Tank and anti-aircraft gun found in German cellar
Discussion
Breadvan72 said:
Yeah, but they still lost. Nah nee nah nee nah ner!
Joking aside, the adulation given to the Nazi military and their kit appears to me to be often misplaced, as they also made lots of cock ups (taking orders from Hitler being the numero uno cock up), and didn't fully mobilise their economy or modernise their stuff year on year. Panzer IVs were still a mainstay long after becoming outclassed by Allied tanks. Ditto (in the air) Bf 109s. Compare and contrast, for example, the Spitfire, which by 1945 was a zillion times more developed than it was in 1940. Lots of Allied cock ups and shonky kit too, of course, but in the end the side that deserved to win did win.
Not sure about that. Even toward the end of the war the german stuff was still more advanced. A single country developed the best aircraft, best engines including fuel injection and jet technology, by far the best tanks, and even ballistic weapons. The rest of the world was required by force of numbers to subdue them. But when you consider pretty much all that tech came out of a single country. I don't think you can say the adulation given to their kit was misplaced.Joking aside, the adulation given to the Nazi military and their kit appears to me to be often misplaced, as they also made lots of cock ups (taking orders from Hitler being the numero uno cock up), and didn't fully mobilise their economy or modernise their stuff year on year. Panzer IVs were still a mainstay long after becoming outclassed by Allied tanks. Ditto (in the air) Bf 109s. Compare and contrast, for example, the Spitfire, which by 1945 was a zillion times more developed than it was in 1940. Lots of Allied cock ups and shonky kit too, of course, but in the end the side that deserved to win did win.
I think you are perhaps buying into the myth (and it's a myth that sometimes has some rather shady subtexts!) By the end of the war, Allied equipment was increasingly superior to what the Germans had, and the situation would only have become worse if the war had continued a while longer, allowing tanks such as the Pershing and Centurion to get into effective action, as well as the most developed piston fighters and early Allied jets. The flaws of the Panther and Tiger are mentioned above, and these were not addressed by the Germans. The war at sea had been won by the Allies well before VE Day, through successive improvements in anti submarine equipment and tactics. Also, wars are not just won by the best designs, as you have to use them properly, and not waste jets, for example, by using them as bombers instead of fighters.
Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 6th July 09:38
Thought it was moot point when you make the best tank in the world (allegedly, or not, to be debated forever) but your enemy can replace their damaged ones without breaking a sweat and quickly. The H dude was after fancy all singing and dancing versions when he should have been knocking them out in numbers, which of course he could not as they were resource poor at the start of the European tour.
julian64 said:
Not sure about that. Even toward the end of the war the german stuff was still more advanced. A single country developed the best aircraft, best engines including fuel injection and jet technology, by far the best tanks, and even ballistic weapons. The rest of the world was required by force of numbers to subdue them. But when you consider pretty much all that tech came out of a single country. I don't think you can say the adulation given to their kit was misplaced.
to carry this point on, just how many German designers/scientists/etc were then poached after the war?obvious one was Wernher von Braun, but there were hundreds more.
at the time, the reason they were so far ahead was their government pushed them to do better, whilst we and the rest of the world were doing sod all.
Once the war came, we (and everybody else) had to ramp up developments of everything from engines/tanks/planes/guns/etc in a big panic, take Frank Whittle, if his paper to the ministry had not been knocked back on 1929, how much faster would we have had the jet engine?
The Panther has a lot going for it as a daily drive.
No congestion charge, MOT Exempt, VED exempt, Panzerstahl rigidity, excellent all round visibility from turret, Premium Deutsche motoren cache, and with the traffic you do not need anything that goes over 20 MPH, Consumption is heavy but fine on a short commute, parking scrapes and dings are not a problem.
You just need a decent sound system, probably Becker, preferably playing Deutscheland uber alles and you have a proper daily city commuter vehicle.
No congestion charge, MOT Exempt, VED exempt, Panzerstahl rigidity, excellent all round visibility from turret, Premium Deutsche motoren cache, and with the traffic you do not need anything that goes over 20 MPH, Consumption is heavy but fine on a short commute, parking scrapes and dings are not a problem.
You just need a decent sound system, probably Becker, preferably playing Deutscheland uber alles and you have a proper daily city commuter vehicle.
Edited by QuantumTokoloshi on Monday 6th July 12:35
Resources were a huge issue, of course. Niall Ferguson, in his stunningly good book "War of the World" produces some remarkable stats for the ability of the Allies to outproduce the Axis.
When the Luftwaffe made its desperate last throw on the dice in Operation Bodenplatte on 1 January 1945, it destroyed lots of Allied aircraft on the ground. All of those aircraft were replaced within a few days, but the Luftwaffe had spaffed most of its petrol on the raids, and lost irreplaceable pilots and aircraft.
The idea that the Allies did little or nothing on tech development is an insult to the brilliant scientists and engineers and administrators who were in the background to the Allied War effort, just as the assertion that the Allied troops only won because there were more of them is an insult to the troops' skill and courage. The sheer ingenuity that the boffins brought to complex problem solving was remarkable.
When the Luftwaffe made its desperate last throw on the dice in Operation Bodenplatte on 1 January 1945, it destroyed lots of Allied aircraft on the ground. All of those aircraft were replaced within a few days, but the Luftwaffe had spaffed most of its petrol on the raids, and lost irreplaceable pilots and aircraft.
The idea that the Allies did little or nothing on tech development is an insult to the brilliant scientists and engineers and administrators who were in the background to the Allied War effort, just as the assertion that the Allied troops only won because there were more of them is an insult to the troops' skill and courage. The sheer ingenuity that the boffins brought to complex problem solving was remarkable.
Plus even in areas where the Allies were behind, such as the V weapons, time spent in intelligence and science meant breaking the enigma code to the point where the Allies were reading the test firing results before the German high command in some cases. Add in I think crashed experimental examples of both V1 and V2 were being studied in the UK before the Germans fired one in anger, and it shows the Allies broad front in nearly all areas was key.
You also had to bare in mind necessity.
The Germans had to keep pushing for more advanced weapons to counter the massive production disparity between themselves and the Allies. Britain produced more tanks, aircraft, ships & munitions that Nazi Germany in every year of the war from 1940 onwards. Just looking at production and man-power; the British Empire would have defeated Nazi Germany without US military assistance, had it not been for the Japanese expansion in the East.
The Germans were pushing the boundaries of technology in certain areas (Jets, Tanks, Missiles) although they had already lost the technology war at sea by 1942. This was more through desperation though. A lot of their designs were not fully tested and rushed into production. Had they managed to build sufficient number of Me262s to curb Allied air superiority or enough Tiger/Panthers to halt ground invasions (and fuel thgem), them the Allies may have been forced to respond with new 'tech of their own. As it was, we could simply continue to churn out thousands of P51s and Shermans each month, rather than reduce production on new, untested hardware.
With regards to tanks, a lot of consideration needs to be made to how each nation perceived them tactically and what they were built in response to. The US for example, didn't think that tanks should fight tanks. The Sherman was for destroying infantry, not Panzers. That job was for the specialised Tank Destroyers (Hell Cats) etc. Hence why they had no heavy tanks. The German and Russian tanks were designed to go head to head with each other. Therefore each design was in response to the other's latest weapon. When Barbarossa began, most of the German tanks were Pz2,3 & 4s. These were more than capable of despatching the bulk of the Russian light tanks such as the BT7. They did however get a nasty shock when they bumped into the KV-1 and latterly the T-34. The T-34 was superior to the Pz2/3 and at least the equal of the Pz4.
You see the Germans respond with the Tiger and a much greater demand for 88mm guns to defeat the heavy Russian tanks. The Russian counter with an up-gunned T-34-85. The Panther only exists because of the T-34 - the wide tracks, the sloped armour etc are all ideas taken from the T-34. By the end of the war, the Russians were introducing the T-44 and IS-3 tanks. Had the war continued another year, you would have seen improved US and UK tanks enter service, such as the Pershing and Centurion.
The T-34 is probably the best tank insomuch as the impact it had on future designs as well as the course of the war. A fully tested, properly built Panther would no doubt have been king of the battlefield v like-4-like numbers. Until the next new design came along.
The Germans had to keep pushing for more advanced weapons to counter the massive production disparity between themselves and the Allies. Britain produced more tanks, aircraft, ships & munitions that Nazi Germany in every year of the war from 1940 onwards. Just looking at production and man-power; the British Empire would have defeated Nazi Germany without US military assistance, had it not been for the Japanese expansion in the East.
The Germans were pushing the boundaries of technology in certain areas (Jets, Tanks, Missiles) although they had already lost the technology war at sea by 1942. This was more through desperation though. A lot of their designs were not fully tested and rushed into production. Had they managed to build sufficient number of Me262s to curb Allied air superiority or enough Tiger/Panthers to halt ground invasions (and fuel thgem), them the Allies may have been forced to respond with new 'tech of their own. As it was, we could simply continue to churn out thousands of P51s and Shermans each month, rather than reduce production on new, untested hardware.
With regards to tanks, a lot of consideration needs to be made to how each nation perceived them tactically and what they were built in response to. The US for example, didn't think that tanks should fight tanks. The Sherman was for destroying infantry, not Panzers. That job was for the specialised Tank Destroyers (Hell Cats) etc. Hence why they had no heavy tanks. The German and Russian tanks were designed to go head to head with each other. Therefore each design was in response to the other's latest weapon. When Barbarossa began, most of the German tanks were Pz2,3 & 4s. These were more than capable of despatching the bulk of the Russian light tanks such as the BT7. They did however get a nasty shock when they bumped into the KV-1 and latterly the T-34. The T-34 was superior to the Pz2/3 and at least the equal of the Pz4.
You see the Germans respond with the Tiger and a much greater demand for 88mm guns to defeat the heavy Russian tanks. The Russian counter with an up-gunned T-34-85. The Panther only exists because of the T-34 - the wide tracks, the sloped armour etc are all ideas taken from the T-34. By the end of the war, the Russians were introducing the T-44 and IS-3 tanks. Had the war continued another year, you would have seen improved US and UK tanks enter service, such as the Pershing and Centurion.
The T-34 is probably the best tank insomuch as the impact it had on future designs as well as the course of the war. A fully tested, properly built Panther would no doubt have been king of the battlefield v like-4-like numbers. Until the next new design came along.
Interesting to note where the new Elektro (sp?) boats could have put them had they been in earlier (theory of course). But also starting the war with more U boats. Again, poor understanding of the situation at the top. Wonder where we would be if H had let the Generals and Admirals do the planning.
In the U Boat war, I am not sure that more fancy submarines would have re-tipped the balance. The Allies upped their tech, with better ships and better kit on them, but also their methods. The convoy escorts developed careful teamwork tactics to find and destroy or drive off U Boats. Then there was the increasingly effective air cover via long range Liberators and such like. It is often said, of course, but the code breaking effort was amazing, and highly effective.
Note also that the Germans had no successful spy or saboteur networks in the UK, and contrast the successes of the SOE and other Allied "secret shows", although they had of course the help of local resistance forces (and the hindrance of quite a lot of local collaborators) (and the resistance those forces were supplied and co-ordinated to a large extent by the Allies).
Breadvan72 said:
In the U Boat war, I am not sure that more fancy submarines would have re-tipped the balance. The Allies upped their tech, with better ships and better kit on them, but also their methods. The convoy escorts developed careful teamwork tactics to find and destroy or drive off U Boats. Then there was the increasingly effective air cover via long range Liberators and such like. It is often said, of course, but the code breaking effort was amazing, and highly effective.
They were smashed in 1943. The proposal I had read was Dönitz getting more resources pre 1939 and having a substantial fleet at the start.The whole event is a gripping read and in no way do I want to take anything from the people that were involved.
"Who made the better weapons" is not clear cut. Allied radar was always ahead of the Germans, crucial in the Battle of the Atlantic. The night air war over Germany swung back and forth depending on technical advances and tactics. Towards the end of the war, German advanced nightfighters were stalking Mosquitoes were stalking "traditional" German nightfighters were stalking RAF bombers.
It makes little difference though, invading the USSR and then declaring war on the USA rather overwhelms any technical advantages. Even sufficient U-boats at the right time to win the Battle of the Atlantic merely delays the arrival of the Soviet armour in Berlin.
It makes little difference though, invading the USSR and then declaring war on the USA rather overwhelms any technical advantages. Even sufficient U-boats at the right time to win the Battle of the Atlantic merely delays the arrival of the Soviet armour in Berlin.
Use of the advanced technology was also not applied ton it's fullest degree by the NAZIs. Hitler decreed that the Me 262 should be used as a fighter bomber. Every 19 out of 20 was keyed for this job.
It has been postulated that had Hans Kammler started his underground cities a few years earlier, it would have practically won the war. Scary.
It has been postulated that had Hans Kammler started his underground cities a few years earlier, it would have practically won the war. Scary.
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