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sparatuvs posted:Why where the Germans so behind everybody technologically? Is it that they are just genetically stupid? Well, Relativity was rejected as nonsense Jew-lies and their Aryan-approved method of developing the bomb would be so slow they'd need the war to go on into the 1950s at least, so by their own definitions, yes they developed the nuclear bomb so much slower because they were racially inferior  .
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Jan 11, 2016 14:42
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Not just the bomb. Despite what dieselpunk wehraboos say across the board they were behind and backwards compared to the allies. The most advanced ship ever scored a 1:1 kd ratio
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Jan 11, 2016 14:47
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Combination of factors. Germany WAS forbidden from having a modern army under Versailles, and while they obeyed that about as much as any nation would have, that kind of thing does inhibit open weapons development. Quite a few of their weapons systems were dramatically ahead of the Allies' in terms of sophistication, but they never produced any of them extensively due to their limited industrial capacity. The later-model U-Boats were incredibly sophisticated machines, for instance, and pretty much every modern assault rifle has heritage in the StG-44. There was also the factor that Nazi high command became obsessed with "wonder-weapons" later in the war, and while this did produce some radical stuff like the V rockets, jet fighters, etc. it also detracted from producing stuff that might actually have been useful--the ME-262 had to be redesigned twice which limited its deployment by at least a year, because what High Command wanted it to be used for kept changing. Seriously, DO NOT underestimate how badly Germany's limited industrial capacity kept it from advancing technologically compared to the other countries. When you barely have the factories to be PRODUCING tanks and airplanes that doesn't leave a lot of room for testing new stuff. As for the Bismarck, the Bismarck was brought down by the fact that this was World War II, not World War I. If you had thrown the USS Missouri into the same situation as the Bismarck the outcome would probably have been pretty similar--the Prince of Wales and Repulse proved that thoroughly, in the other direction. Redeye Flight fucked around with this message at 15:21 on Jan 11, 2016 |
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Jan 11, 2016 15:09
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The thing is they literally were not ahead or more innovative in anything but rockets and rocket related tech. All I'm saying is war thunder needs to add a feature where your tiger strips its unreplaceable transmission after running for more than 10 minutes
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Jan 11, 2016 15:23
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Pretty impressive they did what they did with inferior backwards tech.
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Jan 11, 2016 15:27
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Anosmoman posted:Pretty impressive they did what they did with inferior backwards tech. What take over Poland and France? Yeah neat
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Jan 11, 2016 15:30
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I was under the impression that Germany had great engineering/technology, but were behind on science (after a big head start, since so much science was done by Germans, who fled when Nazis took over) and industrial capacity. Also with a tendency to over-engineer stuff. Didn't Germany have the first workable jet engine aircraft? And the V2s. That's actually something I know a bit about, and Germany was at least an entire generation ahead of everyone else when it came to large scale rocketry. The US and USSR raced to capture Germany rocket tech as the war was winding down, and both their space programs were directly based off the looted plans and parts and people. Nuclear fission (the power source behind atomic power) was discovered in Berlin, 1938, so even at that late stage Germany was at the forefront of science, even though so many of its scientists had fled. e: with the allies developing cool poo poo like radar, sonar(?), atomic bombs and a computer Count Roland fucked around with this message at 15:40 on Jan 11, 2016 |
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Jan 11, 2016 15:31
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The German jet program was as effect as a massive fuel fire.
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Jan 11, 2016 15:34
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sparatuvs posted:The thing is they literally were not ahead or more innovative in anything but rockets and rocket related tech. Most of the Nazi's rocket tech was copied from Robert H. Goddard's work. While they were certainly the first to build them on any kind of industrial scale, they weren't visionary pioneers inventing rocket science whole-cloth; they were cobbling together stolen ideas from foreign sources and then retroactively claiming they were German ideas all along to avoid having to admit to using "impure science".
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Jan 11, 2016 15:42
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Germany was ahead in certain areas, but like Redeye said they lacked the industrial capacity to really make use of it-the Me-262, the V-2, and the Type XXI were all exceptional technological breakthroughs, but by the time they were introduced it was far too late for them to make any kind of overall impact. It also didn’t help that in many cases, the technology wasn’t quite there yet-the Me-262 suffered horrendous engine reliability, for example, and the V-2 wasn’t accurate enough to be anything but vaguely threatening. One of the important things to remember, though, is that technology doesn’t decide wars-logistics and strategy do. Germany succeeded early in the war because they had a well-trained military that had an excellent sense of tactics and planning, and their opponents typically were either poorly trained, supplied, or both. Ironically, the reason why they ultimately failed was that their logistics were exceptionally poor-far too many resources were wasted on pet projects and prototypes, reliability of vehicles and equipment was a secondary concern, and Germany’s overall procurement and manufacturing process was a byzantine nightmare. There’s a reason why the Panzer IV and BF-109 were produced up until 1945, after all-even though both were well on their way to obsolescence, Germany’s production capacity was simply incapable of producing their replacements in satisfactory numbers. For a good overview on how hosed Germany’s production was, John Parshall of Shattered Sword fame gave a talk a few years back that went over some of the most egregious statistics here One of the goons over in the Aeronautical Insanity thread in AI also wrote up a history of the Heinkel He-219 Uhu, one of the best night fighters of the war whose production was utterly crippled by political bickering. Part one is here, part two is here
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Jan 11, 2016 16:05
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sparatuvs posted:What take over Poland and France? Yeah neat They inflicted 2:1 casualties on the Soviets while fighting Britain, France and the US and they did it with inferior technology. The whole endeavor was lost from the beginning but while it lasted the German military did kinda ok.
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Jan 11, 2016 16:14
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Malleum posted:Most of the Nazi's rocket tech was copied from Robert H. Goddard's work. While they were certainly the first to build them on any kind of industrial scale, they weren't visionary pioneers inventing rocket science whole-cloth; they were cobbling together stolen ideas from foreign sources and then retroactively claiming they were German ideas all along to avoid having to admit to using "impure science". uhh, they took his ideas yeah, and I don't know what their propaganda says about it, but taking what's effectively a hobbyist rocket and turning it into something that can get to the edge of space is a massive feat in itself. I mean they clearly didn't invent the concept of rocketry, obviously. But they took it from a neat idea into something that was reliably and practical on a very large scale. Von Braun really was a visionary pioneer (who also was SS and used slave labour, in case it sounds like I'm too much a fan).
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Jan 11, 2016 16:17
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Anosmoman posted:They inflicted 2:1 casualties on the Soviets while fighting Britain, France and the US and they did it with inferior technology. The whole endeavor was lost from the beginning but while it lasted the German military did kinda ok. And their plan once they beat the soviets? A massive return to the land where production was switched to agriculture by hand. Pure genius
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Jan 11, 2016 16:19
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Count Roland posted:uhh, they took his ideas yeah, and I don't know what their propaganda says about it, but taking what's effectively a hobbyist rocket and turning it into something that can get to the edge of space is a massive feat in itself. I mean they clearly didn't invent the concept of rocketry, obviously. But they took it from a neat idea into something that was reliably and practical on a very large scale. Von Braun really was a visionary pioneer (who also was SS and used slave labour, in case it sounds like I'm too much a fan). While Goddard couldn't reach the upper atmosphere with his own work, it wasn't because of some fault in his designs. He had to deal with component shortages and a shoestring budget. All Von Braun did was inject Goddard's work into an industrial environment where neither of those things were factors. Convincing Nazi high command that such a thing was possible was no small feat, and making them in the numbers required was certainly impressive even if he did have to use slave labor to do it, but putting a bigger engine and fuel tank on a rocket yet still copying the 10-year-old guidance systems that an American scientist cobbled together in his back yard isn't any feat of engineering worth the praise he gets today.
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Jan 11, 2016 16:30
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Malleum posted:While Goddard couldn't reach the upper atmosphere with his own work, it wasn't because of some fault in his designs. He had to deal with component shortages and a shoestring budget. All Von Braun did was inject Goddard's work into an industrial environment where neither of those things were factors. Convincing Nazi high command that such a thing was possible was no small feat, and making them in the numbers required was certainly impressive even if he did have to use slave labor to do it, but putting a bigger engine and fuel tank on a rocket yet still copying the 10-year-old guidance systems that an American scientist cobbled together in his back yard isn't any feat of engineering worth the praise he gets today. If its no mean feat, why were the US and the USSR so dependent on von Braun and his program? I'm honestly curious here, because everything I've seen and read and heard about von Braun was that he was absolutely central to getting space flight off the ground, so to speak. I don't mean to diminish Goddard; he laid a groundwork that von Braun that built upon. At least that is my impression.
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Jan 11, 2016 17:15
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Count Roland posted:If its no mean feat, why were the US and the USSR so dependent on von Braun and his program? They needed him and his team because while they weren't exactly treading new ground in terms of rocket design they still had the most practical experience with the use and manufacturing of rockets. Design and theory can only get you so far, and having people that already know how to build rockets and how to use them makes starting a rocket program from scratch that much easier. Von Braun certainly legitimized Goddard's work in the eyes of the world and turned rocketry into one of the cornerstones of modern military thought, and I won't belittle him and his team's contribution to kick-starting space exploration through his efforts in making rockets practical on a large scale. But he wasn't ahead of the world in rocketry - he was ahead of the world in funding rocketry, and while its no less important, Goddard and his compatriots in prewar rocket design did most of the heavy lifting and Von Braun has unfairly received all of the praise.
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Jan 11, 2016 17:39
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Anosmoman posted:They inflicted 2:1 casualties on the Soviets while fighting Britain, France and the US and they did it with inferior technology. The whole endeavor was lost from the beginning but while it lasted the German military did kinda ok. Murdering entire villages and counting them as partisan groups does wonders for your kill death ratio yeah.
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Jan 11, 2016 17:55
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Acebuckeye13 posted:For a good overview on how hosed Germany’s production was, John Parshall of Shattered Sword fame gave a talk a few years back that went over some of the most egregious statistics here The stupidity on display there is mind-blowing  . Custom-ordered tanks. Like did one commander ask for cannons that did +6 bleed damage against Russians? And another asked for a cherry-red paint job, each one needlessly adding several days' worth of man-hours and precious steel to a tank that might survive a month of combat if it was lucky?I can't even imagine how no one stepped in and said "This is a terrible idea" when the factories were producing at less than half their projections while the rest of the world was churning out tanks like it was going out of style.
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Jan 11, 2016 18:06
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Malleum posted:They needed him and his team because while they weren't exactly treading new ground in terms of rocket design they still had the most practical experience with the use and manufacturing of rockets. Design and theory can only get you so far, and having people that already know how to build rockets and how to use them makes starting a rocket program from scratch that much easier. Interesting, you make some good points.
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Jan 11, 2016 18:08
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DarklyDreaming posted:The stupidity on display there is mind-blowing It's really hard to overstate just how much of a clusterfuck was Nazi war production, particularly before Speer* became armaments minister (and only to a somewhat lesser degree afterward). Turns out, running your war machine via a system of competing, usually corrupt hierarchies with endless turf fights isn't that good of an idea! *while yes, Speer was a self-promoting lying douchebag after the war and in everything he wrote, he did have a knack for streamlining production *cough*largelythroughtheuseofslavelabor*cough* and this is the one area where he did sorta shine.
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Jan 11, 2016 18:10
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"In fact, the new Germany was a bundle of different interests and grievances held together by the strap of the National Socialist Party. And the buckle of the strap was Hitler." Nazi party history is one of the most raw social Darwinism. Hitler climbed up the party both by proving more capable as an organizer and more ruthless than those around him, and encouraged similar traits in his followers. This permeates a lot of Nazi ideology and philosophy. However, it's not a good way to create a sustainable society, because if everyone on top knows everyone below has been taught to climb up over the bodies of their betters and peers then they're going to do everything they can to keep their underlings away from them, including keeping them ignorant and fighting each other.
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Jan 11, 2016 18:49
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Acebuckeye13 posted:For a good overview on how hosed Germany’s production was, John Parshall of Shattered Sword fame gave a talk a few years back that went over some of the most egregious statistics here I linked that earlier in the thread, but that video should basically be on every page of discussion of the Third Reich. It's so hard to explain to dumb-dumbs that no, being able to produce to a fraction of the capacity of your enemy in the name of "skilled craftsmanship" isn't a good thing, especially when your quality is nowhere near your enemies'. Here's a neat little Q&A conference on tanks. Don't let the fact that it's sponsored by a video game fool you. They got like 6 of the best authors on tanks together to talk for a few hours, and it's pretty great for newbies and vets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oLY4FOrnjc
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Jan 11, 2016 19:18
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Plan Z posted:Here's a neat little Q&A conference on tanks. Don't let the fact that it's sponsored by a video game fool you. They got like 6 of the best authors on tanks together to talk for a few hours, and it's pretty great for newbies and vets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oLY4FOrnjc Also from Wargaming, their documentaries for World of Warships are equally neat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykTg9Olnj4g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYrj3gzXgeA
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Jan 11, 2016 19:32
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sparatuvs posted:Not just the bomb. Despite what dieselpunk wehraboos say across the board they were behind and backwards compared to the allies. because germany is a small country that's going to poo poo the bed in a direct competition with the combined industrial might of the USA and USSR. plus it hadn't been doing any military development for like a decade and a half after WW1 ended DarklyDreaming posted:The stupidity on display there is mind-blowing because the Russians are Asiatic Untermenschen who are going to crumple before the blinding Aryan superiority of the German Army, so why bother making lots of tanks you're not going to need? icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Jan 12, 2016 |
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Jan 11, 2016 23:39
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icantfindaname posted:because germany is a small country that's going to poo poo the bed in a direct competition with the combined industrial might of the USA and USSR. plus it hadn't been doing any military development for like a decade and a half after WW1 ended ...Well, not counting those exercises and trials carried out quietly in concert with the Soviets during the 20s, but your larger point does stand.
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Jan 11, 2016 23:53
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Plan Z posted:I linked that earlier in the thread, but that video should basically be on every page of discussion of the Third Reich. It's so hard to explain to dumb-dumbs that no, being able to produce to a fraction of the capacity of your enemy in the name of "skilled craftsmanship" isn't a good thing, especially when your quality is nowhere near your enemies'. Special guest appearance by half of my head!
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Jan 12, 2016 01:08
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Captain_Maclaine posted:...Well, not counting those exercises and trials carried out quietly in concert with the Soviets during the 20s, but your larger point does stand. Ultimately, it is arguable that the Soviets in the end probably got more out of them, considering the Soviets were starting from near complete scratch in the late 1920s (their first tank was basically a re-designed ft-17) and was still very much an newly industrializing state across the 1930s The Soviets caught up extremely quickly all things considered compared to where they were during the Russian Civil War. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Jan 12, 2016 |
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Jan 12, 2016 01:26
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Captain_Maclaine posted:It's really hard to overstate just how much of a clusterfuck was Nazi war production, particularly before Speer* became armaments minister (and only to a somewhat lesser degree afterward). Turns out, running your war machine via a system of competing, usually corrupt hierarchies with endless turf fights isn't that good of an idea! "So Ferdinand we've awarded the Tiger tank contract to Henschel due to your electric transmission being an atrocious piece of poo poo even by our standards" "Oh, well that's unfortunate. So anyway I already built 90 of them, here you go and the bill is in the mail"
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Jan 16, 2016 17:37
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Here's a great KV-1 story for those that haven't heard of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kliment_Voroshilov_tank#Krasnogvardeysk e: Smothered in [Citation Needed]
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Jan 17, 2016 00:49
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Bolow posted:"So Ferdinand we've awarded the Tiger tank contract to Henschel due to your electric transmission being an atrocious piece of poo poo even by our standards" this is one of the best stories of WW2
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Jan 18, 2016 10:42
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It's ok though, I made them into Assault guns to smash though the enemy lines. Machine guns you say? No, what are those?
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Jan 18, 2016 13:23
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Bolow posted:"So Ferdinand we've awarded the Tiger tank contract to Henschel due to your electric transmission being an atrocious piece of poo poo even by our standards" Are their any good books about the hosed up state of the nazi economy?
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Jan 18, 2016 16:20
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My Imaginary GF posted:Are their any good books about the hosed up state of the nazi economy? The Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze is a tried as true classic.
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Jan 18, 2016 16:33
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I can second Wages of Destruction, great book and surprisingly readable for such a potentially dry topic. If you want something more bite sized this is a ~30 min section of video on the various methods the WWII combatants used to produce tanks. Spoilers: the German model was not very efficient. MikeCrotch fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Jan 18, 2016 |
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Jan 18, 2016 17:50
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Watched a pretty awful Dadumentary on famous WW2 figures and their experiences in WW1. Someone heard that Patton and MacArthur literally met on a battlefield in WW1, represented in the show by the two literally just seeing each other on a battlefield and saying "I'm George Patton" "Oh, I'm MacArthur." Patton was apparently most likely made famous for developing a time machine to bring M3 Stuarts back to storm No Man's Land. Other dumb things like Americans using Mausers, Germans using Springfields, and Brits using Enfields that they all reload by swapping the magazines, and each nation used obvious literal toy guns. It's about on par with History Channel docs that were aired around 2000-2005 or so. Usually when someone says "As a student of history" then I usually get ready to expect the type of posting you'd expect from people who exclusively watch stuff like this. Lots of over-simplified schmaltz and focusing on the decisions of too few people. Plan Z fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Jan 18, 2016 |
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Jan 18, 2016 19:46
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I think I watched the History Channel at just the right time. say 96-01, roughly. Back when they showed so many WW2 docs my mom called it "the Hitler channel". I was a kid/teenager at the time so thought tanks were cool and poo poo. But these things with the re-enactments, the music, the graphics, wow are they ever bad. You're dead on as well about the "student of history" thing. When people tell me they love watching documentaries, I find they're usually of this sort of quality, and it is most disheartening.
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Jan 18, 2016 19:58
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Plan Z posted:Watched a pretty awful Dadumentary on famous WW2 figures and their experiences in WW1. Someone heard that Patton and MacArthur literally met on a battlefield in WW1, represented in the show by the two literally just seeing each other on a battlefield and saying "I'm George Patton" "Oh, I'm MacArthur." Patton was apparently most likely made famous for developing a time machine to bring M3 Stuarts back to storm No Man's Land. Other dumb things like Americans using Mausers, Germans using Springfields, and Brits using Enfields that they all reload by swapping the magazines, and each nation used obvious literal toy guns. Was it The Wold Wars? Because I remember watching the first 5 minutes of that and when I saw that it opened with an origin story for Hitler's mustache I realized it was not for me How Vikings managed to land on that channel, I will never know.
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Jan 18, 2016 20:15
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DarklyDreaming posted:Was it The Wold Wars? Because I remember watching the first 5 minutes of that and when I saw that it opened with an origin story for Hitler's mustache I realized it was not for me Maybe. There was a scene where Hitler stares in the mirror and with a determined look trims his mustache down into a Chaplin. Was expecting an Elliot Reed-style montage of him ripping up his clothes, throwing his pickelhaub out the window and putting on a brown shirt while Tom Petty sang Horst Wessel Lied in the background.
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Jan 18, 2016 20:23
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Plan Z posted:Maybe. There was a scene where Hitler stares in the mirror and with a determined look trims his mustache down into a Chaplin. Was expecting an Elliot Reed-style montage of him ripping up his clothes, throwing his pickelhaub out the window and putting on a brown shirt while Tom Petty sang Horst Wessel Lied in the background. This sounds incredible  Goon Project?
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Jan 18, 2016 20:33
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Bolow posted:"So Ferdinand we've awarded the Tiger tank contract to Henschel due to your electric transmission being an atrocious piece of poo poo even by our standards" "Porsche, you stole my design for the Volkswagen!" "Okay yeah, I'll pay you licensing fees." *Hitler runs into the room* "NIEN! FERDINAND IS MY FRIEND!"
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Jan 18, 2016 20:39
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