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High Tech German military

Discussion in 'Armor and Armored Fighting Vehicles' started by JCFalkenbergIII, May 24, 2008.

  1. Wolfy

    Wolfy Ace

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    No problem, J.

    I think those vests were designed to protect the wearer from grenade fragments and bayonets, knives etc. during close combat. The stormtroopers would creep up and assault the trenches with bags of grenades, pistols, (and SMGs if they were lucky to have one), and sharpened spades while having their rifles slung.
     
  2. JCFalkenbergIII

    JCFalkenbergIII Expert

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  3. JCFalkenbergIII

    JCFalkenbergIII Expert

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    [​IMG]
     
  4. JCFalkenbergIII

    JCFalkenbergIII Expert

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    [​IMG]
     
  5. Kai-Petri

    Kai-Petri Kenraali

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    The Thread has served its purpose and will be closed.
     
  6. Cj3022

    Cj3022 Member

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    I musta watched that clip like 10 times when I first saw it , I just love it lol.


    EDIT: Im very sorry if I wasnt supposed to bring this this thread back up Kai , I was just looking through :/..Didnt realy look at the post dates.
     
  7. WHT

    WHT recruit

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    Can sombody help me with information or links to sites providing such info on WWII German artillery limber for leFH18.

    I am very interested in its official name, description of its parts (in English preferably) and other related information.

    Thank you very much for your support.
     
  8. bigfun

    bigfun Ace

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    Some of the pics are missing, but still a great thread, with some great pics and info!
     
  9. SSDasReich

    SSDasReich Member

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    Here some pictures of the "low tech" german military:

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    [​IMG]
     
  10. froek

    froek Member

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    LOL STG44 with infrared
    go 229
    me 262 with a burned up engine
    a fa 223 (If Im right)
    Don't know much about U-boats (XI?)
    And a fritz x

    Didn't even need google xD
     
  11. SSDasReich

    SSDasReich Member

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    the u-boat pictured is a Type XXI U-boat "Elektroboote", the first submarine that could operate fully submerged.
     
    froek likes this.
  12. T. A. Gardner

    T. A. Gardner Genuine Chief

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    All submarines in WW 2 could fully submerge and operate. The Type XXI simply improved the underwater speed some....

    Oh, and of the above pictures the only one the Allies didn't have something equivalent of is the Type XXI in terms of underwater propulsive power. In many other aspects Allied submarines were well ahead of German ones.
     
  13. froek

    froek Member

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    Ok thanks :)
    And the idiot me forgat the ar-234 bomber...:p
     
  14. SSDasReich

    SSDasReich Member

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    Submarines need air to recharge their batteries. The type XXI did not, and could stay fully submerged for extremely long periods of time.
     
  15. Spaniard

    Spaniard New Member

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  16. brndirt1

    brndirt1 Saddle Tramp

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    This is so incorrect I don't know exactly where to start. The "Elektroboot" XXI was nothing like that description. One must put the XXI into perspective, there were 119 of them built of course and if they had been produced a year or two earlier they might have made a difference. But the technology to do so didn’t exist before they were built.

    So that is a non-starter, the hull, snorkel, and battery technology needed for them was developed from the experience of the past U-boat types. They didn’t spring to existence out of nothing like Athena from the forehead of Zeus.

    And while they could have great speed submerged (two mph better than when on the surface), their range was limited at speed. They could (in theory) do about 340/350 miles at reduced speed (5 knots) submerged on batteries, but they still had to surface (or use a snorkel) to recharge.

    The full recharge time had been reduced to 3-5 hours using the snorkel or on the surface in the clear, but cruising submerged at speeds less than or equal to the old steam powered merchant ship convoys could maintain (4-8 knots) isn’t that big a deal by June of ’44 when the first and only one of them took to the sea. They were designed to be faster submerged than running on the surface, but they still had to use the outside "air" to recharge their batteries.

    This design was completed and executed under conditions typical for the second half of the war - the Allied strategic bombing campaign. To evade it, the construction office was housed in a remote location in the Hartz mountains; the boats were built decentralized in modules, which were ferried by barge to a main site only towards the end of construction. Here they were assembled to complete hulls, reducing the period of vulnerability towards air attacks in the shipyard. This system was of course vulnerable, too: Raids on a certain manufacturer could halt progress on all three yards that did the final assembly.

    Total construction time compared to former methods was reduced from 22 months to only 9, and that was all that counted in the given situation.

    In the end, the overly optimistic schedules weren't met due to the deteriorating war situation and the teething troubles inevitable in such a complex design; but a full 119 Type XXI were completed and delivered in less than a year (28 June 1944 until May 1945).

    Only a single Type XXI boat was operationally deployed towards the end of the war. It did not fire a single shot in anger, yet the few encounters made by U 2511 on its raid from Norway between 30 April and 4 May, 1945 showed the Allies´ inability to track the boat with their equipment.
    22 Type XXIs were destroyed by the Allies in the yards, 84 were scuttled by their crews following Admiral Doenitz's orders from May 4th, 1945.

    However, 12 vessels fell into Allied hands intact and gave valuable impulses towards post-war submarine development, both on the eastern and the western side. Major post-war submarine constructions in the Soviet Union, the UK, France and the USA were visibly influenced by the Type XXI.

    See:

    U-Boot Type XXI in Detail
     
  17. T. A. Gardner

    T. A. Gardner Genuine Chief

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    I would add that the Type XXI also had some serious problems. The biggest one of which was its near negative bouyancy when surfaced. This was due to the KM demanding that the boat be able to very quickly submerge from its surfaced condition. The problem here was that any flooding of the boat due to damage or some other problem would sink it in short order. In fact, of the few that operated post war at least two sank in exactly this manner in the late 40's.

    The next problem was that the boat was manufactured in pre-assembled sections. These sections had serious quality and fit issues due to the war situation and lack of skilled labor in their assembly. This made many of the Type XXI boats horribly unreliable and gave no end of problems during assembly and then once in operation.

    Post war, the idea behind these boats was copied elsewhere. The Russians copied the Type XXI as the Whiskey and Zulu class submarines. The US simply reworked their existant fleet boats under the Guppy program to accomplish the same thing.

    As for their effectiveness, it would have been short lived. By early 1945 the Allies were deploying scanning sonars, new ahead throwing weapons like Squid and, were introducing homing torpedoes. All-in-all the Type XXI was an incremental technology that would have had limited impact on the war.
     
  18. T. A. Gardner

    T. A. Gardner Genuine Chief

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    The Ar 234 was hardly a paragon of design as an attack aircraft. The original models used a trolley system to take off and landed on skids. This was done as a weight saving measure. But, it also limited the aircraft to reconnissance roles.
    As a bomber the loaded Ar 234 was slowed to a speed where conventional piston engined fighters could catch it. This and the Germans need for reconnissance led most to be religated to the recon role rather than used as bombers.
    As a design, the Ar 234 has nothing unique about it. It is thoroughly conventional in layout. The engines are hung on the wings to avoid necessary design work on ducting for the engines. The reclining pilot position was done simply to avoid and reduce drag.
     
  19. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    The type XXI also had problem with the way their batteries were designed/arranged that could lead to the catastrophic loss of the sub. One of them that the US experimented with after the war was lost in this maner. Fortunatly in shallow water and most(all?) the crew was rescued.
     
  20. Proeliator

    Proeliator Member

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    Going back abit to the use of horses...

    The good thing about using horses, as experienced by the Germans as well as the Russians, was that they didn't need refueling all the time, they were simply left grassing when the army was taking rests; in effect they were self sustaining. Also horses didn't get stuck in mud and they didn't need a fire started below them to stay warm enough to function at 40 below freezing. The only disadvantage really was the slower advancing speed during summer time, and for that reason it was the rear guard which was mostly equipped with horses, the breakthrough forces were kept fully mechanized.

    Also one needs to remember how large the German army was, to keep an army that large fully mechanized with just the industry of a single country was impossible. Despite this I believe the Germans actually managed to mechanize a larger number of troops than did the US, but the US didn't need as many vehicles either as they never at any single point during the war had anywhere near as many personnel in active service as did the Germans.
     

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