WW2 Weapons Platforms: What accomplished the most with the least?

[Valmy]

The divebombers were generally terrible planes that never saw action before or after the war but had a pretty big impact during it despite their deficiencies.

So I vote the divebomber poster child: the Stuka.

[PDH]

Probably already mentioned, but the Czech 38 tank.  In service as a tank until 42 at least, served as a platform for AT, artillery...hell the Swiss used Hetzers after the war...

It was good enough at the start, outclassed by 41, but still plugged along.

[Zanza]

What about the MG42? It's a very simple piece of technology and was so good that it is still in use with minor modifications almost 70 years later.

[Berkut]

The MG42 is not that simple a piece of technology - it was the most advanced and effective MG of the war. It accomplished a lot, but hardly with the least.

[Neil]

Compared to it's effect on history, the amount of effort and material put into the atom bomb was negligable.  I mean, when you think about it, the atom bomb brought the trends of the previous 200 years to a screeching halt.

[The Brain]

Compared to it's effect on history, the amount of effort and material put into the atom bomb was negligable.

Which is your first language?

[Neil]

Compared to it's effect on history, the amount of effort and material put into the atom bomb was negligable.

Which is your first language?

French.

[The Brain]

Compared to it's effect on history, the amount of effort and material put into the atom bomb was negligable.

Which is your first language?

French.

I don't speak French.

[Neil]

Compared to it's effect on history, the amount of effort and material put into the atom bomb was negligable.

Which is your first language?

French.

I don't speak French.

That's too bad.  It's a fine language, if totally outdated.  It's sort of like how kids used to get educated in Greek and Latin.

[Razgovory]

I dunno it took alot of people, time, and money to put together the atomic bomb.

[Kleves]

It cost about $2 billion, IIRC.

[Habbaku]

It cost about $2 billion, IIRC.

Inflation-adjusted?

[Neil]

I dunno it took alot of people, time, and money to put together the atomic bomb.

Indeed, but it had as much of a military, social and economic effect as the rest of the war combined.  Everything else was just a bunch of toys.  The atom bomb was history, and the only achievements that can match it are the development of gunpowder, the forging of metal and the invention of agriculture.  And maybe the steam engine.

[grumbler]

The divebombers were generally terrible planes that never saw action before or after the war but had a pretty big impact during it despite their deficiencies.

So I vote the divebomber poster child: the Stuka.

Actually, the Stuka would be high on my list of "did the least with the most."

Dive bombers were significant in naval warfare for quite a while, but in land warfare they were obsolescent by 1941.

[Neil]

The divebombers were generally terrible planes that never saw action before or after the war but had a pretty big impact during it despite their deficiencies.

So I vote the divebomber poster child: the Stuka.

Actually, the Stuka would be high on my list of "did the least with the most."

Dive bombers were significant in naval warfare for quite a while, but in land warfare they were obsolescent by 1941.

Did the Stuka see all that much action later on?  I know it was rather useful earlier on, but I was under the impression that they got massacred at Dunkirk, and anywhere on the Eastern Front where there was any kind of air cover, and that by the mid-war period, they were pretty much gone.

Of course, up until the guided missile came along, the dive bomber was the ultimate weapon in naval warfare.  Except for the dreadnought battleship, of course.