Quote:
|
Originally Posted by DerAdlerIstGelandet And that all comes down to time though. The US scientists had time to conduct tests and properly put out the best product they could, the German scientists were always on a short string having to develop at the shortest posible time. This was because Hitler wanted output, he wanted to see finished products in a matter of no time, which was a major downfall. Also the fact that the Germans were fighting a losing battle did not help the fact. I will agree with you on most of what you posted there. |
I disagree. The Germans started war level R&D in about 1935, they had 10 years to develop war technology. The USA did not get serious about such R&D until 1942, giving them just 3.5 years of development time.
Take the Jet programs for instance. The German jet program began in 1937 and generated their first flying jet, the He178, first flew on August 27, 1939. The Junkers company had been working on jet turbines as early as 1936 and had a prototype in 1938. Messerschmitt started work on project 1065 in 1938 and submitted the Me262 proposal to the RLM in May 1940. And on July 18, 1942 the first prototype (the -V3) flew. It was not until June 1944 that the plane actually entered combat, with the first operational units going into action in October. I will agree had politics not interfered it might have entered combat a few months earlier. But the point is from first flying prototype to first combat ready production units was at least 4.5 years, with 2+ years of prior R&D on the engines.
Now compare this to the USA's effort. Let's cancel out the 2 years of pre first flight engine development by the Germans with the British contribution of the initial jet engine tech supplied from the Meteor project to the USA and just compare from first flight. The YP-59 first flew on Oct 1st/2nd of 1942, the first YP-80 flew on January 8, 1944, and the first 45 production units of the P-80 were deployed in very early 1945. Less than 2.5 years from first flight to delivery. The P-80 was withheld from combat for strategic reasons, but had the war gone differently, lets say holding off the Soviets and defeating the D-Day invasion, there would have been more P-80's flying by end of summer '45 than 262's. Had the 262's been rolling off the production line in early 1943 (including working reliable engines) the German's would have dominated the air-war by the middle of that year. By the time the Allied jets arrived, Germany would have had something on the level of the Mig-15.
The argument that Allied bombing was a big part of the hold up on the 262 development does not really hold up because Allied bombing did not significantly interfere with German industry until 1944, and even that contention is disputable (there is good evidence that Allied bombing had little effect in 1944). The real issue was simply the scale of the two industries and to a lesser but significant degree the way they were managed.
I agree time was an issue. But for any technical project, the USA was likely to complete the project 2-3 times faster than the Germans depending on the level of focus. It was just a matter of industrial scale, US industry was many times larger than Germany and had more qualified engineers to work on projects and they genrally had more advanced facilities and better materials to work with. Germany's lack of focus also helped the Allies. Remember Germany didn't "get serious" and go into a "total war economy" until 1944, after it was all but over.
Germany was also hurt by its decisions as to what kinds of projects to undertake. The V1 and V2 projects were uselss, neither was going to win the War for Germany w/o nuclear weapons, and they had no reason to expect such weapons would be available until 1947 or beyond. The super tanks and Me262 were likewise not going to win the war. Neither of these weapons had the ability to take the war to the enemy, both were defensive. In general, the wonder weapons were more about making lots of reichmarks for the right Germans - such projects were high profit projects assuming the riechmark was going to have long term value.
The Germans failed to produce the weapon they really needed, the VT fuse. Had they been able to produce a working proximity fuse (they tried hard but failed) Allied bombing would have been defeated and the Luftwaffe' would have been freed to pursue more offensive operations. German artillary would have been twice as effective and they could probably have held off the Soviets. To me, the VT fuse and of course the A-Bomb were the two "super weapons" the Germans needed but did not succeed in creating.
So I think the argument that the Allied scientists had more time to work with than did the German scientists is incorrect, the German scientists and engineers had more time.
=S=
Lunatic
Linear Mode
