Game Changing Weapons of the Third Reich

[katmai]

The answer is:  A good dreadnought battleship.

[grumbler]

The problem, of course, is that a Third Reich wihch could mass produce this is so unlike our Third Reich that I really don't know what kind of state it's in.

That would be the historical Third Reich of 1943.  There was nothing magially difficult about mass-producing the Me-262, and it in fact used fuel that was less refined than that of the piston aircraft it would have replaced in production.

[CountDeMoney]

Game changing? Whatever moves the CRT to the right.

That would be the Me-262.  Arguing that the Germans increased production without it isn't the same as arguing that they couldn't have increased production even more with it employed a year earlier (when the allied bombers were not escorted all the way to the target with any serious numbers of fighters).

Or, if Hitler had envisioned, the Ardennes Offensive met all its strategic objectives which, as Max Hastings would say, was to buy time for the Me262's ramped up production to equalize the air war.

[mongers]

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 ? 

[grumbler]

A) The Sg-44 if introduced at D-Day/Bagration would have had negligible effects on the course of the war. It would have killed a few more russians and WAllies. 

agree

B) Me-262 had little if no effect when it came in 1945. Had in arrived a year earlier that would still have been one year after the destruction of the Luftwaffe in 1943. Not to mention that the allies had not pushed their own jet fighters, preferring their own reliable piston fighters. Arriving one. year earlier it would have forced the allies to produce Gloucester Meteors instead of P-51s

Disagree.  The Me-262 in 1943 would have been devastating to the daylight bomber offensive, and the Meteor would have been helpless to intervene, being too short-ranged to escort bombers to the targets. I think this would have been game-changing, but not ultimately war-changing.

C) Type XXI U Boats. For the most part they arrived in 1945. By 1944 the Battle of the Atlantic had been lost for a full year already.  A better sub would not really have helped much since the battle of the atlantic was won by Bletchley Park, not by the North West Approaches Command of the RN.

Disagree.  No one at Blenchl;ey Park sunk a single U-boat, and their efforts would have been ineffective against U-boats that didn't need wolfpack tactics to be effective against convoys.  My reservation is that allied production was so dominant in this period that the additional losses could simply have been absorbed.

D) Panzerfaust. Again, they arrive in numbers in 1945. And if they had arrived in 1944 they would still have arrived a full year after the war was lost. It would just have meant more losses for the ruskis and WAllies before the end of the war.

Agree

E) The Pz-5 _ Whatever type. Had they arrived in 1942 the outcome might have been affected. BUT (note the all caps) in 1942 the germans had little problems defeating russian armour, the Pz-4 variants were still sufficient for the task at hand (defeating T-34 with russian tactics with Pz-4s with german tactics). What really could have made an effect on the war was that if in 1943 the Germans start with Pz-5 with one full year of field testing AND in sufficient numbers to start the Battle of Kursk mid summer rather than AFTER the Russians have two months to prepare defenses.

Agree, but think this would just have resulted in a Germancollapse later and in a different place.  The Germans would still have lost the Battle of Kursk, just not so disastrously.

[grumbler]

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 ?

True, but this wouldn't have changed by an earlier introduction.  The tech to make a reliable jet fighter simply was unavailable to any of the combatants.  The unreliable 262 would still have been preferable to an equal number of reliable Fw-190s, simply because the design was so much more capable.

[katmai]

B) Me-262 had little if no effect when it came in 1945. Had in arrived a year earlier that would still have been one year after the destruction of the Luftwaffe in 1943. Not to mention that the allies had not pushed their own jet fighters, preferring their own reliable piston fighters. Arriving one. year earlier it would have forced the allies to produce Gloucester Meteors instead of P-51s

Disagree.  The Me-262 in 1943 would have been devastating to the daylight bomber offensive, and the Meteor would have been helpless to intervene, being too short-ranged to escort bombers to the targets. I think this would have been game-changing, but not ultimately war-changing.

But really aren't you agreeing with him since he is talking about the 262 in '44, not two years early and in service in '43

[Neil]

The answer is:  A good dreadnought battleship.

Fritz-X vs Dreadnought still results in a 1-0 to the Fritz-X

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_battleship_Roma_(1940)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_X

Wrong.  All sorts of ships survived the Fritz X, and the bomb missed as well.  And the one success was against a surrendered Italian ship.

[jimmy olsen]

B) Me-262 had little if no effect when it came in 1945. Had in arrived a year earlier that would still have been one year after the destruction of the Luftwaffe in 1943. Not to mention that the allies had not pushed their own jet fighters, preferring their own reliable piston fighters. Arriving one. year earlier it would have forced the allies to produce Gloucester Meteors instead of P-51s

Disagree.  The Me-262 in 1943 would have been devastating to the daylight bomber offensive, and the Meteor would have been helpless to intervene, being too short-ranged to escort bombers to the targets. I think this would have been game-changing, but not ultimately war-changing.

But really aren't you agreeing with him since he is talking about the 262 in '44, not two years early and in service in '43

We're talking about introducing it in fall of '43.

First combat Sept 44
http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/LRG/me262.html

19 Allied planes shot down in August
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262#Operational_history

An operational fighter squadron, the "Kommando Nowotny", was established out of Erprobungskommando 262 in September 1944, under experienced ace Major Walter Nowotny. Kommando Nowotny became operational on 3 October.
http://www.vectorsite.net/avme262.html#m5

[katmai]

B) Me-262 had little if no effect when it came in 1945. Had in arrived a year earlier that would still have been one year after the destruction of the Luftwaffe in 1943. Not to mention that the allies had not pushed their own jet fighters, preferring their own reliable piston fighters. Arriving one. year earlier it would have forced the allies to produce Gloucester Meteors instead of P-51s

Disagree.  The Me-262 in 1943 would have been devastating to the daylight bomber offensive, and the Meteor would have been helpless to intervene, being too short-ranged to escort bombers to the targets. I think this would have been game-changing, but not ultimately war-changing.

But really aren't you agreeing with him since he is talking about the 262 in '44, not two years early and in service in '43

We're talking about introducing it in fall of '43.

First combat Sept 44
http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/LRG/me262.html

19 Allied planes shot down in August
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262#Operational_history

An operational fighter squadron, the "Kommando Nowotny", was established out of Erprobungskommando 262 in September 1944, under experienced ace Major Walter Nowotny. Kommando Nowotny became operational on 3 October.
http://www.vectorsite.net/avme262.html#m5

It wasn't introduced in full numbers (enough to field a full squadron) till Jan '45. 

[Faeelin]

The problem, of course, is that a Third Reich wihch could mass produce this is so unlike our Third Reich that I really don't know what kind of state it's in.

That would be the historical Third Reich of 1943.  There was nothing magially difficult about mass-producing the Me-262, and it in fact used fuel that was less refined than that of the piston aircraft it would have replaced in production.

I guess my objection is that it presupposes that the Allies don't bust out the Meteor by the thousands, that the Germans find the raw materials to produce teh alloyws they need, that nobody in the west notices that the Germans are getting ready to roll out thousands of jets, etc.

[grumbler]

But really aren't you agreeing with him since he is talking about the 262 in '44, not two years early and in service in '43

Since the bird entered service in April 1944, that would put hypothetical IOC in 1943, right?

The Luftwaffe accepted its 300th Me-262 in October, 1944.  If that had been October, 1943, things may well have been very different for the Allied Bomber Offensive.

[Razgovory]

The Mark 1 German Fanboi.  Though heavy and difficult to move it is only such weapons still attaking Allied armor and planes to this day.

[grumbler]

It wasn't introduced in full numbers (enough to field a full squadron) till Jan '45. 

that would be... incorrect. 

Numbers were there, but the desire to form all-jet squadrons was not, for obvious reasons (like mutual support).

[grumbler]

The Mark 1 German Fanboi.  Though heavy and difficult to move it is only such weapons still attaking Allied armor and planes to this day.

Can you send some of the drugs that induced this post to the rest of us, so we can understand it?