists in aggressive warfare, would be reduced to radioactive rubble by the end of 1945.

 

Are you so sure about that?

It would probably turn into, What If, the British had developed Radar before the Battle of Britain. Or what if Operation Sealion had failed.

 

I think the point's been loosely made that one thing to keep in mind about realistic speculative fiction is the foundations for every event.
Since advanced technology is based on lesser technology, and all beligerent nations maintained effective intelligence networks, one must assume if you march forwards German jet development, you're going to spur British, American and Soviet jet development in doing so. The conditions which must exist to make advanced technologies available are necessarily universal.

Consider for example the tremendous parity between conventional aero engines among all the beligerant nations (Daimler, Merlin, Klimov, Allison). One nation uses self sealing tanks, everybody does. Cannon and heavy machine guns are better than banks of light machine guns and everybody discovers this. Mass production techniques using new industrial machinery is better than the interwar hand finish of airframes and so everybody uses it.

Much of the technology of WW2 was discovered by trial and error going through the war. German Panthers copied the sloped plating of the T-34. German tactical doctrine was quite superior however actual assumptions of ideal Panzer formation was flawed (though less flawed than the "infantry support" and "cruiser" tank doctrine).

Everybody was trying out new things and making mistakes all over the place, I don't think any single nation in the world could make any genuine technological leaps far ahead of any other.
My opinion is that most of the "technological" superiority attributed the Wehrmacht was in fact tactical superiority. It was bludgeoned to death by more conservative but more effective (for industrial reasons) strategic doctrine, but because an Allied superiority in political doctrine and thus military doctrine was being assumed, German successes would be typically attributed to technologies rather than an effective use of whatever was available.
In my opinion the Wehrmacht was an amazing improvisationalist, but due to the political situation lacked constitution.

It is worth considering that the bulk of all the best German victories were fought using inferior technology as a whole, that is, 1939-43. Even when facing the BEF in France it was 1918 model horse drawn field guns up against brand new 25-pdrs, PzII and Pz35 models little better than an armoured car, lent striking power by stukas. In the East it is lightened 37mm and 50mm guns on slab sided PzIII against the 76mm and sloped armour T-34 with its christie suspension.

I don't think you'd really change much at all by changing available technology, because a rough parity with Allied forces must still be accorded. All it would mean is the end of the war might look more like 1958 than 1945, but the same players doing the same things with it.

 

Great post Vanir. It;s going to be hard to answer you;re post.

When it came to jet power engines,did not the Allies recieve the jet design after when germany flew v rockets over to briton and also after when germany lost the war,America and Russia took german designers and sceintest???
Meaning that there was no possible way that the Allies would have jets and rockets deployed during ww2!

I hope you can understand what i was stating.
Best wishes.

 

I can answer this with what I put on page 1 of this thread.

 

But with the examples you are showing it is not accurately. During the fall of France, the Allies were not ready for the Germans and the new tactics, but the Allies reacted and adjusted there tactics. Technology had little to do with the victories, especially since as you said the Germans were using inferior weapons, but so were the Allied units, no real effective AT guns, lack of effective tank technology and so on and on plus the German Stuka was a very vulnerable aircraft to enemy Fighters.

The Pz III's had a hell of a time piercing the T-34s armour, I have seen one statment that says that the 88mm was the cause of 1/4 of all the Russian tanks destoryed(this includes tank mounted and field pieces of the 88), so it was technology that caused those losses. The T-34 in virtually every regard was ahead of all other tank designs, and that tank helped stop the Germans Campagin.

 

I doubt anyone would have the ballz to say something like that in the Third Reich.

 

MkB42 (to all intents the same weapon/concept as was named Stg.44 later) Entered official service in March/April '43, and had seen limited troop-trials during 42.
Again, G43 was essentially the G41 as introduced in '41 and modelled off Russian weapons. Both problematic devices, and far from the panacea sometimes claimed.

So that puts at least part of the hypothesis back a year or two, and still the case for a technological solution to world domination isn't improved any.
As has been said by Vanir, a broad 'technological parity' would always exist in most cases. It's only very recently that technology itself has begun to have a real effect on tactical situations, and even then forces opposing hugely advanced battlefield systems begin to evolve and find different ways of sustaining the fighting.

Infrastructure often proves so much more important than the sharper & shinier end of war. Even if Germany had a higher level of technological gear earlier, she'd likely still have been carrying them by horse - immense extra effort in creating these flashy designs would surely mean an even more parlous support/supply situation.

As for true technological leaps in weaponry (as Adolf wasted so much time pursuing), with fast jets still not somehow bulletproof I'd think the main truly meaningful one of the period is indeed the Atomic bomb; America would get there first, game over.

How many other 'What If's' along these large-scale lines are derailed by consideration of the A-Bomb? Seems to be nearly all of 'em.
Maybe it should be in the forum heading...

"What If - Please bear in mind the Manhattan Project before entering this forum"

~A

 

No, Frank Whittle patented his centrifugal turbo jet engine before von Ohain did his for Germany. Mr. Whittle had to develop his without backing from either a large corporation (Heinkel backed von Ohain), or government funding. That may be why even though he started earlier, he finished later. It wasn't until that Italian jet flew and was announced that the British decided they had better "get in the game" and put funding into Whittle's project. the Heinkel jet flight was a year before the Italian jet flight, but kept so secret even the Italians didin't know of it. When Whittle's patent was published, von Ohain was still a college student, and it is not out of the realm of possibility that he read all of Whittle's papers and created his own engine design based on Whittle's work. Who learned from whom?

The V weapons were really just updated "ram jets" which had been first developed in France when the Lorin ramjet was invented in 1908 by the Frenchman René Lorin, this was the design which Paul Schmitdt modified in the war years to produce the pulse jet, it first flew at the end of 1942. The German improvement was the self regulating intake vanes which made it a "pulse jet", instead of a pure "ram jet". That is where the signature "putt-putt-putt" sound came from. The V-1 also borrowed and improved on the Kettering self guilding auto-pilot (American) which had been around since WW1, and used on small unmanned gas powered prop. biplanes. That was called the "Kettering Bug". Who leared from whom?

The German V-2 liquid fueled rocket used the American Robert Goddard's patents, including his gyroscopic guildance system, his high speed fuel pump designs, his gimbaled engine exhasts, his steering vanes, and his fuel mixture. Which he had patented in the twenties and thirties. Who learned from whom?

Also the first axial flow jets were designed and built in Britain, not Germany. Germany put axial flow jets into combat usage (Jumo 004), but they were poorly constructed due to alloy metal shortages, and had running life-spans measured in tens of hours. Centrifugal engines (Whittle) had life-spans measured in hundreds of hours. Von Ohain's first jet was a centrifugal type, and followed Whittles engine (centrifugal) by many years although the two men are recognized as "co-inventers" of the turbo jet engine. Von Ohain's engine wasn't used in the 262, that was a Wagner design, build by Jumo. Again, who leared from whom?

Robert Goddard's solid fuel rocket was the first improvement on solid rocket fuel since black powder, and he made it in WW1. It was never used in that war, but was the basis of the fuel for the American "Bazooka" anti-tank rocket. Both the Germans and the Soviets used the same fuel formula for their "Nebelwerffer", and "Katyuska" systems. Who learned from whom?

No way the allies would have jets and rocket? Oh please!

 

What? The British invented the jets! I am shocked,why not the British deploye the jets before germany did???
does not make sence!
Why does history protray the germans that was the first ones to ever have jets???
I don;t understand why on earth Briton would let this kind of technolghy fall in to germany hands!

I have to think twice about Briton,I am thinking that briton had all the right answers now in technolghy.

Kind wishes.

 

You might enjoy this time line:

Eventes

The British were first in a number of areas in jet technology, but in their cash strapped economy of the thirties they didn't invest in "new" stuff. Also it did "fall" into German hands, Whittle's work was published openly in scientific papers, and widely read all over the world. The Whittle patent on turbo jets had expired in 1935, and he didn't have the money, nor would the British government waive the fee to keep it valid. And believe it or not the British Gloster Meteor was deployed at squadron strenght in Britain a month or so before the first Me-262s were deployed. The Germans were first to deploy the jet in combat, not to have the first operational combat jet.

Many do not realize that the Gloster Meteor F.1 actually entered squadron service before the Me 262A. Although some Me 262As served with EK 262, an operational test squadron, from the early summer of 1944, the Me 262A didn't reach operational service until September 1944. The Meteor F.1, on the other hand, was operational with 616 Squadron, RAF, from July 1944 onwards. The Meteor saw considerable combat against V-1s, and as ground-attack aircraft.

It would also appear that the Meteor had the first jet kill, but only if you count an unmanned V-1 flying bomb as a kill. The Meteor's first V-1 kill came on August 4, 1944, by P/O "Dixie" Dean. That is however highly unlikely to be recognized as a "kill" by anyone really.

The earlier 262 claims were never confirmed since Leutnant Alfred Schreiber had claimed a Mosquito on July 26, but RAF records show that the aircraft, though damaged by the jet attack, managed to land safely at an Allied airfield in Italy. The first confirmed Me 262 kill came four days after the "Dixie" Dean shoot down of the V-1; on August 8, when Leutnant Joachim Weber shot down a Mosquito of No. 540 Squadron. So really Weber should get the credit for the first "kill".

The Meteor F.3 with RR Derwent engines (entered service in December 1944), was far better than the original Meteor F.1, and had a maximum speed of 493 mph, slightly slower than the Me 262A, but close. The Meteor handled better, and had more reliable engines, but the Me 262A still had superior performance.

 

It apparently was circular. The US built over 1,000 copies of the "V-1" before the war ended although they didn't use any of them. See: Republic-Ford JB-2 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Note that it took ~3 weeks for US engineers to get a working copy of the engine and ~6 months to put the weapon into production.

 

Jack Northrop also got into the "unmanned" bomb stuff, late in the war, and only produced a couple of prototypes since the war was winding down. His flying wings were "ground breaking" in many areas, and actually produced in flying versions of his giant bomber, and not simply "drawing board" work like the Horten brothers.

He never produced a flying wing fighter, but his XP-79 jet powered craft (only in prototype) could possibly given the Luftwaffe or the Imperial Japanese a nasty surprise if the war had continued, and no atomics. As would the "flying flapjack" the Navy abandoned just as jet power came into being. The Vought version was beutiful. I'll find a link to a photo of it if anybody wants.

For Nortrop's stuff goto:

Northrop

and scroll down the entire set on the left, he had some remarkable designs.

 

I wonder how this experimental craft would have faired with a "turbo prop" or jet power instead of standard piston power. It was only built in prototype and canceled as jets became more reliable.

Vought XF5U-1

Type: Fighter
Crew: 1 Pilot
Armament: six .50 cal machine guns
or four 20mm cannon
or two 1000-lb. bombs

Specifications:
Length: 28' 7.5"
Height: 14' 9"
Width: 32' 6"
Empty Weight: n/a
Gross Weight: 14,550 lbs
Max Weight: n/a

Propulsion:
No. of Engines: 2
Powerplant: Pratt & Whitney R-2000-7
Horsepower 1600 hp each
Prop diameter: 16'

Performance:
Range: 910 miles
Max Speed: 504 mph at 20,000 ft.
Climb: 3000 ft/min at sea level
Ceiling: n/a

 

I laugh at how you al say that the allies rockets were better. During wartime they were not better. After the war when the allies got ahold of the axis' rockets in masse and they tinkered with them they got better. Never during the war did the allies get in a dog fight or anyfight using a rocket plane. The Nazi's did use a plane to get within 30 miles of the new york coastline so it was realistic to say they could reach there with a little more adaptations.
I say the nazi's would never have had the tech in 1939 but i would say in 1943 if they had sped up some research they could have really hurt the Soviets and possibly held them in a stalemate and most likely assuming they could produce alot of the 262's have started a second battle of britain. What many people don't know is the allies first Nuclear submarine was actually the German's first they just refitted and named it. If they could have sped that research up and produced in masse they could have hurt the America's eastern seaboard.
Had the Nazi's produced the aircraft carrier and outfitted it in 1943 and had they saved the bismarck for latter in the war and a few more ships they could have in my opinion finished off britain. With V2 and V1 missiles constantly bombarding Britain and 262's cutting the RAF up and also hurting the USAF , meanwhile wrecking havok on the Allied supply lines and on the navy and troop shipments i believe they may have been able to subdue the allies and comintern possibly getting a treaty with the allies allowing them to relocate their resources to the eastern front. After russia entered they would have to fight to the death considering the russians wanted blood. If they could have bombed the Urals and bomb the food supplies i believe we would have a second ww1 and the russians would revolt part trying to sympathasize with the Nazi's hoping to end the starvation and suffering while the other part would remain loyal and try to fend off the Nazi Hordes.
Japan would have to be expelled from the axis and Rommel would have to take control of the Afrika corps one last time with the proper supplies and soldiers. And hitler would have to stay out of the Operations.. All of this combined would be too much to ask for Hitler would always ruin plans just because he was so egotisitcal and always right.... And the only real hope the nazi's had for an atom bomb really was no hope they may have had more heavy water then anyone else in the world and they may have had some of the most genius minds in nuclear science in the world but they were victims of sabatoge and a constant allied air raid prescense. If the Jet planes had stopped the air raids possibly they could have devolped an atom bomb. Not a HIROSHIMA but a radio active scud missile around the time that manhatten was finished i believe if the raids had stopped maybe in mid-to late 1946 they would have been close to getting the missile based on what i have read.
And for those that believe the allies had all of the technology that the Nazi's had take a look at the Horten Ho IX it looks familiar doesn't it. Its because the allies based one of their rstealth bombers off of after the war..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YB-49
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-2_Spirit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YB-49

 

If you read the source you posted you would realize the first test didnt come until late very late 1944. Meaning they couldnt have been used in war. That test was reached by the nazis in 1940 and they didnt become a big use until much later. Granted the USA had a bigger industry they didnt have better tests