The German Secret Weapon Program

Discussion in 'General' started by Red_Marshal, Nov 14, 2006.

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  1. Red_Marshal

    Red_Marshal Junior Member

    I recently have become interested in the secret weapons unleashed by Nazi Germany during WWII. Given the horrendous losses in Russia and the continual bombing of Germany I believe the Germans deserve credit for revolutionary and advanced ideas such as the Me-262 and the V-1,V-2, and the never completed V-3. I have been wondering if Hitler had not intervened in either of these projects whether they could have played a more significant role in the war. Your first thought is no, the V bombs were inaccurate and did litte while the Me-262 had design flaws and limited production. But could not a V-4 or V-5 fixed with a one ton warhead reach the US? Or in larger quantities disrupt the vast concentrations of Soviet troops? Could the Overlord buildup have occured under the constant barrage of missiles? I have also been looking for info on Germany's Atomic Bomb project. Thanks for your input!
     
  2. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

    Welcome Red_Marshal.

    Hope we can help.
     
  3. BulgarianSoldier

    BulgarianSoldier Senior Member

    Does anyone hear about the Foo Fighter and the Tesla Gun ?
    Of course its sound unbalivable but the Foo Fighters looks like alian space ship.And this airplane can go with 2500 km and the most unbalivable part is that this airplane can go in the space.
    And the Tesla Gun is a weapon that shot electricaty.
    PS I love mystical things
     
  4. jacobtowne

    jacobtowne Senior Member

    But could not a V-4 or V-5 fixed with a one ton warhead reach the US? Or in larger quantities disrupt the vast concentrations of Soviet troops? Could the Overlord buildup have occured under the constant barrage of missiles? I have also been looking for info on Germany's Atomic Bomb project.

    Firing an inter-continental missile from Germany across the Atlantic to the U.S. and expecting to hit anything requires a sophisticated guidance system. Even given that system and hundreds of such rockets, they would not have affected the outcome of the war.

    Consider this: most American battleships were armed with nine 16-inch/50 caliber guns. Each gun fired a projectile weighing about one ton. These ships were used to support island assaults in the Pacific, and we know the effect they had on Japanese positions (which were, admittedly, entrenched and fortified).

    Perhaps better for Germany had they developed heavy bombers like the B-17 and Lancaster.

    JT
     
  5. Za Rodinu

    Za Rodinu Hot air manufacturer

    Quite frankly I find these debates on Nazi Super Weapons somewhat tiresome, it's almost wishing victory upon them. The super weapons they used had very limited success, they simply were unable to wring anything more out of them as they had no more resources. Besides with ever shrinking Reich borders, time for defeat was running short everyday.

    Time for victory was long gone already, the war had been lost in 1942. A few jet fighters more or less in 1945 weren't going to remove the Red Army from the Oder or the Yanks from the Ruhr, were they?
     
  6. lancesergeant

    lancesergeant Senior Member

    Fair comment Za, but necessity is the mother of invention and they came up with some interesting designs if not feasible because of lack of resources. If they had concentrated on their standard munition the war may have been prolonged by a few months. They had guided missiles on the Heinkel Grief with limited success. What's to say what would have happened if say surface to air missiles albeit in a primitive light were lined across the route to Berlin and other German cities.

    If anything they were channelling vital resources away from industry, in a way they were doing the Allies a favour. Maus super tank anyone!!!
     
  7. Red_Marshal

    Red_Marshal Junior Member

    Some good points here but I am simply saying if they had had the resources and time to develop the current weapons. I'm not wishing victory on the Nazis, I doubt that any German secret weapon short of nuking Moscow with Stalin and Molotov in it would have guaranteed them victory. Also ICBM launched from say, an occupied Azores or Iceland would have forced the US to spend a considerable amount of homeland security (9/11 anyone?) Americans are generally a soft people having never suffered occupation, devastation, or even the threat of these until the Cold War.
    Still no luck on the German Nuclear Weapon Program anyone know if they were even close? I know they had a heavy water plant in Norway up at Trondheim but thats about it.

    Also I have read somewhere that the Me-262 jet fighter was ready for production in early 1943. Are you saying that control of the airspace over Northern France wouldnt have prevented the Overlord landings? The post about the SAM's lining German cities is a good thought. A logical step from the V-1 weapons would have been SAMs. Also the argument could be made that in my counter factual Reich that without the need for advanced weaponry the Super Weapons wouldnt have been developed...
     
  8. Kyt

    Kyt Very Senior Member

    Still no luck on the German Nuclear Weapon Program anyone know if they were even close? I know they had a heavy water plant in Norway up at Trondheim but thats about it.



    Depends if you believe this:

    http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/18/6/3
     
  9. Za Rodinu

    Za Rodinu Hot air manufacturer

    ...I doubt that any German secret weapon short of nuking Moscow with Stalin and Molotov in it would have guaranteed them victory.

    Yes, possibly. But let's put things in perspective; while the German scientists are dreaming these rosy dreams of Reich supremacy, the Allies were simply feeling no great need to nuke any German city as they were already reducing them all to ashes with a round-the-clock bombing campaign. Why bother with nukes?

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    Also ICBM launched from say, an occupied Azores or Iceland would have forced the US to spend a considerable amount of homeland security (9/11 anyone?)

    And how do you get to the Azores or Iceland in the first place? And when before Hitler commits suicide will Germany have a workable missile with range enough? The industrial giants of the time, USA and URSS took a decade of frustration to get to that stage. And no, US wouldn't do anything about Homeland Security which is only internal affairs, they would launch an island invasion something about which I'm sure they had acquired some expertise in another ocean.

    Americans are generally a soft people having never suffered occupation, devastation, or even the threat of these until the Cold War.

    I'm sure the yanks in this forum will love to know they are a bunch of softies :D

    Also I have read somewhere that the Me-262 jet fighter was ready for production in early 1943. Are you saying that control of the airspace over Northern France wouldnt have prevented the Overlord landings?

    Dreaming again. What control of the airspace? Weren't Allied fighters used to employ the correct tactics of loitering around the 262 bases and catch them low on fuel. Every measure has a counter-measure. What historically happened (that is: not a dream but real life) was that the Luftwaffe managed to put up two fighter sorties that achieved nothing over the beaches when invasion occurred. Sorry, control of the airspace was on the other side.
     
  10. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    Originally Posted by Red_Marshal
    Also ICBM launched from say, an occupied Azores or Iceland

    I think they Allied trops on Iceland would have had someting to say about that.
     
  11. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

    And as we now know, there were UK/US air bases on the Azores from 1943.
     
  12. Za Rodinu

    Za Rodinu Hot air manufacturer

    Not to mention the dozen Curtiss H-75s the rightful owners had there too :D
     
  13. Gerard

    Gerard Seelow/Prora

    I think that stories about firing Missiles from Azores or Iceland are fanciful at best!!! The secret Weapons program couldnt have made a difference unless the Reich could have produced the Bomb. The americans had the bomb and were not afraid to use it. Me262's are fine aircraft as are Arado 234 but they also had serious drawbacks not least of which was the scarcity of fuel. Great aircraft are nothing without trained pilots. So if we are going to hypothesise then not only do we have to imagine that Germany can produce them, we then have to imagine that the fuel resources were still there which means that we have to imagine that the US didnt bomb the Oil production facilities in the Reich............................. How much fantasising do we have to do??
     
  14. jacobtowne

    jacobtowne Senior Member

    Americans are generally a soft people having never suffered occupation, devastation, or even the threat of these until the Cold War.

    Perhaps. At least Hitler and his alter ego in Tokyo had convinced themselves of this, hadn't they.
    The U.S. Marines who fought at Iwo Jima were real softies - touchy-feely guys.:)

    As I recall, there was a bit of devastation here during our Civil War - Shenandoah Valley, Richmond, Atlanta, to name a few examples.

    JT
     
  15. Gerard

    Gerard Seelow/Prora

    And to back up Jacob's post, you can keep your Georgi Zhukov, Montgomery or Patton, Stonewall Jackson was a ruthless and Brilliant General, possibly one of the greatest of all time.
     
  16. jacobtowne

    jacobtowne Senior Member

    Not to belabor the point, but we sometimes forget that the Americans who fought WWII, having grown up during the Great Depression, were relatively inured to privation and hardship.

    Today's Yanks? Well, I'll be the first to admit that we're a bit spoilt.

    JT
     
  17. lancesergeant

    lancesergeant Senior Member

    Also perhaps labouring a point, only ten years previous there was the Wall Street crash, and reading or seeing any of John Steinbeck's work, would agree it wasn't exactly holiday on ice!! While perhaps not the frozen Steppes or Siberia, it wasn't the soft life portrayed by some elements.
     
  18. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

  19. jacobtowne

    jacobtowne Senior Member

    To return to Red Marshal's original topic, here's an entry from Marie Vassiltchikov's Berlin Diaries. The year is 1945, the location Gmunden in the Tyrol.

    Friday, 20 April Adolph's birthday. A ridiculous speech by Goebbels: "The Führer is within each of us and each of us is within him!" ...He added that to rebuild all that had been destroyed would be no problem. Meanwhile, the Allies are advancing on all sides and the air-raid warnings last all day. [The colonel's wife] is convinced that Germany has a secret weapon that will be used at the last minute.

    JT
     
  20. lancesergeant

    lancesergeant Senior Member

    They recently salvaged some of the drums/canisters of heavy water from the fjord near Ryukan. On the ships cargo list after examination it was said that there was no way near enough for use in production of atomic weapons.

    At the war's end the Allies found an underground location believe to be the site of the German nuclear research. It was commented that the Germans were miles from the rudiments of a nuclear device and were off track.

    I don't think that the atomic bomb would have been used if the war had dragged on. With nuclear fall out Europe would be polluted for years to come and adjoining nations would get this. If the Germans had, had this weapon I believe that Hitler would have used it to lash out as a final act of defiance at the Russians. Saying that, at the end Hitlers said that the German nation didn't deserve to survive - he might have detonated it in Germany itself. You'll have Germany but it will be useless to you - a radioactive wasteland.
     

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