General WWII stuff

[Thanas]

Uplifted from testing.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Despite this being Testing, I can't help not to remark that the Nazi fighter aircraft production specifically was actually not that bad. There were not too many complete waste of time models; despite its flaws the Me 262A certainly was not one. In 1944 the factories in fact produced more "tried and true" Bf 109G and Fw 190A models than the Luftwaffe had properly trained pilots and fuel for, but pilot training or availability of crude oil were not matters that could have been solved by more rational production planning (however, the latter was alleviated greatly by the coal-to-liquids production program, which already had the highest priority).

[MKSheppard]

I can't help not to remark that the Nazi fighter aircraft production specifically was actually not that bad.

No, actually it was, specifically the continued production of 109s.

Something like half of all Bf-109s ever built were lost in preventable accidents.

It was better than the P-40 warhawk, but that wasn't hard to achieve. By 1944, it had been frankensteined so many times into so many different subvariants and modifications that parts were problematic; and it was just pushed far beyond it's expiry date.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I know this is testing, but it's related to the idea. Feel free to split this to History Thanas.

The question is, what if WWII had started, say 5 years later? Would the peacetime development of all the jet planes and rockets and tanks and stuff make up fro their limited numbers or whatever?

[Crazedwraith]

If it had been peacetime would they even had invented the jet fighters and rockets and so on? Necessity is the mother of invention after all.

[Shroom Man 777]

If it had been peacetime would they even had invented the air plane and dynamite and so on?

[LaCroix]

If it had been peacetime would they even had invented the jet fighters and rockets and so on? Necessity is the mother of invention after all.

Because Nazi Germany used the time between Hitler's election and the outbreak of war to develop his army? Hitler is quoted that he made war to France with a good-weather army. The really good equipment (PzKpfW III & IV) weren't in full production until then.

So first, they would have the panzerdivisions of the later war (lot's of III & IV instead of mostly II) at the start.
More aircraft of better quality (FW 190 was already in the works in 1939, Me 262 was entering prototype stage in 1940)

If they had time to make good prototypes of the later series tanks like Tiger or Panther (as a natural evolution of type IV) without the need to be quick and while maintaining an overstretched war economy, it would result in less fail-prone designs.

Quality metal for jet engines, time for better jet engines, there would be much technological advance, and the Germans were far ahead in that time, already.

Rocket technology would also be much better, torpedo technology as well - they had sophisticated guiding techniques for both at the end of the war, but most of them of shitty quality due to haste and resource shortfall.

If you want to go for the extreme - five years of peacetime arms build-up might even be enough to get them on the right tracks for nuclear weapons. (albeit not before the Americans, but they would think twice to enter a war with a nuclear Germany that had 5 years to build up it's forces.)
This means they could have used dirty or fully functional nuclear warheads on the V-2 variant aimed at England. (And these would probably really hit where they were aimed at - see guidance above.)

Five years could have changed quite a lot... (Of course, it could have changed a lot the other way, as well...)

[Mr Bean]

Because Nazi Germany used the time between Hitler's election and the outbreak of war to develop his army? Hitler is quoted that he made war to France with a good-weather army. The really good equipment (PzKpfW III & IV) weren't in full production until then.

Correction there were PzKpfW III's and IV's used in Poland, III-A's B's, C's in Poland with F's first being used in France and a rare few getting the 50mm for that campaign (37mm only for Poland) meanwhile the PzKpfW IV had a great number of D models during poland and retained the L/24 all the way till the Africa conversions of the F model into the F2 adding the Pak 43 gun and making it an good medium tank. Before the Panzer III-F/G conversion to 50mm guns and the Panzer IV-F2 conversions the German army had tanks as lightly armed as anyone elses except Russia who started at 75mm guns for their medium tanks.

To note, internal Nazi planning documents by OKW state quite clearly that the re-armament program was meant to be completed in 1943 with the Naval program in 1944 so a five year delay would have brought the Nazi's at least to the theoretical good kickoff date when they were good and ready. The question is how idle Britan and France would have been in the face of the massive war machine the Nazi's had plan to built before the outbreak of war derailed all pre-war production plans.

[LaCroix]

Correct. But that's why I said "FULL PRODUCTION". (edit: Type III went into full production in September 1939, which is after the start of WWII, and Type IV went into full production in 1942, when Type III was phased out, with only little production before)

Also, as brutal as it is to say so, in five years of the Japanese having their way with China, we'd probably see a American-Japanese war FIRST, which would commit American forces in the pacific. This alone would change the war significantly.

This would benefit Germany greatly, as the Americans would be wary to open a second front. The Russians would be tied, as well.

A halfway decent German fleet, better rocket technology (range,guidance,payload) better and more aircraft, possible nuclear capacity, America already tied in a conflict - in this scenario, I'd wager a bet that Britain would be far worse off. In this position, the call for peace would fall on considerably less deaf ears. With five years improvement on the V2 and relative safe positions in France, Germany could bombard the hell out of Britain, while waging an air supremacy battle at the same time. But this time, it would be British planes trying to attack German rocket sites under German radar cover over french territory.

[Akhlut]

Wouldn't the Soviets have time to get more officers, move all their industry behind the Urals with impunity, and manufacture indigenous war machines without the need for American materials and money?

Plus, honestly, wouldn't the Germans waste a lot of time, energy, and material on death and labor camps and rooting out the Jews, Commies, Gypsies, and Homosexuals?

[Mr Bean]

A halfway decent German fleet,

Ahahahahhahha no
A halfway decent German fleet was not possible with Germany's industrial base, keep in mind the German fleet was out numbered in raw tonnage something like 16 to 1 when they came their closets to being able to match Britain, a halfway decent German fleet which would suck German resources dry would still only get them within 10 to 1.

[Marcus Aurelius]

I can't help not to remark that the Nazi fighter aircraft production specifically was actually not that bad.

No, actually it was, specifically the continued production of 109s.

Something like half of all Bf-109s ever built were lost in preventable accidents.

It was better than the P-40 warhawk, but that wasn't hard to achieve. By 1944, it had been frankensteined so many times into so many different subvariants and modifications that parts were problematic; and it was just pushed far beyond it's expiry date.

Well, are you criticizing the fact that the Bf 109 was had too narrow landing gear and violent engine torque (both increased the probability of accidents), or the large number of sub-variants? Both were certainly significant problems, but in 1944 there were already attempts made to standardize the sub-variants to the Bf 109G-10 and later the Bf 109K-4. The latter was a reasonably good fighter even by 1944 standards, so I don't necessarily agree that the design should have been abandoned before 1944, especially considering the retooling time required for any new design built around the DB 605 engine (Bf 109G production was limited mostly by engine production). The large number of variants did not significantly slow down production, although it did complicate maintenance. In any case, the Nazi fighter production effort was a much smaller mess than the AFV production.

By the way, the Soviets also produced their fighters in large numbers of minor subvariants. The LaGG-3 alone had several dozen variants NOT counting in the later LaG-5, La-5 etc. fighters. You just don't hear about it so much.

[LaCroix]

@ Akluht - That wouldn't take much resources away from production. And Russia was in a war(on/off) with Japan back then - why would they move their production without the threat of an advancing German army?

@Mr Bean
Halfway decent != rivaling the British Navy.

With a good number of ships and submarines, and airplanes using reliable guided missiles against ships instead gravity bombs, there is no reason to think that the German navy would be more than just a nuisance for Britain.

[Mr Bean]

@Mr Bean
Halfway decent != rivaling the British Navy.

With a good number of ships and submarines, and airplanes using reliable guided missiles against ships instead gravity bombs, there is no reason to think that the German navy would be more than just a nuisance for Britain.

How you define Halfway decent ? Because you kinda have to rival the British Navy to be halfway decent. If your fleet is halfway decent by 1860's standards it's going to get it's ass handed to it by 1940's standard fleet. Halfway decent must = has a chance to beat the British Navy otherwise it's not halfway decent it's a useless boondoggle, just big enough to have one glorious large scale fleet engagement and then the Naval war is over and done with Germany's navy either battered into nonexistence but the "winner" and in no position to fight a second battle or the Germany navy at the bottom of the Atlantic.

Only submarines offer the chance for repeated use, surface ships it's once out and sunk if your that hugely outnumbered. Even then once the detection problem is licked the submarines will see the same 60% causality on their first cruise figures seen in the real historical war.

As far as reliable guided missles they did not have them in 1945 and such things were not achieved until the 60's so why do you think the Germans will manage it in just four years despite five years of war and the massive post war budgets failing to produce it for another twenty years?

Need I remind you the best the Germans produced missile was the Henschel Hs 293 which had a hit rate of less than 10% as in for the over 300 fired only 29 hits where achieved? And the size of sad missile meant that most German bombers could carry only one.

[LaCroix]

@Mr Bean
Of course, in open sea engagement, everything less then 100% parity is less than decent.
In the case of warfare in the channel, under air cover and even the possible use of V2 against harbors, the 35% strength per treaty would be decent, I guess.

The point it that with a "decent" surface fleet, the submarines will be a big factor for the Kriegsmarine.

Even wire guided rockets/bombs are a big boost against Marine targets. You can still Zerg-rush them old style, as well.

And the reliability of the HS293 was much higher - (I'm quoting german wiki, the english one lacks that info)
KG 40 reported 31% hit rate with 28% duds
II./KG 100 reported 55% hit rate with 25% duds
- this is far from your estimate

And the warhead was twice the size of an Exocet, with 10 nm max range. This was a ship killer.

[Mr Bean]

And the reliability of the HS293 was much higher - (I'm quoting german wiki, the english one lacks that info)
KG 40 reported 31% hit rate with 28% duds
II./KG 100 reported 55% hit rate with 25% duds
- this is far from your estimate

And the warhead was twice the size of an Exocet, with 10 nm max range. This was a ship killer.

Where those German numbers or post war reports, because you can compare the list of 29 ships hit or sunk to the number of HS293's used in combat and I'll quote

A Luftwaffe report on the operational use of guided missiles by KG 100 listed a total of 65 operations with 487 aircraft (both Fritz X and Hs.293). A total of 500 rounds were carried, but a number were lost with their aircraft, or returned to base. At the target, 319 bombs were dropped, of which 215 correctly functioned, with a 49.3% hit rate. Taken against the concurrent Allied night bombing success rate, this was phenomenally high.

However if one compares that figure of 215 against the hit/loss record of the allies you get only 30 ships hit (taken from Wiki for lack of a source closer to hand)

HMS Egret - Sunk
HMT Rohna -Sunk
Banff class sloop HMS Landguard (slightly damaged with Bideford in Bay of Biscay 25 August 1943)[5]
HMCS Athabaskan (heavily damaged by confirmed hit with Egret in Bay of Biscay 27 August 1943)[6]
HMHS Newfoundland (heavily damaged and later sunk by Allied gunfire)
SS Bushrod Washington (sunk 14 September 1943 during Operation Avalanche (World War II))[7]
SS James W. Marshall (damaged 15 September 1943 during Operation Avalanche (World War II) and used for Mulberry harbour -- possibly due to a "Fritz X")[7]
HMS LST-79 (sunk)
SS Samite (damaged)
SS Hiram S. Maxim (damaged)
SS Selvik (damaged)
USS Tillman (possibly slightly damaged 6 November 1943 while escorting Mediterranean convoy KMF-25A)[7] though more likely a torpedo was the cause[8])
HMS Rockwood (damaged slightly, later written off)
HMS Dulverton (heavily damaged and scuttled)
MV Marsa (sunk)
SS Delius (damaged)
HMS Jervis (damaged off Anzio during Operation Shingle 23 January 1944)[7]
HMS Janus (damaged -- possibly from Hs 293, or a torpedo)
USS Prevail (damaged -- possibly from Hs 293)
USS Mayo (damaged -- possibly from Hs 293 or a mine)
SS John Banvard (damaged)
SS Samuel Huntington (sunk off Anzio during Operation Shingle 29 January 1944)[7]
HMS Spartan (sunk off Anzio during Operation Shingle 29 January 1944)[7]
USS Herbert C. Jones (damaged off Anzio during Operation Shingle 15 February 1944)[7]
SS Elihu Yale (sunk off Anzio during Operation Shingle 16 February 1944 -- LCT 35 alongside is also destroyed)[7]
HMS Inglefield
HMS Lawford (sunk -- probably from Hs 293, official report states "aerial torpedo")
USS Meredith (sunk -- possibly from Hs 293 or other causes)
HMCS Matane (damaged)
USS LST-282 (sunk)

You have a strong difference common in German fighter/bomber command where the standards for reporting a hit were very lose, thus by comparing ships hit/sunk vs number of weapons used we get a rate of 14% at best

[Simon_Jester]

If it had been peacetime would they even had invented the jet fighters and rockets and so on? Necessity is the mother of invention after all.

The Me-262 was under development before the war started. Indeed, the demands of war production may have delayed the project, because the government (not without reason) believed it would make more sense to produce and optimize their piston-engine planes than to try to field a revolutionary jet that couldn't be ready until 1943-44 in any case. The Germans weren't planning for a long war, after all.

If it had been peacetime would they even had invented the jet fighters and rockets and so on? Necessity is the mother of invention after all.

Because Nazi Germany used the time between Hitler's election and the outbreak of war to develop his army? Hitler is quoted that he made war to France with a good-weather army. The really good equipment (PzKpfW III & IV) weren't in full production until then.

So first, they would have the panzerdivisions of the later war (lot's of III & IV instead of mostly II) at the start.
More aircraft of better quality (FW 190 was already in the works in 1939, Me 262 was entering prototype stage in 1940)

If they had time to make good prototypes of the later series tanks like Tiger or Panther (as a natural evolution of type IV) without the need to be quick and while maintaining an overstretched war economy, it would result in less fail-prone designs.

Quality metal for jet engines, time for better jet engines, there would be much technological advance, and the Germans were far ahead in that time, already.

Rocket technology would also be much better, torpedo technology as well - they had sophisticated guiding techniques for both at the end of the war, but most of them of shitty quality due to haste and resource shortfall.

If you want to go for the extreme - five years of peacetime arms build-up might even be enough to get them on the right tracks for nuclear weapons. (albeit not before the Americans, but they would think twice to enter a war with a nuclear Germany that had 5 years to build up it's forces.)
This means they could have used dirty or fully functional nuclear warheads on the V-2 variant aimed at England. (And these would probably really hit where they were aimed at - see guidance above.)

Five years could have changed quite a lot... (Of course, it could have changed a lot the other way, as well...)

The V-weapons would not have been so likely to see development without the war; they got a lot more support after Hitler failed with the Blitz. Moreover, you have to factor in that everyone else's technology would be improving at a comparable pace- and that they would have time to reach a higher degree of war mobilization than was historically possible, where the Western Allies only really started rearming seriously one to three years after the start of the war. If the Germans delay starting the war into 1944, they'll be looking at British Lancaster swarms, a reorganized French military that will be better set up for mobile warfare, a Russian army that's fully recovered from the purges... not good.

There's also the increased capability of American long range strategic bombers to factor in- same problem.

Nuclear weapons are most likely out of the question- there were very practical reasons why the German bomb was a failure, and it is unlikely they would have overcome those without knowing someone else had the bomb and that they needed to catch up at all costs... by which point it would be too late.

On top of that, there would be economic factors: the risk of Germany running out of foreign exchange being the most obvious one. So the Germans might have better weapons, but so would everyone else.

Correct. But that's why I said "FULL PRODUCTION". (edit: Type III went into full production in September 1939, which is after the start of WWII, and Type IV went into full production in 1942, when Type III was phased out, with only little production before)

Also, as brutal as it is to say so, in five years of the Japanese having their way with China, we'd probably see a American-Japanese war FIRST, which would commit American forces in the pacific. This alone would change the war significantly.

This would benefit Germany greatly, as the Americans would be wary to open a second front. The Russians would be tied, as well.

I debate this. The Russians would not be involved against Japan, any more than they were historically, and for the same reasons (when Japan tried to get pushy with Russia in '39 their army suffered its most humiliating open-field defeat in decades). The Americans would prosecute the Pacific War with essentially the same assets they did historically: the Navy, with strategic bombers, marines, and a few army units thrown in for good measure. There would still be production to fight Germany, and in the potentially decisive arms of heavy strategic bombers and nuclear weapons, the US would be about as far along as they were historically- well ahead of Germany, in both cases, in terms of both technology and production capacity.

A halfway decent German fleet, better rocket technology (range,guidance,payload) better and more aircraft, possible nuclear capacity, America already tied in a conflict - in this scenario, I'd wager a bet that Britain would be far worse off. In this position, the call for peace would fall on considerably less deaf ears. With five years improvement on the V2 and relative safe positions in France, Germany could bombard the hell out of Britain, while waging an air supremacy battle at the same time. But this time, it would be British planes trying to attack German rocket sites under German radar cover over french territory.

...What makes you think the Germans would be able to easily overpower France if they start in 1944? And what makes you think they'd have better V-2s than they did in the historical 1944, when Hitler has no reason to develop them as enthusiastically in this scenario because his manned bombers haven't already been decisively repulsed in the Battle of Britain? Or, for that matter, what makes you think the Brits wouldn't just flatten German missile complexes on the first few days of the war with their swarms of Lancasters, as they did historically and set back the German missile program severely?

[Lonestar]

I love the references to a better German fleet if the war started in 1944, as if the RN and FN(for that matter, the USN as well) wouldn't have many many more major capital ships in play in 1944 then they did historically with no war diverting resources.

[HMS Sophia]

I love the references to a better German fleet if the war started in 1944, as if the RN and FN(for that matter, the USN as well) wouldn't have many many more major capital ships in play in 1944 then they did historically with no war diverting resources.

Plus if it started in '44, the RN would have things like better ASDIC, better anti-sub weapons (like the hedgehog) and other developments that ended the second 'happy-time' during the second world war...
I do have to wonder what Coastal command would look like? Would the Americans still have sold us the Liberator? If so, the U-boats would have had a much harder time getting the same levels of kills...
Oh, and we would probably be in the middle of building HMS vanguard. That ships was awesome

[Thanas]

No, you wouldn't. You would waste even more steel on the building of the Lion class, an impressive design though it was.

[HMS Sophia]

No, you wouldn't. You would waste even more steel on the building of the Lion class, an impressive design though it was.

Why would that have stopped the building of Vanguard? I mean, she was laid down in '41 and finished in '44
The Lions would have been interesting to see... but ultimately probably a waste of steel yes

[Thanas]

No, you wouldn't. You would waste even more steel on the building of the Lion class, an impressive design though it was.

Why would that have stopped the building of Vanguard? I mean, she was laid down in '41 and finished in '44
The Lions would have been interesting to see... but ultimately probably a waste of steel yes

If there is no war in 1939, there is no chance of the Vanguard being built, seeing as how she was a war emergency measure. Why would the British abandon building the Lions, who were already in Production, if there was no need for it?

[HMS Sophia]

If there is no war in 1939, there is no chance of the Vanguard being built, seeing as how she was a war emergency measure. Why would the British abandon building the Lions, who were already in Production, if there was no need for it?

Fair point. It must be said, when I wrote the original point about the Vanguard, I forgot about the Lions... OK then... We would have had the Lions dammit!

[LaCroix]

A Luftwaffe report on the operational use of guided missiles by KG 100 listed a total of 65 operations with 487 aircraft (both Fritz X and Hs.293). A total of 500 rounds were carried, but a number were lost with their aircraft, or returned to base. At the target, 319 bombs were dropped, of which 215 correctly functioned, with a 49.3% hit rate. Taken against the concurrent Allied night bombing success rate, this was phenomenally high.

However if one compares that figure of 215 against the hit/loss record of the allies you get only 30 ships hit (taken from Wiki for lack of a source closer to hand)
*snip list

You have a strong difference common in German fighter/bomber command where the standards for reporting a hit were very lose, thus by comparing ships hit/sunk vs number of weapons used we get a rate of 14% at best

Out of interes - Where is that quote from?
As far as I know this list tallies only confirmed ships damaged/sunk by HS293, and does not mean single hits in every incident...

215 worked (my quite didn't include misfires, only duds), out of them, ~50% hit = 100 hits, and 25 % duds on impact -= 75 missile hits for 30 ships - Looks sound for me...

[Mr Bean]

Quote is from Metropress's Weapons of World War II
You can't go not counting misfires, your not allowed to by this thing called reality Just like your not allowed to come with a number by only counting the number of hit achieved against ships that were not maneuvering on a clear sunny day and declare that the true accuracy.

Here's a hint, it was a rocket based weapon, German rockets were unreliable in 1945, lots of V-2's blew up on the launch pad, lots of HS-293's failed to fire it's rocket or blew up when the rocket activated (To the sharp surprise of the nearby controller aircraft)

You can ignore the number which were never fired, but the facts are that only 215 Hs 293's of 319 fired correctly worked which means 33% failed before they even had a chance to hit the target. Remember nearly all Nazi planes could only carry one Hs 293 and no other bomb load so if your Hs 293 fails to launch properly your attack goes nowhere. So in a 6 plane attack we expect two to fail to work, three to miss and the last has a 50/50 shot at hitting one target.

*Edit
Here's one more fact, while the weapon was in motion and during the attack run the attack plane had to slow down so they would not overfly the ship before the HS-293 hit. Why? Because the bomber needed to be able to visual see the weapon to guide it which made it meat if there was any kind of air cover nearby to pick off the plane flying slowly in a strait line.