WW2, modern knowledge old tech possibilities

[cptsideways]

Thought I'd start a thread on something I've been pondering for ages.

What tech could we have built back in the past eg world war II with the knowledge that we have now but only using old tech from back in the period?

Back when digital was barely invented, radar was a new thing, radio navigation was only just invented, could we have built radio controlled drones back then.

In the modern age we could probably quite easily crowd source the component build of a 3d printed aeroplane? I bet we could gather a kit of parts of a wooden Mosquito through crowd sourcing.

I'd be fascinated to know what we could build now with some modern day input.

[EmailAddress]

Biological weapons would be absolutely off the chart (as if they weren't anyway.)

I think nuclear would be possible too no?

[oddball1313]

Assault rifles initially spring to mind in 5.56 allowing higher capacity magazines and ability for more ammunition to be carried, but a real game changer would have been significantly better communication systems. Radios were awful in WWII and once a battle started no-one knew what was going on 99% of the time

[williamp]

Keep tne jet engine for ourselves, andallow development. Ditto the bombe machines.

Going back further, find the funding to omplete the babbage computed. Used for military purposes, to accurately predict artillery would have made a huge difference.

[EmailAddress]

Food tech, nutrition, etc could be vastly improvement, as well as clothing / uniform.

Would it be possible to invade Russia the Winter...

[Alex Z]

A fascinating question, and there’s a similar one I’ve thought about with cars. What if you gave a modern hybrid car to engineers from 10, 20, 30….. 100 years back, how close could they get?



For yours, Tanks could certainly have been far more effective with modern design principles even if some of the materials science was beyond them.

Likewise, could anti-tank weaponry be more capable with shaped charges etc?

[Some Gump]

I think we could engineer thing quite well, no issues with tolerances.
On that basis, jets for certain. If we're looking at modern knowledge with "then" tech, where are we setting the moral compass? Because if it's not modern moral compass, it's jets dropping uber-ebola, sarin, whatever and it's not going to be pleasant for anyone...

[Newc]

Could definitely have built junction transistors in 1939, and possibly basic mosfets. Even these basic semiconductors would have had all sorts of impacts in equipment design and reliability.

Volume production of penicillin.

AK47s.

Diesel trains.


ETA: 40ft shipping containers. Winning a foreign war is logistics and supply; anything you can do to improve that should be near the top of the list.

Edited by Newc on Friday 17th November 15:02

[The Gauge]

Better quality jazz mags for the troops!

[Tango13]

There's always been a suspicion that the russians used biological weapons against the Germans in WWII but fortunately the Germans didn't deploy their stocks of nerve agents against the russians.

Radar was way more advanced than a lot of people realise, by the end of the war there was radar controlled anti aircraft gunnery, proximity fuses, counter battery rader and some radar sets were even accurate enough to pick out railway lines on the ground.

The first assault rifles were used by the Germans in 1943, the design of the StG44 helped to inspire the later AK47

The code breakers at Bletchley Park were doing some ground breaking work with computers and the failure to follow up this work and finance it postwar was a huge failure by the government of the time

The main problem with the jet engine in the UK was nobody apart from Whittle really belived in it so the money wasn't there to make it happen until much later in the war.

The PIAT, the US bazooka and German Panzerfaust all used shaped head charges, the main problem with them was having to get a bit too close to the intended target..

All the technology was there, it's just been improved over time. If I could travel back in time to advise the British government on where to concentrate their time and money the only one that really needed an early boost was the jet engine and computing post war should have been pursued with much more vigour.

[Panamax]

cptsideways said:

could we have built radio controlled drones back then.

Yes, there were attempts at radio controlled planes in WW2, including live TV feed to the operator.

"Old Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers were stripped of all normal combat armament and all other non-essential gear relieving them of about 12,000 lb (5,400 kg) of weight. Azon radio remote-control equipment was added, with two television cameras fitted in the cockpit to allow a view of both the ground and the main instrumentation panel to be transmitted back to an accompanying B-17 "CQ-4" 'mothership'. The drone was loaded with explosives weighing more than twice that of a B-17's normal bomb payload.

"A relatively remote location in Norfolk, RAF Fersfield, was the launch site. Initially, RAF Woodbridge had been selected for its long runway, but the possibility of a damaged aircraft that diverted to Woodbridge for landings colliding with a loaded drone caused concerns. The remote control system was insufficient for safe takeoff, so each drone was taken aloft by a volunteer crew of a pilot and a flight engineer to an altitude of 2,000 ft (600 m) for transfer of control to the CQ-4 operators. After successful turnover of control of the drone, the two-man crew would arm the payload and parachute out of the cockpit. The 'mothership' would then direct the drone to the target."

My understanding is it was too late in the war to be developed into a useful weapon.

[EmailAddress]

How many vehicles / ships / tanks could have been saved with the fire suppression, and healing properties that we have now.

Is that something purely chemical? Nomex, fuel containers etc.

[GliderRider]

Newc said:

ETA: 40ft shipping containers. Winning a foreign war is logistics and supply; anything you can do to improve that should be near the top of the list.

Definitely this. When you see pictures of sacks of grain being lifted out of ships in nets you begin to realise just how inefficient our docks were.

Had the merchant ships been faster than the U-boats, and there was only a few knots in it, the Battle of the Atlantic would have been very different. If wave piercing vessels had been available, of the type we see used as high speed ferries, the U-boats would have barely got a look in.

By the same token, bear in mind we didn't have motorways or most of the bypasses we have now. Queen Mary trailers brought large aeroplane parts and tank transporters carried armoured vehicles along tortuous roads, through towns and villages, between factories, storage depots and rail terminals.



Had large tank carrying hovercraft such as the LCAC been available, Omaha Beach may not have been the bloodbath it was. Most of the Duplex Drive (amphibious) Sherman tanks sunk before they reached the shore.



It does seem madness, that for the sake of getting across the last few yards of water, a soldier has to get soaked from head to toe when disembarking a conventional landing craft on many beaches. Running and fighting in wet, salt and sand encrusted clothing must have put them at a disadvantage.

[williamp]

Were their lorries powerful enough for 40ft containers??

Modern drugs, even mass produced penacillin/ vitamins would have been good.

Radar from late ww2 in early ww2 would have made a huge difference.

[GliderRider]

williamp said:

Were their lorries powerful enough for 40ft containers??

Loads of similiar weight were moved, albeit more slowly, because the roads weren't up to high speed travel. Googling '1940s heavy haulage' gives an idea of what was available at the time.
The M25 tank transporter for example, could carry 40 tons, but had a maximum speed of 28mph.

[NNH]

Some of this is lightly addressed in John Birmingham's Axis of Time books (a carrier group goes back to the 1940s, but it's a lot more thought-through than Final Countdown!). One interesting proposal from the time travellers is to add CFD-designed propellors to contemporary fighter aircraft to increase performance and range.

[hidetheelephants]

williamp said:

Keep tne jet engine for ourselves, andallow development. Ditto the bombe machines.

Going back further, find the funding to omplete the babbage computed. Used for military purposes, to accurately predict artillery would have made a huge difference.

Unlikely to be practical, they did exist(and worked really well by the end of the war) but due to size, weight and fragility mechanical gunfire predictors only found application on ships. Inventing the transistor 10 years early seems feasible and a better bet for a portable artillery predictor.

GliderRider said:

williamp said:

Were their lorries powerful enough for 40ft containers??

Loads of similiar weight were moved, albeit more slowly, because the roads weren't up to high speed travel. Googling '1940s heavy haulage' gives an idea of what was available at the time.
The M25 tank transporter for example, could carry 40 tons, but had a maximum speed of 28mph.

The railway cos were experimenting with multimodal containers in the 20-30s but it didn't catch on due to lack of capital, the effort and diversion of steel making capacity and fabrication to build enough containers to make it work would have meant fewer liberty ships/Shermans/whatever, it would have needed the likes of Kaiser to value engineer the living st out of the container design. Given available crane tech the container would have been more like 15-20' rather than 40', but then McLean played about with the size of his containers before settling on units of 10'.

[vikingaero]

GliderRider said:

williamp said:

Were their lorries powerful enough for 40ft containers??

Loads of similiar weight were moved, albeit more slowly, because the roads weren't up to high speed travel. Googling '1940s heavy haulage' gives an idea of what was available at the time.
The M25 tank transporter for example, could carry 40 tons, but had a maximum speed of 28mph.

One of my Dads friends started driving HGVs in the late 50's. He used to drive up to Scotland in 4-7 days as the top speed of his lorry was 39 mph and the M1 and M6 Motorway were only starting to be built at the end of the 50's - it was all A-roads and going through towns and cities. The hauliers wouldn't allow the lorry to waste precious fuel with an empty return and he would wait sometimes up to a week for a return load. Crazy when we think that we can do London to Scotland and back in a long day.

[Eric Mc]

cptsideways said:

Thought I'd start a thread on something I've been pondering for ages.

What tech could we have built back in the past eg world war II with the knowledge that we have now but only using old tech from back in the period?

Back when digital was barely invented, radar was a new thing, radio navigation was only just invented, could we have built radio controlled drones back then.

In the modern age we could probably quite easily crowd source the component build of a 3d printed aeroplane? I bet we could gather a kit of parts of a wooden Mosquito through crowd sourcing.

I'd be fascinated to know what we could build now with some modern day input.

Radio Navigation was not that new. It had begun to be used by airliners in the early 1930s.
Radio controlled drones were used during World War 2 - both as weapons and as targets
Mosquito sections were built by furniture and piano manufacturers
Radar experiments began pre-war and was pretty capable by the war's end

[croyde]

NNH said:

Some of this is lightly addressed in John Birmingham's Axis of Time books (a carrier group goes back to the 1940s, but it's a lot more thought-through than Final Countdown!). One interesting proposal from the time travellers is to add CFD-designed propellors to contemporary fighter aircraft to increase performance and range.

Loved those books.

The travellers managed to mass produce AK47s due to their simplicity. In the books I think they were called Ivan Rifles.

Also modern unarmed fighting was introduced to the WW2 theatre.