Were the Germans secret weapons folly ?

The more i read about the German secert weapons the more i think that they would of been better of building more tanks & planes , but would it have made a difference ?

 

Perhaps prolonging the war yes, winning it not.

Then again if you thought of the number of Allied men, planes etc stuck with fighting for instance the V1 and V2 threat perhaps the end result would be the same...??

 

Most would consider all secret weapons folly due to their unique and novel nature. As to the Germans, I would say that some were and some were not. Look at what the V weapons have spurred. There would be no man on the moon if there were no rockets.

 

True but the V2 was as wast of time & money for the Germans as it had no impact on the out come of the war

 

uksubs which ones ? V-1 and V-2 only or the jets or ground based to air rockets or........ ?

 

Only on how they were used. Had they been used against the allied beachead in France, then it could have helped where the Luftwaffe was defeicient. Also, if they stuck to building more tanks and planes, then all they would have is more of obselecent weapons.

 

Most of German's "secret" weapons and projects were largely, if not completely, a waste of time. Of course, the same can be said of many Allied projects too. But, the difference is that the Allies, particularly the Western Allies, had the capacity and economy to support projects without dire impacts on war production in general.
To compound Germany's problems in this area, the Nazi system of individual fiefdoms that the various personalities surrounding Hitler had made often competed for resources and had parallel developments going that duplicated effort. Also, the political connections of the leadership in the government and business sectors often outweighed common sense or economic reality.
A list of truly idiotic and costly projects include:

The V-2. Rocketry on this scale should have remained nothing but a low priority program at most. This project was literally a crippling effect on Germany's economy. Reinvesting this program into a workable SAM might have been worthwhile

The X-4 AAM. Immature and impractical built to several thousand units before it was even successfully tested operationally.

Winterbaloon and Summerbaloon: These were speciality bombs for use in things like dam busting. They were marginally workable and likely would never see service as the bomber aircraft just were not available. Yet, hundreds of each were manufactured.

Hs 293 / Fritz X: Overmanufactured to the tune of thousands that would never be used. The program should have been sized to the potential aircraft available for their use. A few dozen a month would have been sufficent.

Me 163 A complete waste of resources.

Porsche Maus tank: A complete waste of resources.

Walther H2O2 boats. Should never have been proceeded with beyond basic experimental units.

Various midget subs and human torpedos. Desperation bred these disasters.

This is just the tip of a very large iceburg. The Germans had a penchant for designing these absurdities and then producing them without any valid data as to their usefulness. They also did not match requirements to capacity. Several of the above were built in larger numbers than could ever be used. This all made no sense whatsoever.

 

I think the V-1 & V-2 projects were worthwhile. "Maybe" if Hitler had tried to use them more as a battlefield weapon than a terror weapon,could they have changed the outcome.
I remember asking why the V rockets were'nt used on D-Day a long time ago. They were'nt
accurate enough to hit the beaches.
Using them as a terror weapon did'nt bring the British morale down as Hitler wanted. I was under the impression that the Panther and the ME-262 were secret weapons but they did'nt change the outcome either.

 

I think the only time the V2 would had any impact in the war is if the Germans had a atom bomb
Just finished JG 7book & when you start reading how unreliable the jet engine was & how many good pilots died in accidents it does not add up

 

Great post & spot on
The thing is a lot of German company's did well out of the war & made a lot of money to

 

The broad mass of the things were near totally inappropriate to develop during such a conflict, but without hindsight they can almost be understood. No matter what Germany did in terms of weapons production or design, by c.1943 she was on the defensive with dwindling resources of materials and manpower. The ever present attraction of some sort of wonder weapon to pull the Reich's fat from the fire must have always seemed so tempting. Particularly to dreamers like Adolf & his gang.

Cheers,
Adam.

 

The V-2 could only be justified using nuclear weapons...period. This weapon carrying a conventional warhead is equivalent to sending a Me 110 armed with 1000 kg of bombs to crash Kamikaze style into a random target over a several square mile area. It is clearly completely ineffective as a weapons system and horribly inefficent economically.
The V-1 is almost as bad. Diverting the materials into more artillery and communications equipment for the army would have been a better choice.
But, when one is desperate for a solution to win the unwinnable impossibly stupid things often become the straws grasp at first.

 

Folly ?, probably....yet the Pz III/IVs (MBTs) got/get no press...of "Panzer" divisions (which get all the press), but were not the only divisions the Germans had.
There is the fear factor, evident in the memory of, Tigers, V-1/2, Me 262 that were a "speck" in production/usage compared to other mainstay weapons.
Why do we remember the orphans ?...new, superior, scary, unknown, temporarily unbeatable. Rumors, Gossip....fast moving killers of morale.
They succeeded in instilling terror, inferiority/hopelessness, defeatism...fear.
They bought time, for the Allies to rethink strategy, make deeper/more thorough plans.
Not enough to change anything, but it did throw a wrench in the gears from time to time.
Entertainment/excitement (for...us ?) (not to those who died by their hand), much more than war-winning.
People are "fickle" about what they choose to remember or relish, and having a major impact on the war (many times) has nothing to do with it.

 

Even if they did not spend resources on experimental weapons and put the resources into more tanks and planes the main down fall for the Germans is the lack of fuel. It will also be the down fall of the west today if our stupid politicians don't wake up and be alittle more proactive.

 

I guess the only secret weapon truly effective was the nerve gases , which thanx to Hitler´s own experiences were not used.

 

Didn't the Allies stumble across a factory full of the stuff?

 

The Germans did a lot of work on various nerve agents such as Sarin, Tabun, Soman, etc and plans for mass-production were well-advanced.

However, German Intelligence feared that the Allies also had plenty of production capability ( in fact, they didn't ) and also that the Allies ability to reach targets inside Germany would prove catastrophic in a 'tit-for-tat' scenario.

( So maybe the Bomber Offensive wasn't such a waste of effort after all.....)

 

Just think of the " Run! Gas!" effect after even one major gas attack in the west( east )....

 

I think T.A. Gardner hit it right on the money. The Nazi system's penchant for duplication of effort wasted the little resources the Germans had available. Researching new weapon sytems for me is not a folly because it's the only way to find out if new stuff work or not. The key to the German side was coordinating things so that they could maximize the use of their remaining research resources.

 

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