I recon the germans had the best technolegy they made the first jet made the best tanks they even almost built an atomic bomb. Thank goodness they never got to use it.
You can put that down to their reputation for engineering, which they have kept up to this day. It was also a contributing factor to their downfall. Towards the end of the war they needed to produce more units, but instead drew from their resources to concentrate on development. R and R is important, one would have thought they would have concentrated on kicking out units. They spread themselves thin on the ground in this respect. Technology is no good if you can't produce enough units. Saying that a lot of their technological ideas have been picked up on and developed by other nations.
The Germans may have produced ground breaking equipment but they had neither the industrial infrastructure nor it would seem the foresight to use them. The Germans captured megatrons shortly after the use of H2s Radar but it took them years before they developed airborne decimetric radar for fighters Research and development was piecemeal and not as organised as say Britian. it took the arrival of Speer before a suitable industrial base was establish but this was too late in the war. They were still producing variants of equipment in 1945 that they had in 1939. Much of the German army still relied upon horse drawn transport
(morse1001 @ Feb 13 2006, 05:59 PM) [post=45801]The Germans may have produced ground breaking equipment but they had neither the industrial infrastructure nor it would seem the foresight to use them. The Germans captured megatrons shortly after the use of H2s Radar but it took them years before they developed airborne decimetric radar for fighters Research and development was piecemeal and not as organised as say Britian. it took the arrival of Speer before a suitable industrial base was establish but this was too late in the war. They were still producing variants of equipment in 1945 that they had in 1939. Much of the German army still relied upon horse drawn transport [/b] Hm good points. The Huns seem to be pretty shortsighted and unorganized in general and in specific. Actually they still lived in the stone age compared to the Brits. Thats probably why these Huns lost the war. I wonder why they were not finished after some 2 years without suitable industrial base until 1943. Why did it take 6 years to bring them into submission despite horse drawn transport technique. Actually unbelievable how fuddy-duddy these German scientists and military complex dreamed through the war.
The big problem the Germans faced with their scientific development during the war was that while they had great scientists and engineers, their leadership was anti-science. Theories by Jews were denied as being "Jewish physics" or "Jewish chemistry." Race was everything. The result was that there were at least three separate German atomic bomb programs, with one of them run by the German Post Office! Hostility to science came from the top. The Reich Minister of Education and Science was Dr. Bernhard Rust, a disbarred schoolteacher, who drank and spouted babble. Reich Labor Front Leader Robert Ley sneered at scientists, saying that he preferred road sweepers to biologists, as a biologist was proud if he discovered one microbe in a lifetime, while roadsweepers killed thousands of microbes every day. Hitler did not think atomic bombs would do anything but incinerate the atmosphere, and was not impressed by "wonder weapons" at all, except the idiotic ones Robert Ley suggested. He had no interest in the V-weapon program until Dornberger brought him a film of a successful V-2 test launch. Hitler then saw the propaganda value of the weapon, which was to him more important than its military value. The SS, Luftwaffe, Army, Post Office, Four-Year-Plan, and Armaments Ministry all fought over the weapons designs. Ultimately, the Germans tried to develop the weapons of the 1950s -- jet planes, cruise missiles, surface-to-air missiles, and use them well before they were ready. So they didn't work...the ME 262 jet engine had a 20-hour lifespan, for example. The Allies did not do as well with rockets and jets, but their scientific development was better organized and more successful, as radar, POZIT fuses, computers, and the atomic bomb attest.
</div><div class='quotemain'>the ME 262 jet engine had a 20-hour lifespan, for example. [/b] it was 10 hrs but that was caused by the fact that they did not have the proper heat resistant alloys for the turbine blades. Hitler had allocated the proper material to another project.
</div><div class='quotemain'>(place wrong buzzer sound here) The Germans if anything were over organized [/b] The evidence which comes from the Eastern Front and chronic shortage of material would disprove that. Also, in 1940, when for the Germans, war was coming to a close, Hitler either cancelled or put projects on a lower priority. in 1943, there was still a large scale production of domestic goods. It took the call for a total war before any real organisation was achieved in war production. As for the RandD side of things, Britian used to bring together specialists from all walks of life in order to solve problems. Take for example Radar, where there was close cooperation between Boffins and operational staff to achive aims. Better still, the effect that operational research had on Bomber command operations was amazing. Germany never had anything like that. Lets not forget also, that Hitlers mo was divide and rule which does not suggest good organisation.
The German armed forces were probably the best the world has ever seen. They wasted materials and man power on the V-weapons, the holocaust and other such folly. If Hitler had kept out of military decision making then who knows how far they could have come. They spent too much time on engineering perfection instead of making what they needed to get the job done.
(morse1001 @ Feb 14 2006, 11:18 AM) [post=45890]</div><div class='quotemain'>the ME 262 jet engine had a 20-hour lifespan, for example. [/b] it was 10 hrs but that was caused by the fact that they did not have the proper heat resistant alloys for the turbine blades. Hitler had allocated the proper material to another project. [/b] Some hung on to 20, but you're right, especially about the metallurgy problem.
