was the german aero industry a failure?
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gabriel pagliarani
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Nazi aero-industry failed? A question simply badly done by confusing the cause and the effects. How much effective could be aeronautical warfare and air superiority? At very today is not so clear: recently Bosnia, Serbia and Irak were defeated without real massive ground invasions. But at the contrary any strategical manual tells us that"... is not possible to win a war without any real massive ground invasion..." Manuals are simply superseeded: aeronautical warfare is too young for them. (First bombing in Lybia 1911- less than a century!)
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Cantankerous
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Re: was the german aero industry a failure?
The late aviation historian Walter Boyne argued that the evasive level of secrecy in Nazi Germany hurt Nazi efforts at making advanced German jet and rocket planes. Is there evidence to back up his opinion, considering that the P.1101, He 162, and a few other Nazi jet planes were built in underground facilities?
Re: was the german aero industry a failure?
A very strange question. Early on, especially during the Battle of France, many British and French aircraft were lost. Was that a failure of planning or execution?
Some Me 262 assembly occurred in well-concealed forest sites or waldwerke. Kuno I and Kuno II, for example. The He 162 was developed in 30 days. By late in the war, German aviation industry was acutely aware of the overall situation. The Luftwaffe high command had its emergency fighter program. Industry had to shift rapidly with new requirements.
There is no evidence that an excessive level of secrecy slowed down anything. Or evidence that some projects existed just to give workers something to do. The Americans thought they would be home by Christmas, 1944. That did not happen. Tiger tanks appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Troops and equipment moved at night. This is why the Allies used aircraft with photo-flash bombs to try to photograph them. Captured movie film shows a rise near a road that was camouflaged with leaves and vines. German soldiers then pull open a double door and a Tiger tank drives out.
Excessive secrecy occurred during the war in the US. "Gellhorn warned that by placing scientific information in isolated compartments the government would be fragmenting knowledge, narrowing fields of inquiry, and encouraging the duplication of unsuccessful research. Such an approach prevents the exchange of scientific ideas and the stimulation that comes from a comparison of experience. In addition, it takes no account of the needs of scientists working outside the area of secrecy. Indeed, among the multitude of secrecy procedures introduced during World War II, none was more dubious than compartmentalization. Employed by the military on national security grounds, the imposition of this philosophy on scientific research was uniformly counterproductive. One government official admitted that ' more harm in arresting research and development was done by this compartmentalization of information than could ever have been done by the additional scrap of information that the enemy might have picked up by a more general dissemination of knowledge.'" Secret Science - Federal Control of American Science and Technology by Herbert N. Foerstel, page 25.
After the 20 July plot failed, Hitler lost trust with the Army and named a plenopotentiary to oversee all advanced weapons developments, including jets and rockets. This person was SS General Hans Kammler. As the war drew to a close, the General understood the situation. After Hitler, Grossadmiral Karl Doenitz was now head of state. Officially, Kammler committed suicide or was shot by one of his men. Recently, there is some new evidence that the Americans got this man. Perhaps some sort of deal was made.
The Messerschmitt P.1101 was found in Bavaria at a facility the Allies did not know about.
Some Me 262 assembly occurred in well-concealed forest sites or waldwerke. Kuno I and Kuno II, for example. The He 162 was developed in 30 days. By late in the war, German aviation industry was acutely aware of the overall situation. The Luftwaffe high command had its emergency fighter program. Industry had to shift rapidly with new requirements.
There is no evidence that an excessive level of secrecy slowed down anything. Or evidence that some projects existed just to give workers something to do. The Americans thought they would be home by Christmas, 1944. That did not happen. Tiger tanks appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Troops and equipment moved at night. This is why the Allies used aircraft with photo-flash bombs to try to photograph them. Captured movie film shows a rise near a road that was camouflaged with leaves and vines. German soldiers then pull open a double door and a Tiger tank drives out.
Excessive secrecy occurred during the war in the US. "Gellhorn warned that by placing scientific information in isolated compartments the government would be fragmenting knowledge, narrowing fields of inquiry, and encouraging the duplication of unsuccessful research. Such an approach prevents the exchange of scientific ideas and the stimulation that comes from a comparison of experience. In addition, it takes no account of the needs of scientists working outside the area of secrecy. Indeed, among the multitude of secrecy procedures introduced during World War II, none was more dubious than compartmentalization. Employed by the military on national security grounds, the imposition of this philosophy on scientific research was uniformly counterproductive. One government official admitted that ' more harm in arresting research and development was done by this compartmentalization of information than could ever have been done by the additional scrap of information that the enemy might have picked up by a more general dissemination of knowledge.'" Secret Science - Federal Control of American Science and Technology by Herbert N. Foerstel, page 25.
After the 20 July plot failed, Hitler lost trust with the Army and named a plenopotentiary to oversee all advanced weapons developments, including jets and rockets. This person was SS General Hans Kammler. As the war drew to a close, the General understood the situation. After Hitler, Grossadmiral Karl Doenitz was now head of state. Officially, Kammler committed suicide or was shot by one of his men. Recently, there is some new evidence that the Americans got this man. Perhaps some sort of deal was made.
The Messerschmitt P.1101 was found in Bavaria at a facility the Allies did not know about.