German engineering

Germany is often critisized (by historians) for over-engineering its equipment. Much of its equipment was considered the best of all the nations when it was working correctly, but that was the rub; the highly engineered stuff also required the most maintenance. At which point do you think Germany pushed the designs of their equipment further than it proved useful?

For me, the Tiger II comes instantly to mind, and possibly the Tiger I. They were far too hard to maintain, and the cost in man-hours and material to manufacture them could have been spent better elsewhere.

For that matter, what equipment from any nation was over-engineered?

 

They were already there decades before with the Luger pistol.

It isn't just in military equipment; in some cases it runs right through their engineering philosophy. I can remember 'Anglicising' some German tooling drawings at one place I worked at. I found I could reduce the number of components by 30% in some cases, and radically simplify many of those remaining. National trait; belt, braces and a piece of string, whether it really matters or not - I'm half German myself, so I feel entitled to make the comment.

Regards,
MikB

 

No takers? Hah!

Let's try this one, then:- I remember reading in Speer's book that after the severe mauling the USAAF took at the Schweinfurt raid (IIRC) Goering took Speer to inspect a downed US aircraft, saying something like: "The really distressing thing about this aeroplane is its quality...", pointing out features of the plane to him.

Does this mean that Germany's leaders had lost confidence in their own engineering, or was Goering just looking to set up future excuses for failure?

Regards,
MikB

 

That was one of the factors in the delay of the ME 262...they had all kinds of trouble with the metallurgy. And the engines had a life-span of 20 hours.

There were problems with the Panther, too.

 

No takers? Hah!

Let's try this one, then:- I remember reading in Speer's book that after the severe mauling the USAAF took at the Schweinfurt raid (IIRC) Goering took Speer to inspect a downed US aircraft, saying something like: "The really distressing thing about this aeroplane is its quality...", pointing out features of the plane to him.

Does this mean that Germany's leaders had lost confidence in their own engineering, or was Goering just looking to set up future excuses for failure?

Regards,
MikB

They had probably gotten so used to the crudeness of Soviet made equipment that it was distressing to know that they were now falling behind in quality as well as quantity.

 

Well, they'd known that the fighting quality of Soviet equipment was not to be trifled with since the first time they met T34s, KVs, YAKs and Sturmoviks.

Back to the overengineering theme. Perhaps the British experiment with duplex pistols for torpedo detonation was an example - the (fortunately) failed FAA attack on HMS Sheffield. The difference there was that the technological mistake could be rapidly reversed out and proven systems substituted. If the whole torpedo'd been designed around magnetic detonation....

Despite the large size and engineering complexity of their bigger tanks, I'm surprised the Germans never used gun stabilisers in quantity. Many a Sherman crew must have had reason to be grateful for these, coupled with the rapid turret traverse - two of the best things this tank had going for it.

Regards,
MikB

 

There may have been a few overengineered projects, like the Tiger, but overall the German tech was both advanced and reliable. The Messerschmidt would have been of far more worth if Hitler hadn't used them as bombers. That was a decision that was so utterly ridiculous that you would swear he was committing an act of sabotage against his own Luftwaffe. Those were dogfighters. People often say the Messerschmidt was an example of over engineering, in the sense that they could've just made a prop plane like the p-51 blah blah blah. Nonsense. If the messerschmidts were all used for their designed purpose, they would have had enough to repel the overwhelming numbers of p-51s. We got real lucky on that and a number of other things. That war could've turned in the other direction so easily so many times.

A book that really describes the German technological dominance in WWII is Rick Friar's The Keepers. Its a sci fi that references WWII to show how WWIII transpires, with Germany once again creating revolutionary tech

 

I recall a saying from (I think) R.V Jones' "Wizard War" where he talks about the development of technology to counterract the German navigational beam system for the accurate targetting of British cities.
The British scientists worked on the "second best today" model and I believe this shows the difference between the German & British mentalities during WW2. The Germans always striving to produce a well-engineered and finished product before putting it into service, while the British looked for something serviceable that could be employed immediately.
This philosophy could be applied to almost everything the Germans did. The end product was superior but came too late and in too few numbers (Me262 etc.) to seriously influence the outcome of the war.
Pete

Before someone jumps down my throat, yes, I know the development of the Me262 was delayed by AH who wanted it to perform a bomber role.

 

German technological innovations during world war 2. Like a list of them! First let me say that all of the drawings that I used during the 60s were from British aviation companies now long gone. never once did i see a 'a what if' on any of them. There appears to be a lot of nonsense about why this or that happened. Several of the real hi tech innovations that we utilized were in fact pre war inventions in early stages of development. Here we get two schools of thought one from the inventing engineers claim war drives innovation, whereas the design and production engineer says it stifles advancement. The idea germinates and they liaise with designers they liaise with the production team and they come up with a pre production idea for a prototype, the ministry of supply say no to resources needed elsewhere , slowly the design goes through the stages until it reaches test phase and eventually is listed for production, hundreds of jigs and fixtures had to be produced tooling made and purchased now your new Meteor is ready for mass production. The front line squadrons want more Spitfires and the big Hawker ground attack aircraft, going to the ministry of supply and telling them that you have this new world beater and would you please start converting production lines over to our new design! Some enlightened souls did but we continued building well proven but obsolete designs, cost and needs must. Not lack of innovation just plain old reality. It would appear that in Germany reality was suspended in trying to appease a maniac with the latest best design. I would also take issue with the Me 262 -point, along with Gloster's Meteor a design of about the same time for reason given we certainly did not rush it into second best. I would also dispute it's claim to superiority on what, engine life, maintenance will it fly when I want it to? I can suspend my engineering eye and see the beauty of the 'Flying Scotsman' in full steam,the engineer in me says look at all that energy (heat) being lost from the beautiful engine. A war winner? - certainly high up on the list which the Americans were happy to receive from British designers - the cavity magnetron - radar, unspectacular as often great things are.


In Memory of Joseph Whitworth the father of repeatable precision measuring. The Whitworth screw thread system. Look through the world patents and see from whence innovation came.


The words of a sporting hero of mine - Geoffrey Boycott, when asked if the game England played that day was elegant, T'elegant lad, ne'er mind bluddy elegant whats t' score sheet say?

 

Concerning the first post, I think the comparison is unfair. The P-51 was a beautifully engineered airplane containing some very advanced features.

Looking Wiki up,

The design, known as the NA-73X, followed the best conventional practice of the era, but included several new features. One was a wing designed using laminar flow airfoils, known as the NAA/NACA 45-100 series, which were developed co-operatively by North American Aviation and NACA. These airfoils generated very low drag at high speeds.[9][10] During the development of the NA-73X, a wind tunnel test of two wings, one using NACA 5-digit airfoils and the other using the new NAA/NACA 45-100 airfoils, was performed in the University of Washington Kirsten Wind Tunnel. The results of this test showed the superiority of the wing designed with the NAA/NACA 45-100 airfoils.[11] The other feature was a new radiator design that exploited the "Meredith Effect", in which heated air exited the radiator as a form of jet thrust. Because NAA lacked a suitable wind tunnel to test this feature, it used the GALCIT 10 ft (3.0 m) wind tunnel at Caltech. This led to some controversy over whether the Mustang's cooling system aerodynamics were developed by NAA's engineer Edgar Schmued or by Curtiss, although NAA had purchased the complete set of P-40 and XP-46 wind tunnel data and flight test reports for US$56,000.[12] The NA-73X was also one of the first aircraft to have a fuselage lofted mathematically using conics. This resulted in the aircraft's fuselage having smooth, low drag, surfaces.[13][14]
You couldn't have a fighter with such a success story if it wasn't a very good engineering design. It isn't it's fault if it was produced in large numbers, which also attests to the attention given to production engineering as well.

 

Perfect example! Pre war at the Royal Aircraft Establishment one Fred Meredith was pondering on 'parasite drag' The speed of an aircraft is not just power it is also down to a rule - the frontal area rule. The cleaner the frontal area (along with laminar flow) the faster an aircraft will proceed for a given power. Anything projecting out into the flow is hindering forward movement - 'parasite drag' put your hand into air flow and you can feel the resistance hold your hand horizontal and then vertical this gives low and high drag profiles. Fred was looking at the radiator. Mitchell on the racing S series had oil cooler pipes along the fuselage and radiators in decking to reduce drag. Look at the big radiator duct on a Hurricane. Fred realised that cold air was entering the ducting cooling the rad and exiting the ducting as warmer air. Warm air expands so if he reduced the ducting profile behind the heat source thus constricting expanding warm air it would increase it's velocity and produce thrust in turn reducing any parasite drag effect of the radiator - the P51 used this principle. Not many will have heard of Fred , many a pilot would probably wish to thank him an extra few knots often helped.

 

For me, the Tiger II comes instantly to mind, and possibly the Tiger I

I'm glad this thread got a bump. I hadn't seen it before.

I'd say the Tiger I went way beyond 'over engineered' to 'just plain stupid'

The inter-levered road wheels were a nightmare. To remove an inner wheel, it and three other wheels had to be removed on the side that it was on plus the four wheels on the opposite side to uncover the bolts for the bearing seat for the torson bar of the damaged wheel. :p


Dave

 

I'm glad this thread got a bump. I hadn't seen it before.

I'd say the Tiger I went way beyond 'over engineered' to 'just plain stupid'

The inter-levered road wheels were a nightmare. To remove an inner wheel, it and three other wheels had to be removed on the side that it was on plus the four wheels on the opposite side to uncover the bolts for the bearing seat for the torson bar of the damaged wheel. :p

Dave

Some lessons are difficult to learn.

I was reminded of the 'German engineering' topic when my neighbour's battery died. So, in very cold weather, with the snow falling heavily, we extricated the rear seat from his Audi and had to lay it across the roof. We then dragged dirty booster cables over his upholstery in order to boost the centre mounted battery under the rear seat.

He argued that this 'brilliant' setup was apparently meant to provide even weight distribution.

 

Ergonomics - I remember a lecturer talking of the British inability to make life easy for pilots. something along the lines of praising Boeing for providing an ashtray in a B17- to the cockpit of a Spitfire. The Spitfire on take off, left or right rudder depending on engine type (they ran in clock and anti clockwise) left hand on throttle/CSU right hand on control column - once airborne, left hand off throttle to recover stick from right hand which has to operate the gear up lever on the right hand side of the cockpit once completed the right hand recovers whilst the left hand returns to the throttle/CSU. What could be easier.

 

The 262 production was not delayed because of their misappropriation as a bomber. There were enough planes. They were just misused. And on the issue of even the Tiger being an inferior machine supposedly. Any WWII American tank commander would've rather been in a Tiger than a Sherman. And so would any of us if we could transport back to Normandy 1944. It took 4 Shermans often to beat one Tiger. The Germans were not able to produce enough Tigers, not because of overengineering, but rather because they had been fighting with the superpowers of Europe, including the Apocalyptic Eastern Front battles, for three to five years. They were a tiny country with little natural resources goin up against the largest empires in the world. If America had not joined in they surely would've won. And you don't think their tech had anything to do with that? Then we did we scramble to nab as many German scientists and engineers as possible after the war before the Soviets got them?

 

I have to say something real quick about the Audi comment. That comment reflects the fundamental difference between how Germans think and how most of the world does. They work to create powerful yet safe, well-balanced cars that are capable of precision maneuvering even at autobahn speeds, and you're pissed because the battery is not in the most convenient way to jumpstart it. And you don't care that the placement of the battery makes the car safer, because your dirty cable soils the upholstery. Well you know what, they probably wouldn't have such dirty cables.

 

... The Germans were not able to produce enough Tigers, not because of overengineering, but rather because they had been fighting with the superpowers of Europe, including the Apocalyptic Eastern Front battles, for three to five years. They were a tiny country with little natural resources goin up against the largest empires in the world. ...
Assuming "they" were good engineers (whatever that means), then your own words damn "them" as very bad strategists. As the joke goes, what nation managed to start two world wars to go and lose both?

 

The 262 production was not delayed because of their misappropriation as a bomber. There were enough planes. They were just misused. And on the issue of even the Tiger being an inferior machine supposedly. Any WWII American tank commander would've rather been in a Tiger than a Sherman. And so would any of us if we could transport back to Normandy 1944. It took 4 Shermans often to beat one Tiger. The Germans were not able to produce enough Tigers, not because of overengineering, but rather because they had been fighting with the superpowers of Europe, including the Apocalyptic Eastern Front battles, for three to five years. They were a tiny country with little natural resources goin up against the largest empires in the world. If America had not joined in they surely would've won. And you don't think their tech had anything to do with that? Then we did we scramble to nab as many German scientists and engineers as possible after the war before the Soviets got them?

Please inform me when Elvis arrives.

 

. As the joke goes, what nation managed to start two world wars to go and lose both?

On two fronts twice

And a lot of their top engineers and scientists were Jewish. How'd that work out?