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

Alright. So do you agree that better logistical technology would have made a difference?

But, if the US made a nuclear weapon in 1943, I think that by at least 1946-47, the Germans would have made their's.

All right. I agree that it would take more than 12 months for them to make a nuclear bomb.

I meant "until 1944" in the sense that before January 1944 they still could win. After that, only if they negotiated a armistice with the USSR or with the Western Allies.

Sure, by September 1944 the war was over. The chances of Germany wining at that time were zero.

Sure. German infatry divisions were never meant to be the spearhead of the army. Much more under the conditions of 1944, when they didn't have fuel and were outnumbered 3 to 1. But under good conditions, with air support and not outnumbered... well, thats another situation...

 

What you don't understand is that if the US develops the atomic bomb while Germany is still in the war, it's "game over" for Germany

After the US proved it possible, it took the Soviets four years to explode an atomic bomb and that was after they had stolen the plans, and nobody was bombing the hell out of them during those four years.

Even if a miracle happens and the US decides not to turn Germany into a nuclear desert, Germany has no chance of getting the bomb in any meaningful time frame.

 

In some areas, yes. But, it was areas that Germany virtually ignored. For example, Germany has virtually no modern heavy construction equipment in the country in 1939 their heavy construction machinery industry is next to non-existant. Yes, they have a handful of steam shovels and steam rollers (and I mean steam as in steam driven) that are ancient / obsolesent technology in 1939, and a small tractor industry building both tracked and wheeled tractors mainly for agriculture but little else.
The bulldozer is virtually unknown. There are no trenching machines, no backhoes, dump trucks are a rarety (yes, Open built a handful a year).
Logistically, they are the same. Industry is bound by the government bureaucracy, unions and, their own selfish desire to retain propriotary rights to monopolize certain industrial methods and technology. This isn't suddenly going to change.

That is assuming:

1. The US hasn't nuked them into surrender.
2. The US hasn't nuked the country into a smoldering rune.
3. The US hasn't nuked their nuclear development facilities having discovered where they are and wiped out their program.

Those are very BIG IF's. In three years the US might have dropped several dozen nukes on a resistant Germany. If say, the 10 largest cities in Germany ceased to exist what impact would that have on their war effort? If the US nuked the Ruhr from one end to the other?

It might take them decades depending on how things play out too.

No, in Jan 1944 the Germans were not going to win the war. There was nothing they could have done to change that situation. They were not going to kick the Western Allies out of Italy. They were not going to regain the strategic initiative on the Eastern Front. In fact, after July 1943 they were finished.

Most German infantry divisions in 1942 were incapable of decisive offensive action. Half or more of their army was capable of little more than static defense. This leaves them even in late 1942 with an effective offensive army numbering to just a few dozen divisions at most.

Fuel? Most German infantry divisions didn't have trucks! Well, they had a relative handful most of the time. Their artillery was mostly horse drawn. Their supply trains were horse drawn. Usually there were vehicles in the panzerjäger abteilung and signals unit and a few for higher ranked officers but that was about it.
Most divisions even in 1942 lacked their full complement of antitank guns with many units still soldiering on with obsolesent equipment like the 5cm or even 3.7 cm guns. Most had less than their full complement of artillery and many relied on captured pieces, some entirely. Signals equipment was in short supply. Many divisions had zero support tanks or assault guns. Even their manpower was often inferior. Infantry divisions usually got the bottom of the barrel for replacements. Units frequently had over-age men, those with minor medical problems (like stomach ulcers), returning veterans that had been wounded or suffered from combat fatuge / psychological problems and been "cured."
Their officers were almost always draftees or reservists with far less experiance and training than in the mobile divisions. Worse, they were often used as a source of replacements for first line divisions, seeing their best men, nco's and, officers drawn off in replacement drafts leaving them with a batch of new inferior recruits to deal with.
Even when the odds favored the Germans their infantry divisions proved incapable of acting effectively on the offensive, particularly against the US and British. This is true in North Africa. It is true in Italy. It is true in France.

 

If we are going to go the route of "what if earlier" how about what if the US hadn't ignored jets or Doctor Goddard's efforts in rocketry? You knw several of Goddard's patents were used in the German rocket program while jets were looked at by GE much earlier let's just have the uS government give both a little more support.

 

This is an excellent point.

By the 1930's, truly important advances in technology were almost always accomplished through international efforts; the atomic bomb is a good example. That meant that no single country was appreciably technologically advanced over other countries, certainly not Germany.

If one country emphasized research in one area, it soon became known to scientists and researchers in other countries. So if Germany had made early advances in say, jet propulsion, other countries which were working on the same technologies would soon know about it and put their research and development funds into the promising avenues of development.

Probably because Germany's economy, from 1933 on, was taking the form of a "command" economy, and because remained severely constrained by the abandonment of "market forces" and the aftermath of the international fiscal crises of 1931, Germany was actually somewhat behind in important military technologies in 1939-40. The myth that Germany was significantly ahead of the Western Allies in military research grew from the desperate search for "wonder weapons", beginning in 1943. This motivated some truly innovative thinking and developed some radical theories, but none were militarily feasible for Germany. The true leaders in technology development during World War II Britain and the US.

 

You betch'em Red Rider, not only Goddard's work was ignored in liquid fueled rockets by the US, von Braun teamed up with Goddard's widow to sue the organizations he was working for in the US for patent infringement. He should know, he was using Goddard's patents in his A-4/V-2 designs. He demonstrated that over 200 of Goddard's patents in rocketry were used by he and NACA and later NASA. The largest patent suit in history (to that time) was settled in 1960 with the government paying the Goddard estate $1,000,000.00.

And as long as we are granting that in the "what if", how about this one? In mid-1939 "Kelly" Johnson and Hall Hibbard had designed (on paper) a radical new jet aircraft which was closed off by the USAAF in 1940 and remained un-funded. The design was noticed by the USAAF, but at the time they showed no great interested in the idea of a jet powered fighter and missed the opportunity of giving the USA a lead in this new technology. Much like the RAF had ignored Whittle, and the Luftwaffe had dismissed the early Ohaim designs as "unnecessary".

With out the support (and money) of the USAAF work on the Johnson/Hibbard L-133 fighter and it's axial flow engine L-1000 came to a halt. It was a highly advanced design for the time, since the L-133 was designed around a canard configuration. Power was provided by a pair of Lockheed L-1000 axial flow turbojet engines, designed by Lockheed's Nathan Price, that were years ahead of any other jet engine and could have powered the L-133 to speeds in excess of 600 mph. Unfortunately, the L-133 and the L-1000 engines were simply too far ahead of their time and failed to attract funding from the USAAF staff who simply couldn't really grasp the technology involved and the advantages it would bring.

Had the USAAF been able to grasp the potential of these designs, the USA could have been been years ahead of any other country in the development of jet aircraft.

See:

Lockheed RF-80 Shooting Star

and:

L133

for Nathan Price

See:

Lockheed J37 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ah well, such is bureaucracy. This work did pay off later however, since when tasked with designing what would become the P-80 "Shooting Star" a great amount of the preliminary work had already been done. This allowed Lockheed and Johnson to deliver the first prototype in only 143 days. The time between being given the contract in June of 1943, and delivery in November.