No German scientists/technology for the Wallies - impact on the Cold War?

[T. A. Gardner]

No one here has made the claim that no other nation could have duplicated the German developments-
but some of us are intellectually honest enough to concede that, in some areas, like Jet Engines, Rocket
Engines, Diesel Engines, and Hydrogen Peroxide Engines, that the Germans had gotten a few years lead
on us. We could have duplicated them. Just like the Soviets duplicated the United States development
of the B-29 bomber and the Plutonium Atomic Bomb. Of course, the Soviets were a few years behind
the U.S., but, well, that isn't important. Unless you are fighting a ..... War......
Respectfully :

Paul R. Ward

The Germans definitely were not ahead in jet engine technology when they surrendered. Both Britain and the US were on par, or ahead, of them in that field. HTP engines? Yes, Germany was ahead but that proved to be a dead-end technology. The Germans were ahead of Britain and the US in using large sonar arrays like their GHG sets. That one is interesting, because both Britain and the US had captured sets via U-boats from late 1942.
Interestingly, the Japanese beat everyone to a working cavity magnetron. While not as powerful as the British ones, it worked and by 1944 they were deploying millimeter radar sets on their ships. The Japanese were in many ways on par with Germany in terms of radar, their problem was they lacked the industry to produce the sets in a timely fashion. One might note, that the USMC captured a Japanese search radar set on Guadalcanal when they invaded.



That's one of two sets captured right after the invasion of that island.

[Michael Kenny]

No one here has made the claim that no other nation could have duplicated the German developments-

You did

Mr. Gardner, you may call the German technology and experts nothing but gravy. But without them,
there would have been no successful U.S. moon project.

but some of us are intellectually honest enough to concede that, in some areas, like Jet Engines, Rocket
Engines, Diesel Engines, and Hydrogen Peroxide Engines, that the Germans had gotten a few years lead
on us.

You have an opinion that Germany had a lead but others have differing opinions. Further you seem to elevate those areas where you believe Germany had an advantage into critical areas that were 'war-winners' and that, given time and resources, dramatically alter the course of the war.

It is fairly obvious that, had the Germans had more time, and were given more resources during the War,
they would have solved the Waterfall Injector problems....................................The German components were being manufactured
under conditions of wartime stringencies and almost impossible manufacturing conditions, with
constant materials shortages, labor issues, and the minor inconvenience that the Allies were bombing
the snot out of Germany on a daily ( and nightly ! ) basis ! The fact that the Germans could build
rockets at all under these conditions is a tribute to their ingenuity and resourcefullness.

It is nothing more than the tired old Luftwaffe 1946 fantasy. 'If only the war had lasted another 6 months' etc.

[David Thompson]

This discussion in this thread has deteriorated into personal exchanges, so it's locked pending cleaning.

The thread having been cleaned, it is re-opened for on-topic, non-personal discussion.

[T. A. Gardner]

Well, I got Cole's book a couple of days ago, and man, what a dreck of book that is! There is so much wrong in that book it'd take another book to point it all out.

I'll give a couple of examples:

On pages 188 to 190 Cole lists supposed projects and areas where German technology and developments were "key."

Some obvious nonsense are things like claiming the Boeing B-29 was influenced by the design of the Arado Ar 234 (pg 188). He makes a claim that it was German helicopter designs that largely drove postwar developments. That's utter nonsense. It was helicopters like the Sikorsky R-4 that was introduced into operational service by the US (and also used by the RAF) in 1943 with over 100 manufactured that led the way. This was the world's first series production helicopter.

His discussions on jet engine development show an utter lack of historical knowledge.

On Pg 136 he discusses BMW's jet engine developments. He claims BMW started development of "small jet 'fan' turbine-type engines" in 1936. This is erroneous. Helmut Sache, BMW's lead engineer on turbine development was working on turbosuperchargers at the time and didn't start trying to develop a jet engine until late 1938, and then only casually with no impetus towards quick results.
Junkers only grudgingly accepted an RLM contract to build a jet engine giving it low priority in early 1939. Daimler-Benz refused to get into jet engines entirely.
Then he brings up the Me 262 and use of the BMW 003 engine. This was fitted to the first prototype, and Cole states, "...had to re-engine his Me 262 with Jumo engines as the BMW engines were suitably sized. This is either ignorance or fiction on Cole's part.

The Me 262V1 flew one time on early BMW 003's. The BMW engine ran fine on the bench in testing, but when taken on that test flight proved to be extremely sensitive to angle of attack issues at the compressor section causing both engines to fail when the compressor stalled causing a double flameout. The aircraft barely managed to return to the runway and land.
BMW then spent over two years, enlisting the help of Brown-Boveri of Switzerland--the leading experts available to wartime Germany on turbine blade profiles--trying to redesign the compressor section so that it worked without stalling in a turn on an aircraft.
He mentions Henkel's 011 engine. Not copied anywhere post war. The 011 was the last in a series of jet engines designed by von Ohain that used a combination of a centrifugal stage followed by an axial stage in the compressor section.
If anything, by mid 1945, the Allies had pulled ahead of Germany in jet engine development with GE, Westinghouse, and Vickers Metrovick leading the way to what would become the best postwar designs. All three had far more experience with gas and steam turbines than any German firm giving them a huge advantage in design capability over what the Germans were doing. Stanford Moss and his team at GE likely had what was the largest and most accurate library of gas turbine blade profiles in the world at the time due to years of testing and designing turbochargers (essentially a jet engine run backwards).

He discusses supersonic wind tunnels on pgs 134 - 135 saying "...Allies were utterly shocked to find not just a range of wind tunnels..." This ignores that the US Navy was well into construction of the largest supersonic wind tunnel at the time of Germany's collapse at Daingerfield Texas, the Ordinance Astrophysics Laboratory (OAL), with the USAAF constructing a second at Wright Field. The US got into this area when their research demanded it rather than building such wind tunnels that were producing only theoretical results like the Germans got.
The US Navy needed one for Project Bumblebee as their Cobra Test Vehicle (CTV) ramjet missiles were exceeding Mach 1.25 in stable flight and poised to go to at least Mach 2+ in the near future. The USAAF recognized that supersonic aircraft in 1945 were on the near horizon.

The whole book reeks of superficial knowledge of the subject and simply reiterates tired tropes and disproved myths about German technology.

[T. A. Gardner]

Here's some more of Cole's erroneous conclusions:

On pages 188 -189 he has a list titled The Post-War Aircraft Influenced by German Aircraft Design Included in it are:

The Curtiss XP-55 Ascender which he claims was influenced by the Henschel HS P75. I find this a bit odd, as the XP-55 began life on November 27, 1939 under an USAAC proposal for unusual aircraft configurations. On June 22 1940, Curtiss got a contract to build a full scale test model of their proposed aircraft. This became the Curtiss Model 24-B. This aircraft made 169 flights between November 1941 and May 1942 at Muroc Field in California.
A contract for the prototype XP-55 was let on July 10 1942.

The Henschel P75 was proposed by that company in late 1941. The design that was proposed showed up in mid-1942. The plane itself was never built or tested.

I'm not quite sure how Curtiss Aircraft managed to channel Henschel's design two years earlier and propose it, then build and test it all before Henschel put pencil to paper in the middle of a war where Curtiss had ZERO access to what Henschel was doing...

Then he cites the Curtiss XP-87 as derived from the Arado 234. Odd that he doesn't cite North American's B-45, a very similar plane in layout to the XP-87, but does cite the XB-46 by Convair. Of course, none of the three really have anything in common with the diminutive Arado plane that was barely able to house landing gear, let alone a really substantial bombload, multiple crew members, or advanced equipment and cabin pressurization...

What Cole ignores here is that on many early jets, designers sought ways to install the engines with low drag and very short ducting for the intakes as they knew that longer ducts caused losses in flow that reduced power output and hadn't yet solved that problem. The result was designers came to similar conclusions and design layouts independently.

Other absurdities are ones like claiming Kelly Johnson's area ruled and supersonic intake designed F-104 was influenced by the DFS 346. That's total nonsense. I wouldn't be surprised if Johnson didn't even know the DFS 346 existed as it was an obscure design at best that saw very limited testing, and captured samples were largely ignored.
Aside from that, the DFS 346 was a derivative of the earlier DFS 228, a design that might--might--have had some influence on the U-2. I think it's wildly optimistic to argue that the DFS 346 would have been supersonic, and complete fantasy that it could have achieved Mach 2.6 without being area ruled and having an all-flying tail. After all, the captured example in Soviet hands never exceeded Mach 0.9, which is reasonable given the results the US got with the Bell X-1 prior to using an all-flying tail.

[paulrward]

Hello All :

Mr. T.A.Gardner Posted:

Other absurdities are ones like claiming Kelly Johnson's area ruled and
supersonic intake designed F-104 was influenced by the DFS 346.

It might be worth your while to read the very good Wikipedia Article on the subject of Area Ruling -
It was first discovered in 1943 by Otto Frenzl - who patented it - and was, in fact, applied to some
experrimental German designs at the very end of the war. The U.S. did not apparently feel it
important, until they ran into Mach Drag, ( F-102 ! ) and had to go back and study it.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_rule


In fact, Convair got some useful ideas relating to Delta Wings from Alexander Lippisch, who was
working post war at Wright Patterson. ( Convair has always claimed that they developed the idea
of a thin delta wind independently, but their designers did, in fact, speak with Lippisch )


The postwar value of Operation Paperclip has been well recognized for decades - it seems somewhat
strange that there are some who believe that getting the German designs and research studies were
valuble to the U.S. in the Postwar era, but somehow believe that having the scientists and engineers
who performed that research working Postwar in the U.S. was not of equal, if not greater value.


Respectfully:

Paul R. Ward

[T. A. Gardner]

Hello All :

Mr. T.A.Gardner Posted:

Other absurdities are ones like claiming Kelly Johnson's area ruled and
supersonic intake designed F-104 was influenced by the DFS 346.

It might be worth your while to read the very good Wikipedia Article on the subject of Area Ruling -
It was first discovered in 1943 by Otto Frenzl - who patented it - and was, in fact, applied to some
experrimental German designs at the very end of the war. The U.S. did not apparently feel it
important, until they ran into Mach Drag, ( F-102 ! ) and had to go back and study it.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_rule


In fact, Convair got some useful ideas relating to Delta Wings from Alexander Lippisch, who was
working post war at Wright Patterson. ( Convair has always claimed that they developed the idea
of a thin delta wind independently, but their designers did, in fact, speak with Lippisch )


The postwar value of Operation Paperclip has been well recognized for decades - it seems somewhat
strange that there are some who believe that getting the German designs and research studies were
valuble to the U.S. in the Postwar era, but somehow believe that having the scientists and engineers
who performed that research working Postwar in the U.S. was not of equal, if not greater value.


Respectfully:

Paul R. Ward

All of this is irrelevant to what I stated. The DFS 346 wasn't area ruled, so it doesn't matter who invented the concept. It also appears that Frenzl was one of several people over a decade that independently discovered this rule indicating that their individual work wasn't widely disseminated.

In the US it was really Whitcomb's work that got attention, even though others proceeded him with the same discovery.

Paperclip, and other Allied missions of similar nature yielded some technical information of value, but it was hardly the be-all, end-all of technological development. Neither the German engineers nor German technology was the major driving force behind most of early Allied postwar developments, like it or not. In many cases, such technology was examined then discarded as worthless. The German engineers also saw value in what US and other Allied engineers were doing and worked to improve that technology.

Trying to claim if not for German technology and engineering the West would have been much further behind is absurd.

[T. A. Gardner]

P.S. I can't remember which lecturer said it now(graduated 1986), but we were urged to look at a book's bibliography first, in order to "size up" the potential worth, or otherwise, of the contents.

It is a beneficial habit worth remembering.

But a limited one. Content is more important than an impressive bibliography, except perhaps in academia. Remember, Einstein published his theory of relativity without a single reference to any other work...

I just got this one a few days ago:



The thing that stands out in it is that German engineering contributed next to nothing to this revolution. It wasn't something they focused on. In their rocketry and SAM programs, this lack of development of better electro-mechanical computers was a major failing. These sorts of systems became critical to things like air defense and long-range missile accuracy. Without them, those systems weren't going to work.

[paulrward]

Hello All :

To Mr. T.A.Gardner :

The thing that stands out in it is that German engineering contributed next to
nothing to this revolution. It wasn't something they focused on. In their rocketry and
SAM programs, this lack of development of better electro-mechanical computers was
a major failing.

You might want to read two entries in the Much Maligned Wikipedia :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z3_(computer)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Zuse

The first points out that, in fact, the Germans developed an Electronic Digital Computer during
WW2. In fact, moden computers are NOT Analog Computers, they are Digital Computers. So,
the Germans had the scientists, but, according to the article, the Nazis did not adequately fund
the program due to wartime constraints.

In the Article about Zuse, it points out:

Much of his early work was financed by his family and commerce, but after
1939 he was given resources by the government of Nazi Germany. Due to World
War II, Zuse's work went largely unnoticed in the United Kingdom and the United
States. Possibly his first documented influence on a US company was IBM's option
on his patents in 1946.

In 1947, according to the memoirs of the German computer pioneer Heinz
Billing from the Max Planck Institute for Physics, there was a meeting between
Alan Turing and Konrad Zuse in Göttingen. The encounter had the form of a
colloquium. Participants were Womersley, Turing, Porter from England and a few
German researchers like Zuse, Walther, and Billing.....

In 1949, Zuse founded another company, Zuse KG, in Haunetal-Neukirchen;
in 1957 the company's head office moved to Bad Hersfeld. The Z4 was finished and
delivered to the ETH Zurich, Switzerland in September 1950. At that time, it was the
only working computer in continental Europe, and the second computer in the
world to be sold, beaten only by the BINAC, which never worked properly after it was
delivered. Other computers, all numbered with a leading Z, up to Z43, were
built by Zuse and his company. Notable are the Z11, which was sold to the optics
industry and to universities, and the Z22, the first computer with a memory based on
magnetic storage

In the articles, it points out, again and again, how Zuse was limited in his research by the lack of
funding, both in Wartime Germany and in Postwar Germany.

One wonders what he could have accomplished in the United States if he had been ' Paperclipped '
in 1946 ? As it was, IBM purchased options on his patents. But, of course, IBM was NEVER a major
player in the Computer Industry.....

Respectfully :

Paul R. Ward

Zise Z3 Completed in 1941

Zuse z3.jpg (127.43 KiB) Viewed 575 times

[T. A. Gardner]

Hello All :

To Mr. T.A.Gardner :

The thing that stands out in it is that German engineering contributed next to
nothing to this revolution. It wasn't something they focused on. In their rocketry and
SAM programs, this lack of development of better electro-mechanical computers was
a major failing.

You might want to read two entries in the Much Maligned Wikipedia :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z3_(computer)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Zuse

The first points out that, in fact, the Germans developed an Electronic Digital Computer during
WW2. In fact, moden computers are NOT Analog Computers, they are Digital Computers. So,
the Germans had the scientists, but, according to the article, the Nazis did not adequately fund
the program due to wartime constraints.

In the Article about Zuse, it points out:

Much of his early work was financed by his family and commerce, but after
1939 he was given resources by the government of Nazi Germany. Due to World
War II, Zuse's work went largely unnoticed in the United Kingdom and the United
States. Possibly his first documented influence on a US company was IBM's option
on his patents in 1946.

In 1947, according to the memoirs of the German computer pioneer Heinz
Billing from the Max Planck Institute for Physics, there was a meeting between
Alan Turing and Konrad Zuse in Göttingen. The encounter had the form of a
colloquium. Participants were Womersley, Turing, Porter from England and a few
German researchers like Zuse, Walther, and Billing.....

In 1949, Zuse founded another company, Zuse KG, in Haunetal-Neukirchen;
in 1957 the company's head office moved to Bad Hersfeld. The Z4 was finished and
delivered to the ETH Zurich, Switzerland in September 1950. At that time, it was the
only working computer in continental Europe, and the second computer in the
world to be sold, beaten only by the BINAC, which never worked properly after it was
delivered. Other computers, all numbered with a leading Z, up to Z43, were
built by Zuse and his company. Notable are the Z11, which was sold to the optics
industry and to universities, and the Z22, the first computer with a memory based on
magnetic storage

In the articles, it points out, again and again, how Zuse was limited in his research by the lack of
funding, both in Wartime Germany and in Postwar Germany.

One wonders what he could have accomplished in the United States if he had been ' Paperclipped '
in 1946 ? As it was, IBM purchased options on his patents. But, of course, IBM was NEVER a major
player in the Computer Industry.....

Respectfully :

Paul R. Ward


Zuse z3.jpg

So? You have one German engineer that was into developing digital computers, not analog ones. It doesn't change that in the US and Britain, between them, there were dozens of companies that were developing such computers at the time. IBM was not the be-all, end-all, of computers back in the 40's and 50's. They were really sort of a minor player at the time seeing these as a small niche commercial product. In the US the big players through the 50's were aerospace and research companies like Boeing, Douglas (spinoff RAND Corp.), or Curtiss-Wright. There were a good many others too.

So, it comes back to refuting the original premise: The West wouldn't have advanced as quickly without German technology, scientists, and engineers. This is patently untrue. Sure, the Germans contributed but they were nowhere near the be-all, end-all of STEM in the West and without them the West would have still done just fine.

[Takao]

Ahhhh....More Aryan sour grapes.

Makes one wonder why Mr. Ward never stated this much about Goddard...One wonders what he could have accomplished in the United States if he had been "von Brauned"(given untold monies to proceed with rocketering projects).

Alas, such is the fickle finger of fate.

[T. A. Gardner]

Now, an example of where German technology really played a significant role was in optics. The German optical systems were some of the best anywhere. The US, for example, brought back a number of cinetheodolites (optical cameras that could measure range, angle, and elevation while filming an object) that were critical to US missile programs, among other uses.

I know that is a bit obscure, but the Germans really did have the best optical lenses available, so these were used. It wasn't, again, a showstopper for the Western Allies who could have--as the Soviets did--gotten along with their own equipment. But the German stuff was much better, so it got used.

[paulrward]

Hello All :

Mr. Takao has taken the despicable tactic of accusing me of Aryan Racism :

Ahhhh....More Aryan sour grapes.

Makes one wonder why Mr. Ward never stated this much about Goddard...One
wonders what he could have accomplished in the United States if he had been
"von Brauned"(given untold monies to proceed with rocketering projects).

Alas, such is the fickle finger of fate.

Mr Takao, I am a citizen of the United States of America. My ancestors came to this continent from
Europe. However, I can trace only ONE back to Germany, and he came here in the 1850s, in an
attempt to Dodge the Draft in Saxe-Coburg. ( He subsequently served in the Union Army in the
War between the States ) Others of my ancestors can be traced to Czech Republic and Slovakia,
along with Scotland, Ireland, and England. There is even a trace of genes from an ancestor who
came from the Caucasus Mountains.

So, I'm sorry, Mr. Takao, your opinion has the odor of the excrement of equines. I am NOT an
Aryan. I have NEVER been an Aryan. In fact, the ancestry I am proudest of came from some
of my forebears who were apparently Pictish Scots, which would explain the slightly higher than
normal amount of Neanderthal genes lurking in my DNA.

And, Mr. Takao, I think it is despicable and reprehensible for you to try to tar me with the brush
of Nazi Sympathies and Aryan Racism. Such Ad Hominem attacks are beneath ANY member of this
Forum, and I think you should be ashamed of having done so.



As for Goddard. You are correct. If he had been given better funding, he would have been able to
staff up a team, start building bigger and better rockets, develop turbo-pumps instead of using
pressurized fuel tanks, and the United States might have had a rocket to carry the Atomic Bomb
in 1945. ( And, had the U.S. listened to Willy Ley, that might also have happened ! )

Mr. Takao, Science and Engineering are dependant upon FUNDING. Remember the line from
the film, The Right Stuff: " No Bucks - NO BUCK ROGERS ! "

After WW2 was over, the German Scientists and Engineers who came to the United States found
themselves living in a Funding Paradise ! Lots of money, lots of materials , the entire Industrial
Plant of the United States at their fingertips, with unlimited financial and material resources
to call upon. ( Want to build an airplane from Titanium ? No problem. Need Tungsten and
Chromium for jet engines ? No sweat ! )


“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore...
Your Engineers, Your Physicists, Your Chemists,
Your Rocket Experts, Your Computer Scientists,
Your Aerodynamicists,
I lift up my lamp beside the Golden Door....."


The great genius of the United States is NOT in producing Military Leaders, it is in building huge
' Rouge River ' type factories to make everything from Aircraft Engines to Electronics. ( The
British invented the Cavity Magnetron, and were building less than a dozen each week. The
British gave a sample to the United States, and we set up a factory that produced over 400
each week ! )

At the outbreak of the War, Turbochargers were in short supply. So, General Electric, who had
just built a plant based on an output of about 1000 turbochargers per year, vastly expanded
the factory, and by the end of 1942, were producing ten times that many.

Because of the Grand Coullee Dam, the United States had a virtually unlimited supply of Aluminum.
In Germany, they were scavenging the wreckage of shot down B-17s for their metal. In the United
States, Alcoa was producing sheets of Aluminum by the mile ! Plus, we had Hematite and Coal in
vast quantities, enough to build more Battleships, Cruisers, Destroyers, Aircraft Carriers, and
Submarines for the U.S.N. than all the other nations in the world combined !

And, Mr. Takao, after the War was over, we took those German Rocket Scientists, and we WENT TO
THE MOON !


I'm not convinced, had the Germans won the War, that they could have put a flag on the Moon by 1969 !


Respectfully :

Paul R. Ward

[Takao]

And, Mr. Takao, after the War was over, we took those German Rocket Scientists, and we WENT TO
THE MOON !

Ummm...That would be a hard no Mr. Ward.

After the War was over, we spent $25.8 Billion dollars and WE WENT TO THE MOON

As you have so kindly pointed out... " No Bucks - NO BUCK ROGERS ! "

The US spent over a quarter of a trillion dollars( in 2020 USD) putting men on the moon.

[T. A. Gardner]

We went to the moon almost entirely, if not entirely, on US engineering and invention too.