Game Changing Weapons of the Third Reich

[jimmy olsen]

300 me-262 fighters? i don't think so.

Really?  On what date do you fix the delivery of the 300th Me-262 fighter?

Well considering from all reports of what i 've read the Hitler was still gungho on them as bomber till Oct '44 when the Arado 234 was shown to be a real Jet bomber, i'd say the 354 Me-262's delivered by end of Oct were  primarly delivered as...wait for it.... bombers.

Well obviously were speculating an early introduction as fighters so I don't see why that matters.

[katmai]

I believe a dreadnought being obsolete in WWII yes.

They're still morally superior.

A lot of good that does them at bottom of the ocean. 

[katmai]

... my question is 300 of them operational in Oct '44 which is Grumblers contention.

That isn't my contention, but go ahead and tell us when the 300th ME-262 fighter was delivered.  Are you going to argue for November 1944, or December 1944?

Ah the good old gumbler gambit

[Neil]

I believe a dreadnought being obsolete in WWII yes.

They're still morally superior.

A lot of good that does them at bottom of the ocean. 

They don't end up at the bottom of the ocean.  Out of the 82 dreadnought warships that served the seven main powers of the war, only 20 were lost to enemy action.

[Josquius]

I thought one of the key problems with the 262 were the engines, specifically low quality turbine blades, which iirc fed off the problem of not having sufficient alloying metals. Weren't the engineering of the blades themselves not much cop either ? 

Yep.
Increasing production of the me 262 may not even have been possible, they were already scraping the bottom of the barrel in materials with what they did make.
The Nazi-tech fanboys may love the 262 but it was pretty crappy in the real world, it could only fly for half an hour or so at a time and maintainance was a bitch. The meteor was far better.

And of course the Germans don't exist in a vacuum. If they decide to put more effort into jet fighters earlier then the British too would step up their jet fighter project.

[katmai]

They don't end up at the bottom of the ocean.  Out of the 82 dreadnought warships that served the seven main powers of the war, only 20 were lost to enemy action.

[Neil]

And of course the Germans don't exist in a vacuum. If they decide to put more effort into jet fighters earlier then the British too would step up their jet fighter project.

Yeah, but that's irrelevant, as British jets can't escort Allied bombers over Germany.

[Neil]

They don't end up at the bottom of the ocean.  Out of the 82 dreadnought warships that served the seven main powers of the war, only 20 were lost to enemy action.

I'll take that as your surrender.  Victory belongs to me, and through me, to dreadnoughts.

[katmai]

I'll take that as your surrender.  Victory belongs to me, and through me, to dreadnoughts.

Yeah as they were such a "game changing" force in WW2.

[Josquius]

And of course the Germans don't exist in a vacuum. If they decide to put more effort into jet fighters earlier then the British too would step up their jet fighter project.

Yeah, but that's irrelevant, as British jets can't escort Allied bombers over Germany.

True.
I guess then it becomes the grand old question of whether the strategic bombing campaign was worthwhile or not.
Would make for a interesting scenario to assume jet interceptors active from the start of the war- neither side can really bomb each other too effectivly.

[alfred russel]

You all know more about WWII than me, but to really turn things around for Germany, wouldn't there have had to be success on the Eastern Front? 300 jet fighters after Stalingrad seems unlikely to change the course of the war.

Had Germany defeated the Soviets quickly, they could have had the manpower to prevent a successful invasion of Europe. I don't know if jets could have turned the tide in the east, but fully mobilizing at the start of the war would have given Germany a better chance.

[Neil]

I'll take that as your surrender.  Victory belongs to me, and through me, to dreadnoughts.

Yeah as they were such a "game changing" force in WW2.

Out of those 82 dreadnoughts, 49 of them belonged to the USA and UK, who won the war.

Why did the Axis lose?  Because out of the two full-time Axis powers, they only had 16 dreadnoughts, and only one of them survived the war.

Not just a coincidence.

[Neil]

(why aren't there more threads along the lines of which Allied weapon if introduced earlier might have significantly shortened/affected the outcome of the war? )

Because that one is easy:  The atom bomb.

[katmai]

I'll take that as your surrender.  Victory belongs to me, and through me, to dreadnoughts.

Yeah as they were such a "game changing" force in WW2.

Out of those 82 dreadnoughts, 49 of them belonged to the USA and UK, who won the war.

Why did the Axis lose?  Because out of the two full-time Axis powers, they only had 16 dreadnoughts, and only one of them survived the war.

Not just a coincidence.

What was ratios of carriers for USA/UK vs Axis powers?

[Neil]

I'll take that as your surrender.  Victory belongs to me, and through me, to dreadnoughts.

Yeah as they were such a "game changing" force in WW2.

Out of those 82 dreadnoughts, 49 of them belonged to the USA and UK, who won the war.

Why did the Axis lose?  Because out of the two full-time Axis powers, they only had 16 dreadnoughts, and only one of them survived the war.

Not just a coincidence.

What was ratios of carriers for USA/UK vs Axis powers?

Fleet carriers were 40 to 11.  However, carriers lack the fleet-enhancing powers of dreadnoughts.