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JcDent posted:In a semi related question, why didn't the Nazis build a heavy bomber? The short answer is: Hitler being Hitler. In his obsession with blitzkrieg he refused proposals for heavy strategic bombers in favor of tactical dive bombers. It worked well for him initially and he refused to change his mind like with many other things. His stupid obsession with dive bombers extended to other mistakes, like pushing for the Arado 234 a jet dive bomber project, which meant that precious many jet engines didn't end up where they should have: on Me-262 fuselages. To top it off, he insisted that the Me-262 itself should also be a dive bomber on the offensive, much to the irritation of competent officers like Adolf Galland who understood very well how this weapon should be used: to shoot down the enemy heavy bombers because heavy bombers are devastating and Hitler was a loving moron. Animal fucked around with this message at 09:23 on Jan 2, 2015 |
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Jan 2, 2015 09:16
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In theory, there is something to be said about focusing your air force on a few things. In practice, this does not mean "everything should be a dive bomber". Heck, Hitlers reasoning is, on a very rudimentary level, quite a lot more rational then some of his over decisions: Hitlers reasoning propably went like this: 1: Our dive bombers are super cool for getting results at land 2: But they are so slow even the Russkies shoot them down! 3: We need a faster Dive Bomber! 4: Lets use Jet engines for that! 5: Blowing up the Russkies is more important then not getting blown up by the unmanly westerners, besides, if we had an epic jet dive bomber fleet, we could defeat any tank thrust by the unmanly westerners anyway!
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Jan 2, 2015 12:13
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But in typical fashion the Nazi state went to the cost and effort of designing and building heavy bombers despite this doctrinal focus on CAS craft.
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Jan 2, 2015 12:56
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FAUXTON posted:In all fairness you had a lot of that time spent trying to defend against things that aren't easily defended against given the methods known at the time - ...gas... Gas has a ridiculously overblown reputation relative to its actual effectiveness in WWI, which makes total sense when you work out what it was best for. It caused a tiny proportion of casualties and an even smaller proportion of deaths (though it was of course pretty much the most horrific way to cause them). It only rarely played a major part in turning a battle. Within a couple of hours of the first proper gas attack, the word was already going round "piss on your hanky, that'll neutralise the gas for a while"; within two months, the first recognisable gas masks were being issued; within nine months you had the iconic Respirator, Small Box. What it was good for was camouflaging an advance, and for generally harassing and attacking the morale of the enemy. Arguably its most successful role was being dropped behind the front on gun positions, with the aim of slowing their rate of fire rather than directly causing casualties. Life in a gas mask is bloody horrible even today, never mind in period examples (and especially once someone had the idea of mixing poison gas with irritants that the mask wasn't designed to neutralise), and of course once you cause a few horrible gas casualties the latrine grapevine soon takes the story everywhere and works its magic and everyone's on edge just from the possibility that gas might get used somewhere near them.
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Jan 2, 2015 13:07
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Animal posted:The short answer is: Hitler being Hitler. Hilariously the easiest answer to a majority of Nazi state mistakes, corruption and incidents. Hitler gonna Hitler. And the pattern works well with the rest of the Nazi elite.
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Jan 2, 2015 15:08
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SeanBeansShako posted:Hilariously the easiest answer to a majority of Nazi state mistakes, corruption and incidents. Hitler gonna Hitler. The biggest mistake is always believing that decisions were reached in the upper echelons of the third Reich on the basis of an analytic approach to the problem as opposed to a drawing Hitler did of a he-man lookalike murdering Slavs on the back of a napkin because he thought it looked ace.
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Jan 2, 2015 15:19
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I don't see how a strategic bomber would have really helped the Nazis though. They could not put anywhere near as many resources into it as the allies did and an aerial war of attrition(the biggest effect of strategic bombing) did not favor the Axis.
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Jan 2, 2015 15:30
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vuk83 posted:I think it is corto maltese in siberia. But im not sure if its supposed to be the real baron he meets or someone based on/inspired by the real baron.
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Jan 2, 2015 15:33
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Panzeh posted:I don't see how a strategic bomber would have really helped the Nazis though. They could not put anywhere near as many resources into it as the allies did and an aerial war of attrition(the biggest effect of strategic bombing) did not favor the Axis. I think the only advantage of them in the German WW2 context is the operational range in the context of the Soviet theatre.
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Jan 2, 2015 15:40
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Panzeh posted:I don't see how a strategic bomber would have really helped the Nazis though. They could not put anywhere near as many resources into it as the allies did and an aerial war of attrition(the biggest effect of strategic bombing) did not favor the Axis. Hopefully, Hearts of Iron 4 will be lame enough for me to live out my "I'd make a better Hitler than Hitler" fantasies. Currently, Hearts of Iron 3 isn't that good for trying to be a good Italy.
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Jan 2, 2015 15:41
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Disinterested posted:The biggest mistake is always believing that decisions were reached in the upper echelons of the third Reich on the basis of an analytic approach to the problem as opposed to a drawing Hitler did of a he-man lookalike murdering Slavs on the back of a napkin because he thought it looked ace. There was design work done on armored-as-gently caress interceptors whose job it was to plow into bombers, survive the impact, and return home.
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Jan 2, 2015 15:43
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Disinterested posted:I think the only advantage of them in the German WW2 context is the operational range in the context of the Soviet theatre. If I'm not mistaken, one of the reasons for the setting of the Arkhangelsk-Astrakhan line as the farthest intended point of German conquest of the Soviet Union was so that the prime lands of Poland, Belorussia and Ukraine would be safe from Soviet strategic bombers, while German strategic bombers could take care of the rest in the event that the Soviets refused to give up. FAUXTON posted:There was design work done on armored-as-gently caress interceptors whose job it was to plow into bombers, survive the impact, and return home. Wasn't this the Ta-152? I mean, on top of being a souped-up bomber-killing version of FW-190. I distinctly recall that there were German fighter formations that really did do the bomber-ramming thing as a fully fleshed-out doctrine and order.
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Jan 2, 2015 15:49
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gradenko_2000 posted:Wasn't this the Ta-152? I mean, on top of being a souped-up bomber-killing version of FW-190. I distinctly recall that there were German fighter formations that really did do the bomber-ramming thing as a fully fleshed-out doctrine and order. No, this was never actually built, and wasn't intended to "fight" so much as smash bombers in half and glide home. It had a rocket engine but wasn't ground-launched like the Me-163. It got towed aloft as a glider and used the rocket to attack, then glided home. The wings and nose were supposed to be armored enough to survive with intact airworthiness so it never really got off the drawing board since it probably was far too heavy to allow the towing craft to take off.
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Jan 2, 2015 16:14
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Panzeh posted:I don't see how a strategic bomber would have really helped the Nazis though. They could not put anywhere near as many resources into it as the allies did and an aerial war of attrition(the biggest effect of strategic bombing) did not favor the Axis. As always, the weird conceptual boners of nazi leaders trumped actual conditions. Hitler "dreamed of bombers that could bomb the American coast" according to Beevor 
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Jan 2, 2015 17:30
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Tias posted:As always, the weird conceptual boners of nazi leaders trumped actual conditions. Hitler "dreamed of bombers that could bomb the American coast" according to Beevor The funny thing is of course when and why the B-36 project started. Glorious American supertechnology.
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Jan 2, 2015 17:43
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Tias posted:As always, the weird conceptual boners of nazi leaders trumped actual conditions. Hitler "dreamed of bombers that could bomb the American coast" according to Beevor The B-36 was born out of a need for a bomber that could operate out of airfields on the US side of the Atlantic to bomb targets in Europe (and return to the US, sans-refueling) in the event Britain fell. Strategic bombing on that scale is just an evolution of bomber doctrine. It wasn't needed since Britain was never invaded, but the concept fit closely enough with nuke-era planning that a couple were built. Having seen one in person (at the SAC museum in Nebraska) it's legitimately massive. Wiki has an aerial photo of it next to a B-52(?) which does more justice to the scale of it than any of the pictures I posted a while back.
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Jan 2, 2015 17:44
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How important was it for the Allies to have airfields on French soil in 1944? Granted, flying from France instead of having to cross the Channel from Southern England meant longer loiter/patrol times and probably less pilot fatigue and faster sortie turnaround, but was there a specific plane/mission that needed the extra distance?
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Jan 2, 2015 17:57
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gradenko_2000 posted:How important was it for the Allies to have airfields on French soil in 1944? Granted, flying from France instead of having to cross the Channel from Southern England meant longer loiter/patrol times and probably less pilot fatigue and faster sortie turnaround, but was there a specific plane/mission that needed the extra distance? For one it allowed them to carry less fuel and thus more ordnance, so it was a force multiplier.
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Jan 2, 2015 18:00
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FAUXTON posted:There was design work done on armored-as-gently caress interceptors whose job it was to plow into bombers, survive the impact, and return home. Seems reasonable. 
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Jan 2, 2015 18:33
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Bro Enlai posted:Seems reasonable. Not pictured: The Zero pancaking when trying to bank right.
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Jan 2, 2015 18:55
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Tias posted:As always, the weird conceptual boners of nazi leaders trumped actual conditions. Hitler "dreamed of bombers that could bomb the American coast" according to Beevor There's a great bit in his D-day book about a German being captured and having the following exchange with his captors: "So where are you from?" "New York City" "Sucks for your family, that's bombed into ashes by now  "This is what nazis actually believed
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Jan 2, 2015 20:19
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Morholt posted:There's a great bit in his D-day book about a German being captured and having the following exchange with his captors: Not so unrealistic or incredible when the state controls all the information about the outside world.
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Jan 2, 2015 20:30
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Alchenar posted:Not so unrealistic or incredible when the state controls all the information about the outside world. I'm really not sure that a great many more switched on people would have believed that for a moment, even putting aside the fact that some people were sneaking BBC radio broadcasts.
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Jan 2, 2015 20:34
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I'm about 70 pages into Sleepwalkers and I already know way more about Serbian turn of the century history and nationalism than I ever reasonably expected to know.
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Jan 2, 2015 22:26
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FAUXTON posted:Wiki has an aerial photo of it next to a B-52(?) which does more justice to the scale of it than any of the pictures I posted a while back. This one does it for me, even after being around one at the USAF museum, to see it outside next to a B-29 shows how much they were pushing boundaries at the time. 
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Jan 2, 2015 23:36
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SeanBeansShako posted:Hilariously the easiest answer to a majority of Nazi state mistakes, corruption and incidents. Hitler gonna Hitler.
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Jan 3, 2015 00:04
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gradenko_2000 posted:How important was it for the Allies to have airfields on French soil in 1944? Granted, flying from France instead of having to cross the Channel from Southern England meant longer loiter/patrol times and probably less pilot fatigue and faster sortie turnaround, but was there a specific plane/mission that needed the extra distance? HEY GAL posted:In his defense though, he did kill Hitler.
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Jan 3, 2015 00:32
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Has there ever been a model done if the US pressed jets a bit harder? Like if the P-80 was introduced slightly earlier and such.
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Jan 3, 2015 00:35
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Arquinsiel posted:He also killed the guy that killed Hitler though. To be fair, he did kill the guy that killed the guy that killed Hitler.
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Jan 3, 2015 01:10
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Top Hats Monthly posted:Has there ever been a model done if the US pressed jets a bit harder? Like if the P-80 was introduced slightly earlier and such. By 1944 the Western Allies have air superiority without jets, so it's hard to imagine it making a difference. The impetus for the P-80 was more of a design exercise than frontline necessity.
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Jan 3, 2015 01:12
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Top Hats Monthly posted:Has there ever been a model done if the US pressed jets a bit harder? Like if the P-80 was introduced slightly earlier and such. It's doubtful it would have changed much.
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Jan 3, 2015 01:19
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There's the old joke where a German vet explains aircraft recognition to a fresh recruit. If you see a dark plane, it's the RAF. If you see a silver plane, it's the USAAF. If you see nothing but empty skies and no planes whatsoever - that's the Luftwaffe.
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Jan 3, 2015 01:23
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gradenko_2000 posted:Wasn't this the Ta-152? I mean, on top of being a souped-up bomber-killing version of FW-190. I distinctly recall that there were German fighter formations that really did do the bomber-ramming thing as a fully fleshed-out doctrine and order. Nah, the Ta-152 was basically a Super FW-190, with the primary variant built to be a high-altitude interceptor. It was overall a beautiful airplane and one of the best-performing single-engine prop fighters ever created. Tank was famously jumped by two P-51s while flying an unarmed prototype on a transfer flight in late '44. He just pushed the throttle to max and left the Mustangs in the dust. The whole ramming thing was some crazy project a few nazi hardliner tried out for all of a few weeeks using older Bf-109s before shitcanning it again afaik. FAUXTON posted:No, this was never actually built, and wasn't intended to "fight" so much as smash bombers in half and glide home. It had a rocket engine but wasn't ground-launched like the Me-163. It got towed aloft as a glider and used the rocket to attack, then glided home. The wings and nose were supposed to be armored enough to survive with intact airworthiness so it never really got off the drawing board since it probably was far too heavy to allow the towing craft to take off. Okay, that's the first time I hear of anything like that. Guess it was just another short-lived napkin project. Magni fucked around with this message at 05:14 on Jan 3, 2015 |
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Jan 3, 2015 04:28
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Speaking of fast prop planes does anybody know if there were any shenangigans with the P-47J hitting its ridiculous top speed number or whether it was actually that ridiculously fast.
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Jan 3, 2015 04:57
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xthetenth posted:Speaking of fast prop planes does anybody know if there were any shenangigans with the P-47J hitting its ridiculous top speed number or whether it was actually that ridiculously fast. They took a 7-ton elephant and turned it into a 6-ton elephant, but kept the huge fuckoff 2100hp (2800 WEP) engine.
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Jan 3, 2015 06:09
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Hey guys, a Wolfenstein LP thread inspired question: what was the worst tank of WWII to see service?
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Jan 3, 2015 07:03
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JcDent posted:Hey guys, a Wolfenstein LP thread inspired question: what was the worst tank of WWII to see service?
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Jan 3, 2015 08:07
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So is The Rising Sun by John Toland still the to go book about World War II Japan or has it been supplanted by more modern scholarship? I only ask because it was written in the 70s when Hirohito was still alive and it wasn't until later that a ton of his involvement in the war was discovered. Does the book go with the old 'powerless puppet' theory? On the note how is Hirohito: The Making of Modern Japan and is that a good overview of Japan during the war?
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Jan 3, 2015 08:11
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JcDent posted:Hey guys, a Wolfenstein LP thread inspired question: what was the worst tank of WWII to see service? Someone else will have to chime in for a specific make and model, but Italian tanks were riveted together and so could be disabled/destroyed by British hand grenades, if they didn't rattle themselves apart from firing their main gun first.
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Jan 3, 2015 08:13
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gradenko_2000 posted:Someone else will have to chime in for a specific make and model, but Italian tanks were riveted together and so could be disabled/destroyed by British hand grenades, if they didn't rattle themselves apart from firing their main gun first.
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Jan 3, 2015 08:22
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