What if Germany had it's advanced technology earlier on?

I was referring to the moon landings in general, but yes your are correct.

I didn't realize that the moon was the finish line?

 

Dont think he's an equivalent to Von Braun, (Sergey Korolyov would be a better match) but Tsiolkovsky is considered by many to be the father of theoretical astronautics.

His most important work, published in 1903, was The Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Devices arguably the first academic treatise on rocketry. Tsiolkovsky calculated that the horizontal speed required for a minimal orbit around the Earth is 8,000 m/s (5 miles per second) and that this could be achieved by means of a multistage rocket fueled by liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As for the rest well, a certain somebody already beat me to it!

 

Not so fast Brndirt

The Nebelwerffer pre-dated the Katyusha in design, however, the Nebelwerffer 41 which DID fire rockets was not brought into service until 1940 ( after the fall of France), prior to that it was used as a howitzer. It was then redesigned several times and the Katusha was a model for them to compy.

 

I think we may be discussing a point at cross purposes here.

The Germans revealed the Nebelwerfer rocket mortar system to the Soviets in 1936, and it was after this exchange of information that they (Soviets) began to work diligently on such an item; i.e. Details of this were known to the Soviets due to the technical exchange of information under the Soviet-German Friendship Treaty. (emphasis mine)

The Soviet authorities ordered NII-3 to develop Soviet equivalents of these battlefield barrage rockets. Based on its work on aircraft rockets, the institute quickly came up with the 82mm BM-8 and the 132mm BM-13. Both types were developed to carry chemical and incendiary warheads, and were mounted on ZIS 5 and ZIS 6 trucks.

But the Katyusha did not impress the Red Army's artillery branch - it took up to 50 minutes to load and fire 24 rounds. A conventional howitzer could fire 95 to 150 rounds in the same time span.


Goto:

HHR Katyusha Rocket Launcher - Avalon Hill Boards

Both the BM-8 and BM-13s were relatively simply designs consisting of a rack of parallel rails on which the rockets were mounted on trucks (USA’s L/L Studebakers when they started to be imported after Barbarossa) and, as mentioned took about an HOUR to reload.

The propellant used in the Katyusha system was (I think), originally formulated by O.G. Filippov and S.A. Serikov, two pyrotechnic specialists working at the Artillery Academy in Leningrad in 1924, for a different application, and their ratio was achieved by slightly altering the WW1 Dr. Robert Goddard (American) formula to retard the burn rate a bit for more distance.

Dr. Goddard had developed the first "double base" propellant to replace black and smokeless gun-power in solid fuel rockets; with a stable combination off 40% nitroglycerin and 60% nitrocellulose. His formula was later used for the shoulder fired "Bazooka" projectile propellant of the US Army.

Filippov and Serikov altered the formula slightly to: 76.5% by weight of nitrocellulose, 23% TNT, and added 0.5% centralite to retard the burn speed. That really spells an alteration of Goddard’s work which was freely published and circulated globally after WW1.

The first use of rocket artillery in World War II is often wrongly attributed to the Red Army, while Wehrmacht was the first one to use it. Four Nebelwerfer Regiments of the Wehrmacht were among many artillery units that opened fire on June 22nd of 1941 at 3:15am, beginning the Operation "Barbarossa".

The Red Army used rocket artillery for the first time on July 14/15th of 1941, firing at the rail station at Orsza (controlled by the Army Group Center) on the Minsk-Moscow route.

See:

Achtung Panzer! - Nebelwerfer vs. Katyusha

Maybe we should just agree to disagree on this topic?

 

Agree to disagree?!?

PPSH! You made great points and backed them up. I stand corrected, well done sir.


But I will say that the Russkies used more Rockets and to far greater success than the Germans or the Western allies had (yes the V2 was a marvel but virtually useless in combat). Also the Katyusha was responsible for the German creation of the 8 cm Raketen-Vielfachwerfer.'


Oh,

The assault on Orsha occurred on the 7th of July not the 14th. Ill will try to find something to back this up.

 

Can practicallity and common sense be secret weapons also? Well not secret but... Can sensing what can actually contribute to your nations cause be not a secret weapon but hidden asset? I mean all those weapons the Germans built are nice but as I've alluded to before they tried to develop,produce,deploy and even more absurdedly win a war with technology more from the 1950's rather then the 1940's. The Allies,other then the Manhatten Project ,instead took 1930's technology and pushed it to the limits . In other words took some old 1930's style weapon system and grafted some 1940 technology to it. Maybe I'm wrong in the example but radar/proximity shells maybe fits into this .
Katusha I think fits into this ,it wasn't a V-1 or V-2 in technological terms but it was developed and performed useful work for the Soviets without taking away from other needs furthermore it isn't exactly something that might bankrupt the military budget.

 

It appears that it was the finish line in that game. I figured by now we'd be on Mars or at least on the way after 40 years since we landed on the moon. Maybe the Chinamen will get to the moon next.

 

Oh the jokes that come to mind but i cant..

 

There was a cute ad from the US Dairy Board a few years back, it showed the Apollo missions, landing numbers and a clip of one of the men doing the "moon" jump/skip to get around.

The voice over went something to the effect; "after America searched many landing sites, and verified that the moon was NOT made of cheese, green or otherwise, we simply never went back. Don't underestimate the power of cheese!"

 

I as well concur that regardless of Germany using rockets first, the Russians used them far better.

The relatively small and spread out numbers of Nebelwerfers was sort of counter productive when you compare to the Russian usage. IIRC they had used the Katushya Trucks in in huge grounds and all at once; this is much more effective then a long term artillery bombardment in the sense that with artillery, your enemy has time to move around between explosions while with rockets you might have hundreds all coming at once and they simply flatten all buildings and vaporise/obliterate every living thing nearby; with no time to react.

Then you have the Gemans using them in tiny batteries producing decent results but on a much smaller level.

 

Don't hold back Mr. Funnyman! Share with us your thoughts of funniness....

 

Lets not forget that these weapons weren't as great as you might think.
I'm not sure about the 262 or the Tiger II but the G43 was merely a copy of the SVT-40 and other than an extra two rounds in its magazine had not many advantages over the M1 Garand, and was pretty much equal (if not again in-superior) to the SVT-40.
And the STG-44 was good, but no where near as effective as people may think and the Russians would probably have come up with the AK-47 sooner, which would blow it out the water.

 

I'm not going to doubt that Germany had advanced weapons and technology during the war that gave them an edge in many battles. But I'm going to have to say that Germany's technology failed them in the end not because of their inefficiency, but rather that they lacked the materials to truly make use of their weapons. For example, it doesn't matter how many advanced planes or heavy tanks one has. Without adequate supplies of fuel, those planes aren't going to fly nor are those tanks going to roll. Also the Germans wouldn't be able to churn out as many of their wunnderwaffe's to match Allied industrial capacity. Technology in war is made constantly to counter enemy technology. Undoubtedly the Allies would have made weapons to counter the Germans as quickly as possible.

 

People continue to debate who had the better technology.

Well the truth is every country at one stage or another got some of there technology form another country. Every nation probably in some small way contributed to the atomic bomb, whether it be an algorithim or simply the button used on the bomber.

No technology is really just one nations they are all just spawned from everyone elses ideals.

 

One of the strongest points of allied R&D was the cooperation. Paticularly between the British Commonwealth and US. Areas like radar and the Manhatten project involved extensive collaboration.

 

Some of the arguments put in this tread are ridiculous:

1- First, the changes that more advanced technology would have in the war against america are not relevant in determining the outcome of WW2.

2- The WW2 was a war of germany against the soviet union, all other theaters are secondary in importance.

3- So if these advanced technologies change the outcome of the war, then they would change the outcome of barbarossa.

4- The main problem in barbarossa was the logistics: After october 1941 the blitzkriek stopped because the supply train was overstretched, and the soviet union gained the time to mobilize the 35 million men and women who won the war.

 

Not really ridiculous once the US industrial machine got involved there was no way the Axis were going to win.

 

If the USSR collapses the USA will have to choose between raising the 150+ divisions needed to face the bulk of the German army and staffing the factories. There was a late war manpower shortage if the ETO even with the limited number of units raised.
I don't know a higher input of unskilled workers would have the same effect on production quality as it had in Germany but it's a possibility.

 

Well I can see that point. Of course like in the airforces after so many missions USAAF pilots were rotated back to the states. In Germany they just kept fighting. Furthermore the US could put the PTO on the backburner temporarily since Japan didn't really have the logistics to expand much farther.

 

I doubt that anything the Germans had technologically was going to make much of a difference in winning or losing the war for them. Most of the technological developments they made were only incremental to begin with. A better rifle isn't a war winner for them. Having the SG 43/44 earlier would have made nearly zero difference.
A better tank, the same.

Jets? The Allies had jets too and were about on the same timeline in developing them. The only real difference between theirs and the German efforts was the Germans had a lead in high speed aerodynamics that pushed them closer to the sound barrier than the Allies. Supersonic flight was not understood by either side during the war.
So, if the Germans get a jet in service sooner the Allies would have responed in kind in short order.

Rockets? The rocket plane was a failure. That is, the Me 163 (or the Soviet attempts at the same thing etc.) was completely impractical for all operational purposes. The Natter, likewise was more of a manned SAM than an aircraft and, again impractical.
Then the is the V 2. Had it proved more useful operationally (it cost about the same as an Me 110 to build one. It could be used once and delivered a 1000 kg payload about half the time onto a large city sized target to a range of about 250 miles.) the Allies might have had more impetus to copy it.
The US during the war gained enough intelligence from spying and salvaged parts to begin development of a similar, but greatly improved, system under the program MX 774. Their intent was to build a V-2-like rocket that could deliver an atomic bomb accurately. The result by 1947, the program being slowed and reduced in scope after the war, was a missile much like the V-2 that carried triple the payload to double the range. The main improvements were a new airframe that made the German one obsolete and beyond, and a new engine with a swivelling nozzle that greatly increased usable thrust.
The V-1? The US copied that 60 days after the first one was launched as the JB-2 / Loon missile. The USAAF had a plan in 1944 to launch 5000 per month on Germany and was gearing up production (Willy's Overland to build airframes, Ford Motor Company to build engines). Note, the Germans barely launched 5000 during the entire war. So, the US would have returned this technology to the Germans in spades and then some in short order.

The R4M? Not a war winner. Would it have helped? Probably.

What else? Radar? Gyro gunsights? Atom bomb? The Germans didn't even have a working reactor in 1945 and their one design would have been a complete failure.

Some that would have helped Germany but weren't in the cards:

Antibiotics like pennicilin. Saved alot of Allied soldier's lives. Germany had zero.
Mass production techniques. Not likely with the industrial structure in Germany at the time.
Shared program data: Much of the German research efforts were compartmentalized by developing company, branch of service, meddling by the military and political bureaucracy and, without much centralized control.
Standardization of components: The Allies made alot of effort to minimize the number of different types of stuff they manufactured. They also made a good effort to use the same parts in everything. The US for example had essentially one 2 1/2 ton truck design using the same engine, suspension, transmission, etc. The body style varied a bit but, the truck was essentially the same where it counted. The Germans never even made any real effort in this respect with their equipment.

The point here is that technology is rarely so biased towards one combatant that it alone is a war winner. For the Germans in WW 2 technology that they had was not going to win the war for them on its own.