No "WonderWeapons" programs

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David1819
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No "WonderWeapons" programs

#1

Post by David1819 » 27 Oct 2017, 15:06

What if Germany does not pursue its Wunderwaffe program?


This means every fancy weapon conceived or beginning production during 1943-1945 does not get produced. Weapons such as the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 and the Tiger 1 remain as Germanys state of the art military apparatus. PS: conceived or beginning production during 1943-1945 does not apply to conventional non wonderweapon designs for example the panther tank.

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Re: No "WonderWeapons" programs

#2

Post by maltesefalcon » 27 Oct 2017, 16:17

One spinoff I can think of is that July 20, 1969 would just be a normal news day.


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BDV
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Re: No "WonderWeapons" programs

#3

Post by BDV » 27 Oct 2017, 17:14

Very difficult to draw the line. What is a "wonderweapon"?

Was Fallschirmjager a wunderwaffe? Were Oswald Lutz's Panzerwaffe a "wunderwaffe"? How about Goring's Luftwaffe?

Rocketry worked (even if in its fullness only after WWII) so is it a wunderwaffe?
Nobody expects the Fallschirm! Our chief weapon is surprise; surprise and fear; fear and surprise. Our 2 weapons are fear and surprise; and ruthless efficiency. Our *3* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency; and almost fanatical devotion

David1819
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Re: No "WonderWeapons" programs

#4

Post by David1819 » 27 Oct 2017, 19:21

BDV wrote:Very difficult to draw the line. What is a "wonderweapon"?
Any fancy unconventional weapon that was conceived or began production from 1943 onwards. For example ME-262, ME-163, V2 rockets and Tiger II.

1943 is when Hitler and Co became delusionally optimistic about wonderweapons.

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T. A. Gardner
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Re: No "WonderWeapons" programs

#5

Post by T. A. Gardner » 28 Oct 2017, 02:36

David1819 wrote:
BDV wrote:Very difficult to draw the line. What is a "wonderweapon"?
Any fancy unconventional weapon that was conceived or began production from 1943 onwards. For example ME-262, ME-163, V2 rockets and Tiger II.

1943 is when Hitler and Co became delusionally optimistic about wonderweapons.
Maybe the Me 163, but jets were something that the major combatants were all developing. If you look at the timelines, there wasn't much difference between German development and Allied in jets, so I really wouldn't call them a "wonder weapon." They were more like a logical progression of aircraft development based on a new engine technology that was occurring on a wide basis.

Likewise, high speed submarines. Both Germany and Japan were working on these, and the Japanese got further than the Germans in actually deploying the technology.

Now, things that were in the wonder weapon category... Ballistic missiles and rockets? Undoubtedly. A SAM, AAM, or ATGM? Definitely. Rocket fighters? Same thing. A 288 ton tank? Yea, I can see that. A 36" / 80 cm railway gun? Yep. The V3 gun? That's another.
All those were held out as weapons that could change the course of events on some major scale or would tip the balance of power in a battle in favor of Germany on its own. All ended up being tremendous wastes of money and effort on weapons that never amounted to much and cost far more than they delivered.

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Re: No "WonderWeapons" programs

#6

Post by maltesefalcon » 28 Oct 2017, 16:22

Pretty well all the weapons development is a matter of hit or miss. Unless the concept is completely absurd like P-1000 one may not realize if a project is a dead end until some testing with prototypes is performed.
In the case of the Reich, some programs like Horten or SAM had potential, but the war ended before they could be perfected. Others like the A4 were intermediary, awaiting better guidance and perhaps nuclear weapons in the next (larger) versions. Of course those aspects never emerged but the rocket developers had no way of knowing tbat.
The Allies developed some failures too. The panjundrum comes to mind...

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Re: No "WonderWeapons" programs

#7

Post by David1819 » 29 Oct 2017, 04:17

5,200 V2 rockets
1,430 ME262s
‎370 ME163s
175 Fieseler Fi 103RS
118 Type XXI submarine's

All of the above except the ME-262 proved to a major waste of man power and resources and achieved nothing militarily. Would it not have made a difference if those projects never went ahead?

The cost of a V2 rocket was around 75,000 Reichsmarks. Instead of ordering 5,200 V2 rockets for the same price they could order 1,700 Tiger I tanks.

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Re: No "WonderWeapons" programs

#8

Post by maltesefalcon » 29 Oct 2017, 21:56

David1819 wrote:5,200 V2 rockets
1,430 ME262s
‎370 ME163s
175 Fieseler Fi 103RS
118 Type XXI submarine's

All of the above except the ME-262 proved to a major waste of man power and resources and achieved nothing militarily. Would it not have made a difference if those projects never went ahead?

The cost of a V2 rocket was around 75,000 Reichsmarks. Instead of ordering 5,200 V2 rockets for the same price they could order 1,700 Tiger I tanks.
Your points have merit but I would rethink the conversion of resources for A4 to Tiger I. They are made using different factories, different expertise and different raw materials. The resources and expense would have been better used on fighter aircraft and perhaps AA rockets.

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Re: No "WonderWeapons" programs

#9

Post by Paul Lakowski » 29 Oct 2017, 23:25

David1819 wrote:5,200 V2 rockets
1,430 ME262s
‎370 ME163s
175 Fieseler Fi 103RS
118 Type XXI submarine's

All of the above except the ME-262 proved to a major waste of man power and resources and achieved nothing militarily. Would it not have made a difference if those projects never went ahead?

The cost of a V2 rocket was around 75,000 Reichsmarks. Instead of ordering 5,200 V2 rockets for the same price they could order 1,700 Tiger I tanks.

Yes there is some value in concept, but the worse the Germany situation the more desperate the demands have to be. Any such choices by definition had to be far fetched. And as noted some industries don't transfer well to other industries. Further any money discussions have to be careful since most German finance were done on credit - since Hitler controlled the Reich bank and had no intention to ever pay it back.


If you compare XXI to U-Boat fleet, much of its capability could have been retrofitted to the existing U-Boat fleet ,and in fact such a proposal was made.

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Re: No "WonderWeapons" programs

#10

Post by David1819 » 30 Oct 2017, 02:34

maltesefalcon wrote:
David1819 wrote:5,200 V2 rockets
1,430 ME262s
‎370 ME163s
175 Fieseler Fi 103RS
118 Type XXI submarine's

All of the above except the ME-262 proved to a major waste of man power and resources and achieved nothing militarily. Would it not have made a difference if those projects never went ahead?

The cost of a V2 rocket was around 75,000 Reichsmarks. Instead of ordering 5,200 V2 rockets for the same price they could order 1,700 Tiger I tanks.
Your points have merit but I would rethink the conversion of resources for A4 to Tiger I. They are made using different factories, different expertise and different raw materials. The resources and expense would have been better used on fighter aircraft and perhaps AA rockets.
According to Hermione Giffard's book 'Making Jet Engines in World War II' A complete ME-262 cost in total 150,000 Reichmarks. The cost of the V2 production could have purchased 2,600 ME-262s. PS although I consider the ME-262 a "wonder weapon" some one here do not which is fair enough. Its in a bit of grey area that machine.

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Re: No "WonderWeapons" programs

#11

Post by BDV » 30 Oct 2017, 03:41

Now if one's going to bellyache about 118 Typ XXIs, why not about the whole of the UBoot-waffe:

- unparalleled menace to citrus importation to Albion. Through scurvy to Endsieg!
Nobody expects the Fallschirm! Our chief weapon is surprise; surprise and fear; fear and surprise. Our 2 weapons are fear and surprise; and ruthless efficiency. Our *3* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency; and almost fanatical devotion

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Re: No "WonderWeapons" programs

#12

Post by Paul Lakowski » 30 Oct 2017, 07:50

David1819 wrote:
maltesefalcon wrote:
David1819 wrote:5,200 V2 rockets
1,430 ME262s
‎370 ME163s
175 Fieseler Fi 103RS
118 Type XXI submarine's

All of the above except the ME-262 proved to a major waste of man power and resources and achieved nothing militarily. Would it not have made a difference if those projects never went ahead?

The cost of a V2 rocket was around 75,000 Reichsmarks. Instead of ordering 5,200 V2 rockets for the same price they could order 1,700 Tiger I tanks.
Your points have merit but I would rethink the conversion of resources for A4 to Tiger I. They are made using different factories, different expertise and different raw materials. The resources and expense would have been better used on fighter aircraft and perhaps AA rockets.
According to Hermione Giffard's book 'Making Jet Engines in World War II' A complete ME-262 cost in total 150,000 Reichmarks. The cost of the V2 production could have purchased 2,600 ME-262s. PS although I consider the ME-262 a "wonder weapon" some one here do not which is fair enough. Its in a bit of grey area that machine.
The cost of the V-2 program was more like 2.5 billion RM including R&D plus factory expansion before even one V-2 is produced. There were 10,000 built costing about 600 million RM. The V-1 program cost 1/2 billion RM of which ~ 175 million RM was used to > 30,000 rockets. That means 1/3 billion RM was spent on R&D plus factory expansion.

Roll all that funding R&D plus factory work into one program, like the V-1. Just a linear calculation shows 3/4 billion RM on missiles or the funding for 4.44 times as many rockets from 1943 on...that's more like 135,000-150,000 rockets from 1943 to 1945. This still leaves duplication of R&D funding. In part a better V-1 could be designed with two Argus motors paired to cancel out vibration and increase accuracy from 5% to 1.4% of range , plus speed increased from 400mph to nearly 500mph. The left over funding would just about cover the cost of the improved missile [double the V-1 cost plus RATO for truck launching].

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BDV
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Re: No "WonderWeapons" programs

#13

Post by BDV » 30 Oct 2017, 14:34

Rockets are such a crapshoot, from the POV of say 1935, that once you stumble on a success like V1, the logical thing is to pour most/all of the rocket related effort into optimizing it. But that's 20/20.

BTW was the V1 warhead optimized in terms of composition, destructive effects and so on?
Nobody expects the Fallschirm! Our chief weapon is surprise; surprise and fear; fear and surprise. Our 2 weapons are fear and surprise; and ruthless efficiency. Our *3* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency; and almost fanatical devotion

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Re: No "WonderWeapons" programs

#14

Post by Paul Lakowski » 30 Oct 2017, 14:50

BDV wrote:Rockets are such a crapshoot, from the POV of say 1935, that once you stumble on a success like V1, the logical thing is to pour most/all of the rocket related effort into optimizing it. But that's 20/20.

BTW was the V1 warhead optimized in terms of composition, destructive effects and so on?

I don't know.

I was thinking that such a system would give the army their own low cost long range bombardment weapon against large scale enemy troop deployments...to avoid concentrating , especially on the Eastern Front.

It may not work so well against dispersed targets, but might work well against troops massing to attack....

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=230735&start=30


It would also allow the LW bomber forces to concentrate on long range reconnaissance/strike missions , thus helping to target and calibrate such rocket bombardments and more importantly find out were the enemy is and were they are going, something they failed to do in late war.

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Re: No "WonderWeapons" programs

#15

Post by David1819 » 01 Nov 2017, 15:31

BDV wrote:Now if one's going to bellyache about 118 Typ XXIs, why not about the whole of the UBoot-waffe:

- unparalleled menace to citrus importation to Albion. Through scurvy to Endsieg!
If I remember correctly. The Germans were also constructing a massive fortified U-Boat base immune to allied bombing. Another colossal waste of resources.

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