[cowofzot]

Enigma machine never captured & studied by Polish & then sent to England.

Panther tank begun in 37. French & Russians were well ahead of Germany in medium tank design circa 1940-41. As it was the Panther was still being de-bugged in 44.

Schnorkel copied from Italian designs in 1925 & perfected by 39.


Droptanks for 109's in battle of Britain & Ural bomber are often mentioned & do fall into the technically feasible category. The 262 arrives late even in rush scenarios where Hitler doesn't intervene. Loads of Stugs or Panthers minus technical bugs would've been an interesting "evener" against the loads of T-34's.

[Thunderhawk]

This is a "what-if" game. Such games should be based on some semblance of reality.


If I remember right, Enigma machines were commonly used commercially before the war, and it was this usage that led the Poles (and perhaps others) to devote time and effort into decoding them. Furthermore, the Poles did not capture an Enigma machine, they bought the blue prints for one of the German military variants from a German who was trying to sell the plans for money - the French and British having passed on the offer. With that variant they had the base idea of how it worked and could extrapolate alternatives, but the knowledge gained from that machine became less useful as newer enigma machines were developed and introduced. The British (or maybe Americans) also captured an Enigma machine and a book listing the encoding sequences from a uboat later in the war, a uboat that was supposed to have been scuttled but it wasn't, and the Brits took the risk to board it. This capture gave the allies a huge advantage against the uboats.

The captured Naval code books had huge consequences from a small series of actions that could conceivably have happened very differently (bombs went off on-time/early, procedure to destroy the books followed, the British hesitant to board an apparently to-be-scuttled ship, etc..). The Polish knowledge was a product of a logical policy over years, for it not to have happened would be itself a large and illogical change in history.

Panther tank begun in 37. French & Russians were well ahead of Germany in medium tank design circa 1940-41. As it was the Panther was still being de-bugged in 44.

Why would the Germans begin R&D for this kind of design so early when they were quite happy with the Panzer IIIs (let alone the 4s) at the time and saw no need in anything heavier? Many Panzer 4s were initially setup as anti infantry to support the Panzer III's which were the main line tanks against Polish and French armour.



I will add:
Ship mounted rotating radar. I don't believe it would have tipped the balance, but it seems like a change that is small, plausible and would have had real benefits (including the possible saving of the Bismarck) for the German surface fleet.

Mers el Kebir. There was some sort of snafu with giving the ultimatum, had that not happened the British may not have defaulted to destroying the French fleet there, and thus not gained a reputation for determination. Though, considering the pro-war forces in the USA, any sign of British resolve might have been hyped - if not Mers el Kebir then it would be another incident.


..I don't remember (and perhaps never knew) why the Germans didn't embrace artillery. I have heard the arguments about the airforce largely filling in that role, but I get the feeling there is more to it. If the reason was small and alternatives plausible, then I suspect more artillery would have helped.

[cowofzot]

Thanks for enigma data. The point was that the Poles did great work before the war that was passed on to the British & only recently did the British acknowledge this enormous contribution.

Why would the Germans be interested in heavier tanks.. For the same reason that the French & Russians were I would reckon. Bigger tanks are often difficult for small tanks to deal with. After the French Char tanks were encountered in 1940, the Germans got busy with bigger tank designs. & they were interested in heavy tank design though going back to 37 truth be told.


Going back further, German heavy tank development can be traced back to 1937 with the German Armaments Ministry issuing a specification for a new heavy tank to Daimler-Benz, Henschel, MAN and Porsche. http://www.worldwar2aces.com/tiger-tank/







There have been numerous articles and books written about the Enigma code breach. However, the role that the Polish cryptologist's school had played in it has always been omitted. An example of this was seen in 1974, when F. W. Winterbotham published a book titled "The Ultra Secret", where he claimed that the British were the first to break this cipher. There has been very little published about the people who were truly the first to break the Enigma enciphered messages. This distinction belongs to the Poles who accomplished that feat in the late 1930s.

The Poles were keeping a jaundiced eye on their German neighbors in the period between World Wars. During this time all the major powers and some of the minor ones were routinely decoding each other's messages. The Polish Biuro Szyfr?w (Cipher Bureau) was among the best. The team that cracked the Enigma codes was comprised of Marian Rejewski, Jerzy R?zycki and Henryk Zygalski. By the end of the War, 10,000 people with sophisticated computers were decoding Axis messages, which they never could have done without the pioneering work of these three brilliant men.

http://www.ma.hw.ac.uk/~foss/valentin/P ... kdown.html



Dunno much about rotating radar. Could you elaborate?

On board the Bismarck the forward radar instrument (FuMO 23) had been disabled by the blast of the forward turrets

http://www.kbismarck.com/operheini.html

[Thunderhawk]

Why would the Germans be interested in heavier tanks.. For the same reason that the French & Russians were I would reckon. Bigger tanks are often difficult for small tanks to deal with. After the French Char tanks were encountered in 1940, the Germans got busy with bigger tank designs. & they were interested in heavy tank design though going back to 37 truth be told.

Bigger tanks also cost more to build and maintain then smaller tanks, leading to reduced numbers. They also have problems in various terrain smaller tanks dont. The optimum solution wasnt a few lumbering giants, but many medium tanks. Low and behold, thats what the Germans (and the French) had. Considering the expected time to conquer the USSR, even larger tanks didnt need to be developed as they had the IVs and they wouldnt have gone down the arms race that far.


Sure, the Germans could have started research earlier and the Poles could have not bothered with decyphering, but thats in the same realm of what-if as France and Britain renouncing the treaty of Versailles and their agreement with Poland in lue of attacking the Soviets, changing the what-if from an interesting assessment of history into worthless fiction.




Regarding radar, I am under the impression early in the war many German ships did not have powerful radar equipment that actually scanned 360, rather it was forward facing.

[cowofzot]

Bigger tanks also cost more to build and maintain then smaller tanks, leading to reduced numbers. They also have problems in various terrain smaller tanks dont. The optimum solution wasnt a few lumbering giants,

Right, & that's why I didn't mention lumbering giants.



but many medium tanks. Low and behold, thats what the Germans (and the French) had.

No, the French had larger tanks than the germans did, this is what inspired the Germans to make larger tanks.




It was not until spring 1941 that the project was revived after Hitler was impressed
with heavy allied tanks, such as the French Char B1 and British Matilda 1 during the campaign
in the west.
http://library.thinkquest.org/04oct/016 ... 0Tiger.htm




In direct meetings with German tanks the Char B1 usually had the better of it, sometimes spectacularly so as when on 16 May a single tank, Eure, frontally attacked and destroyed thirteen German tanks lying in ambush in Stonne, all of them Panzerkampfwagen IIIs and Panzerkampfwagen IVs, in the course of a few minutes. The tank safely returned despite being hit 140 times. Similarly, in his book Panzer Leader, Heinz Guderian relates the following incident, which took place during a tank battle south of Juniville: "While the tank battle was in progress, I attempted, in vain, to destroy a Char B with a captured 47-mm anti-tank gun; all the shells I fired at it simply bounced harmlessly off its thick armor. Our 37-mm and 20-mm guns were equally ineffective against this adversary. As a result, we inevitably suffered sadly heavy casualties".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Char_B1

[MB.]

All of your points are either economically or technologically determinist in that they assume that the nazis lost ww2 because of their technology and/or industrial capacity.

I mean, if the nazis had super-lasers, self-fabricating von neumann machines, and null-space technology they might have won ww2!
Let me spell it out for you: the nazis lost ww2 because stupid wars is not successful government policy.

[cowofzot]

Um, not exactly. The thread is not about politics per se, but now that you've brought it up, I'm well aware of the stupid political moves made by Germany & have no need of having it spelled out for me, but thanks for the waste of board space & un topic related post.

To clarify & spell it out for you, I specifically stated "give Germany a better shot", nowhere did I state Germany lost the war specifically or exclusively because of technological reasons. The topic is purely mechanical & in the vein of what could they have done to improve their odds in that direction. If you have something of that nature to share, please do. Otherwise, please refrain from making comments that are unrelated to thread framework.

[MB.]

super-lasers, self-fabricating von neumann machines, and null-space technology

See, I did list three technological and economic factors that if only the nazis had access to they would have 'had a better shot' at winning ww2.

This argument is basically a variation of the English wheeled cannon carriages in 1588. Your comment about the enigma machine from the OP is a variation on the Lost Letter from the second manassas campaign.

[cowofzot]

Magnesium & other high grade alloys would've enabled better turbine blades for 262 & also enabled the production of turbochargers. The Donetz basin & Norway & Sweden plus the Petsamo Nickel mine provided some of this, but not nearly enough it would seem. aluminium always in short supply to boot.



the Hirth 2281 turbo-supercharger proved to unreliable for service use, and the project was abandoned.

http://www.cybermodeler.com/hobby/kits/ ... 2033.shtml

[MB.]

if only the nazis had a little more uranium they might have built atomic bombs!

[cowofzot]

They did actually. Though not as powerful.


Throughout 1943, teething troubles plagued the turbocompressor system in all the Fw-190C prototypes, with the most constant failure being the inability of the pipes carrying the exhaust gases to withstand the high temperatures generated.

By the autumn of 1943, it was tacitly accepted by both the RLM and Focke-Wulf that the turbocompressors required more time-consuming development before they would attain sufficient reliability to allow operational use

http://modelingmadness.com/reviews/axis ... er190c.htm

[MB.]

They [the nazis] did actually [build atomic bombs].

[cowofzot]

It is well known that Hitler’s weapons scientists were pursuing an atomic weapon in the waning days of World War 2, but new evidence has recently come to light that indicates that they were, in part, successful. These documents describe a primitive nuclear explosive that was successfully constructed in Germany,

http://www.damninteresting.com/ww2-hitlers-a-bomb

As to the turbos, they tried ceramics, but these melted.

[MB.]

The bombs which were produced and tested were reportedly “dirty bombs,” which are made of up conventional explosives which are packed with nuclear material to add nuclear fallout to the bomb’s destructive power.

but new evidence has recently come to light that indicates that they were, in part, successful.

Nope.




*

A book by Rainer Karlsch, Hitlers Bombe, published in 2005, alleged that Diebner's team conducted the first successful nuclear weapon test of some type of nuclear related device in Ohrdruf, Thuringia on 4 March 1945.[100]. However, Karlsch has been criticized for displaying "a catastrophic lack of understanding of physics" by physicist Michael Schaaf, who is himself the author of an earlier book about Nazi atomic research, while Karlsch himself has acknowledged that he lacked absolute proof for the claims made in his book.[101]

Science historian Mark Walker also published his analysis in 2005.[102], and in 2005 Karlsch and Walker published an article on the controversial historical evidence, briefly referenced in the article.[103] The Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB, Federal Physical and Technical Institute) tested soil samples in the area of the alleged test, and in 2006 it issued its results: keinen Befund (nothing found).[104] Karlsch published a follow-on book with Heinko Petermann to elaborate on issues raised in his first book.[105]

[cowofzot]

Yep, conventional stuff only used as a spark if you will. What is it with you wanting to start arguments constantly?

it appears to have been an attempt to use high explosives to provoke fission in a hoard of enriched uranium and fusion in a batch of deuterium compounds, creating a fierce, localised, highly radioactive blast.
http://greyfalcon.us/Hitler%20abomb.htm

A documentary with eyewitnesses & geigercounters & such was done recently & would be worth a view for you if this subject interests you. For now, it's topic drift.

[MB.]

This is the most ridiculous thing I've heard you say. Even if the nazis built nuclear fuel weapons (which they didn't) these are not atomic bombs.

it appears to have been an attempt to use high explosives to provoke fission in a hoard of enriched uranium and fusion in a batch of deuterium compounds, creating a fierce, localised, highly radioactive blast.

What you just said here means nothing.

[cowofzot]

You're intrepretation here means nothing. Neither does your denigration attempts impress. Semantics games may provide some sort of mental masturbation for you, but again, offtopic. Start a new thread on it if it is of interest to you.

Karlsch contends that this group was designing a bomb that used both nuclear fission and fusion (like that in an H-bomb) principles to release energy. He further suggests that this type of device was tested three times shortly before the end of World War II. One test occurred on the German island of Ruegen in the fall of 1944 and two more in the eastern state of Thuringia in March of 1945.
http://www.unmuseum.org/nbomb.htm

[MB.]

The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics was the primary nuclear physics research institute in Germany. At various times its directors included Walther Bothe, Peter Debye, Albert Einstein, Fritz Haber, Otto Hahn and Werner Heisenberg, the latter who famously worked on the failed nazi atomic bomb project.

In 1945, a U.S. investigation called Operation Alsos determined that German scientists under Heisenberg were close, but still short, of the point that Allied scientists had reached in 1942, the creation of a sustained nuclear chain reaction, a crucial step for creating a nuclear reactor (which in turn could be used for either peaceful purposes, or for creating plutonium, needed for nuclear weapons).

Karlsch contends that this group was designing a bomb that used both nuclear fission and fusion (like that in an H-bomb) principles to release energy. He further suggests that this type of device was tested three times shortly before the end of World War II. One test occurred on the German island of Ruegen in the fall of 1944 and two more in the eastern state of Thuringia in March of 1945.

I don't believe Karlsch was even contending this, but if so, it is patently false. There is no possible way the Nazis in 1945 could have produced fusion reactions, just as there is no possible way they could have produced controlled fission chain reactions. The two examples you provide are completely spurious there is not a shred of evidence to support either.

The notion that the tests were conducted in Ruegen despite the blockade and in Thuringia while it was being overrun by the red army is also extremely difficult to reconcile, don't you think?

Furthermore, your source is unmuseum.org?

[cowofzot]

Your post means nothing & is out of context to the thread. Move on.

[MB.]

What is the context of this thread? You multi-posting about engine metal alloys? What are you trying to demonstrate?