Stealthy and onward the time - Horten Brothers Aircraft

[Antediluvian Monster]

I don't know what is Ultra, please share your information.

Ultra (and MAGIC) were the codenames for Allied cryptanalysis.

At least I haven't heard that the Allies had successfull, or ongoing projects during the interwar period or in the WW2 era in these areas, or did they and if they did, how far from completing these projects were they?

The Gloster Meteor was put in squadron service the same month Me 262 had it's first claimed air-to-air kill. It had it's first air-to-air kill the same month Me 262 had it's first confirmed air-to-air kill.

Anyway, what was being disputed was a blanket "they were a way ahead the Allies and the Soviets." as quoted in my previous post, not that Germans were ahead in some areas.

 

[Jopa79]

Ultra (and MAGIC) were the codenames for Allied cryptanalysis.

Thank you.

The Gloster Meteor was put in squadron service the same month Me 262 had it's first claimed air-to-air kill. It had it's first air-to-air kill the same month Me 262 had it's first confirmed air-to-air kill.

Oh, yes...Gloster Meteor...but I thought that it never did a dogfight against another aircraft, at least in WW2, only shooting down the V-rockets.

Anyway, what was being disputed was a blanket "they were a way ahead the Allies and the Soviets." as quoted in my previous post, not that Germans were ahead in some areas.

I think this is more or less disputed because of the way things are expressed. I just meant that the Germans had an advantage basicly in rocketry, the development of aircraft and maybe with submarines, nothing more.

 

[Kovax]

German torpedo technology was behind that of Japan. German radio and radar technology was behind that of the UK (and we can thank Japan for coming up with one of the major breakthroughs in radar development, even though they lacked the industrial knowledge to use that technology). The UK led the world in computer development during the war, but then chose to classify everything related to it, resulting in the near-total shutdown of the UK's commercial computer development after the war. German nuclear technology was focused on a different branch than that of the US and UK (fusion versus fission), and ultimately ran into a dead end which the Germans could not solve in any reasonable timeframe without the American piece of the puzzle, although it led to the rapid development of a US fusion bomb after the war. German metallurgy (and practically everyone else's until at least the 1960s) was behind that of the Soviets. German internal combustion engine designs were behind those of the UK, leading to less powerful conventional aircraft and underpowered vehicles. German industry and factory design was decades behind, while Henry Ford helped turn both the Soviet Union and the US into cutting edge industrial powerhouses. The list goes on and on.

Germany put a lot of effort into a few long-shot programs, and made spectacular advances in a few narrow fields (at the expense of other fields) in hopes of fielding a war winning super-weapon. Those did not help win the war, costing a lot of time and effort on things which Germany ultimately couldn't afford to actually build or use, but which later significantly advanced the technologies of the countries which occupied it at the end of the war. Other German advances were "focused", very good at one particular function, but at the expense of other roles which it would need to fill. You can say that it did "x" better than anyone else's design, but it was still not an optimal choice overall. They did do a rather remarkable job in many cases (the reliable German MG-42 machinegun design was still in use as the imperfectly copied American SAW in Vietnam 25 years later) with the bad situation they were confronted with, and a few things were true marvels of technology (radio guided missiles, rocket engines), but there were also glaring mistakes and oversights, so overall their technology was probably about on par with the Allies. The material shortages made much of it a moot point. There's just something wrong with a team of horses pulling a rocket.

Note too that the US was fielding long-range submarines with fairly advanced capabilities against Japan, so Germany's actual lead was relatively slim, but there was never any point where late war German and US submarines could be directly compared under similar combat conditions. Their intended roles and operating conditions were different. Yes, the US did learn a few things from German U-boat design, thanks to a captured U-boat a bit earlier in the war (the US government eventually sailed it up the St. Lawrence Seaway, through the Great Lakes, to Chicago, and then hauled it inland by special multi-track rails to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry), but that knowledge didn't have time to percolate into US designs before war's end. If the situation had been reversed, the Germans would have learned a few different things from the US.

 

[Sanny]

I remember "flying" that thing Go-229 (for Gothaer aircraft factory) in a Lucasfilm PC Game called
"The secret weapons of the luftwaffe" sometime in the 90s of the previous millenium.

Its advantage was its enourmous speed in comparision to the conventional aircraft of the allies.
Only the Me 262 was on somehow equal turf but the Go 229 could carry a little heavier bomb load if memory serves me right.

The Me 163 rocket interceptor was also pretty fast but had only for 8 minutes fuel
and was only armed with a machine cannon 30mm which sounded like a steamhammer and rockets.

Was it not the Secret Weapons of Normandy?
The aircraft also featured in EA's Medal of Honor: Frontline as an endgame.

 

[Mder1]

e reliable German MG-42 machinegun

It's still, with a few modifications, the standard machine gun of the German army. Though it is planned to replace it soonish.

 

[Kovax]

Was it not the Secret Weapons of Normandy?

That was a sequel or later game. The original was SWOTL, which I still have somewhere in the attic on floppy discs.

 

[Count Blue]

Was it not the Secret Weapons of Normandy?

Thats the game I am refering to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Weapons_of_the_Luftwaffe

 

[Henry IX]

The other area that the allies had a significant and meaningful advantage was radio-fuses for shells. This is one of those fairly unsexy technologies with massive consequences. They meant that allied AA shells reliably detonated next to enemy aircraft, rather than at pre-planned heights (this would have mattered a whole lot more if there were any enemy aircraft to shoot down at this point) and their artillery could have airburst shrapnel shells at optimum heights without requiring pre-set fuses which need to be set depending on distance, shell travel time, wind, elevation, etc to be taken into account. This significantly increases both the fire rate of the artillery (one less complex and difficult step per shot) and the average lethality of each shell (they reliably explode at the optimum height). Although they only entered service in any number in 1945 they were very effective when used.

The German transistor industry was flat out trying to make enough radios for the military command structure and had no spare capacity to put radio-fuses into disposable items like shells, so never developed any usable fuses.

 

[Sanny]

Thats the game I am refering to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Weapons_of_the_Luftwaffe

Ah okay so the Game Designer went on to do Star Wars space-fighter games, Star Trek Bridge Commander and then returned to do Secret Weapons over Normandy for LucasArts (which was a brilliant game). Find it interesting Michael Giacchino composed the soundtrack to the Normandy game, and then returned to do Star Wars: Rogue One later for Lucasfilm.

 

[Count Blue]

Ah okay so the Game Designer went on to do Star Wars space-fighter games, Star Trek Bridge Commander and then returned to do Secret Weapons over Normandy for LucasArts (which was a brilliant game). Find it interesting Michael Giacchino composed the soundtrack to the Normandy game, and then returned to do Star Wars: Rogue One later for Lucasfilm.

The X-Wing and Tie Fighter games were similar to that one I mentioned, yes that was noticeable.

 

[Kovax]

The German transistor industry was flat out trying to make enough radios for the military command structure and had no spare capacity to put radio-fuses into disposable items like shells, so never developed any usable fuses.

Flat out trying, and failing to produce a single transistor. The transistor wasn't invented until after the war (1947). Electronics at that time were primarily based on vacuum tubes.

 

[Henry IX]

Yar. Wrong word choice - my bad.