Wunderwaffe.

[Omega133]

Translated from German it means "Wonder Weapon". It was a series of super weapons being planned, under construction, and actually created.

My question is: If Germany would have had more money, as well as more time, to complete many Wunderwaffe; would the war have been affected to the point of the Allies defeat?

 

[sweet Pentax]

the allies had so many spies, any technological advantage wouldn´t have lasted for long.
so the answer is "no".

 

[siledre]

at first I thought the title was wunderwaffle, got me hungry

on topic though, I think the germans would have eventually been defeated even if they did have enough money or time, but if they did end up getting to a point of defeating the allies, keep in mind we probably would have used the atomic bomb on germany too.

 

[Omega133]

at first I thought the title was wunderwaffle, got me hungry

on topic though, I think the germans would have eventually been defeated even if they did have enough money or time, but if they did end up getting to a point of defeating the allies, keep in mind we probably would have used the atomic bomb on germany too.

Heheh. Wonder Waffle.

Possibly, but that's only if we finished the Manhattan Project in time.

 

[Dywyddyr]

Igor Witkowski (the guy in Nick Cook's book The Hunt for Zero Point that gave him the *cough* details of The Bell/ Die Glocke) wrote a book called The Truth About the Wunderwaffe.
Unfortunately (as may be gathered from his "information" to Cook) the guy has a tendency to go off the deep end and start inventing "facts".
The book has some fairly decent information in it, but (especially the entire final section which is devoted entirely to Die Glocke) he takes German proposals and performance estimates as hard fact - even claiming at one point that the Triebflügel flew.
But new to me were reprints of German documents detailing weapons using the Misznay–Schardin effect, i.e. EFPs/ SFFs.

 

[Omega133]

So he resorted to "conspiracies" every once in a while?

 

[Dywyddyr]

Conspiracies?
Hell he resorted to utter bullshit.
Read the Wiki page about Die Glocke: He claimed it was the remnants of some super-secret Nazi anti-gravity AND time-travel device that tended to turn the operators into slush (literally - they're supposed to have just melted in front of witnesses)... another guy went to see it and nearly got taken in because the structure that's left looks like nothing he could recognise, and then on the drive home the guy saw a water storage tank (that was put there by the Germans in WWII): sitting on a nearly identical concrete structure.
Mystery solved...

 

[Omega133]

Conspiracies?
Hell he resorted to utter bullshit.

Read the Wiki page about Die Glocke: He claimed it was the remnants of some super-secret Nazi anti-gravity AND time-travel device that tended to turn the operators into slush (literally - they're supposed to have just melted in front of witnesses)... another guy went to see it and nearly got taken in because the structure that's left looks like nothing he could recognise, and then on the drive home the guy saw a water storage tank (that was put there by the Germans in WWII): sitting on a nearly identical concrete structure.
Mystery solved...

I read the page. I originally went on Wiki to research the Wunderwaffe DG-2. To see if it was real or not. (It isn't.) I ended up finding that Wunderwaffe, Der Riese, and Die Glocke were all real.

I originally thought they were all a bunch of bull because of Call of Duty and the "Nazi zombies" game. Come to find out it was somewhat true. They weren't making zombies (knew that from the start.) but they were doing research.

 

[Omega133]

New question:

Does technology effect wars for the better or worse? (From the point of view of the technologically advanced.)

 

[Dywyddyr]

Um, define "better" and "worse" with regard to effect on war.

 

[Omega133]

Um, define "better" and "worse" with regard to effect on war.

Would technologic advance hamper war efforts or would it bring a nation closer to victory?

One of the reasons Germany lost was because it invested too much in research.

Yet America was able to create the atomic bomb and other advances and it helped them.

 

[Dywyddyr]

Technology increases the cost, and pace, of war.
The thing is that if you haven't got "the latest" tech you're probably on a loser.
The West tends to use to reduce (our side at least) human casulaties, but (as we've seen) techno-warfare tends to be a self-sustaining thing: you develop A, they build counter-A, so you need counter-counter-A, (or develop B to sidestep the counter-A), and you're locked into a cycle that you daren't let go of.

One of the reasons Germany lost was because it invested too much in research.

If you'd written "useless" or "duplicated" research I'd agree: hell, they had a programme for an anti-aircraft gun that was actually THREE programmes: one each funded and overseen by the army, the navy and the air force - all separate, and not sharing any data or results. That's sheer stupidity.

 

[fedr808]

Technology increases the cost, and pace, of war.
The thing is that if you haven't got "the latest" tech you're probably on a loser.
The West tends to use to reduce (our side at least) human casulaties, but (as we've seen) techno-warfare tends to be a self-sustaining thing: you develop A, they build counter-A, so you need counter-counter-A, (or develop B to sidestep the counter-A), and you're locked into a cycle that you daren't let go of.


If you'd written "useless" or "duplicated" research I'd agree: hell, they had a programme for an anti-aircraft gun that was actually THREE programmes: one each funded and overseen by the army, the navy and the air force - all separate, and not sharing any data or results. That's sheer stupidity.

Everyone did crud like that where the services were competing. Luckily not quite so bad as the axis. The Japanese did almost if not worse than the Germans.

The problem with Germany and Japan was that we could outproduce decent quality units compared to either one. And by quality I mean we didn't just spam until we won, we actually came up with some damn good war weapons, ie. P-51D Mustang.

Another example are our aircraft carriers, in the beginning of the war there were less than a dozen fleet carriers. By the end of the war between the fleet carriers, the light carriers, and the escort carriers we had fielded a total of 161 aircraft carriers. That is nothing short of amazing.

 

[Omega133]

Technology increases the cost, and pace, of war.
The thing is that if you haven't got "the latest" tech you're probably on a loser.

Well, some made it work. Like the Zulu during their wr with the British. Ofcourse they lost in the end. But was it because of them not having the latest weapons?

The West tends to use to reduce (our side at least) human casulaties, but (as we've seen) techno-warfare tends to be a self-sustaining thing: you develop A, they build counter-A, so you need counter-counter-A, (or develop B to sidestep the counter-A), and you're locked into a cycle that you daren't let go of.

I've noticed this. The plane: Anti air gun: Jet fighter: SAM: Stealth bomber. The bar keeps getting raised.

If you'd written "useless" or "duplicated" research I'd agree: hell, they had a programme for an anti-aircraft gun that was actually THREE programmes: one each funded and overseen by the army, the navy and the air force - all separate, and not sharing any data or results. That's sheer stupidity.

Was this an upgrade of the Flak? Or was it a totaly new idea?

 

[Dywyddyr]

Well, some made it work. Like the Zulu during their wr with the British. Ofcourse they lost in the end. But was it because of them not having the latest weapons?

Probably because they were losing men too rapidly (and they tended to see warfare as an honourable thing - hence more emphasis on close combat and individual bravery).

Was this an upgrade of the Flak? Or was it a totaly new idea?

Just a plain old gun. IIRC it was to be a medium-calibre weapon, rapid-firing 5 cm gun I think.

 

[fedr808]

Probably because they were losing men too rapidly (and they tended to see warfare as an honourable thing - hence more emphasis on close combat and individual bravery).


Just a plain old gun. IIRC it was to be a medium-calibre weapon, rapid-firing 5 cm gun I think.

Dyw, wasn't it the US that made the breakthrough in using flak with variable time detonators more effective because before it was just a general guess at what time it should detonate but combined with new fire control radars it became extremely effective? I believe it was on the 5 inch naval cannon they started making that breakthrough.

 

[Omega133]

Probably because they were losing men too rapidly (and they tended to see warfare as an honourable thing - hence more emphasis on close combat and individual bravery).

Maybe. But they had a lot to waste.

Just a plain old gun. IIRC it was to be a medium-calibre weapon, rapid-firing 5 cm gun I think.

Oh. It would have probbly been better to upgrade the Flak 88. It was already an anti-air, anti-tank, and anti-personel gun.

 

[Dywyddyr]

Maybe. But they had a lot to waste.

Only so many - and then they'd run into problems keeping their society going. Don't forget that essentially Western cultures have "excess" manpower AND money. We can afford to have men not producing (i.e. standing armies) and equip them. Zulus needed men at home to tend the cattle etc.

Oh. It would have probbly been better to upgrade the Flak 88. It was already an anti-air, anti-tank, and anti-personel gun.

No, that was one reason they went for a smaller calibre: something intermediate between the 88 and the next one down, the 37mm.
The 88 was too slow-firing (and traversing) for fast, low targets and the 37 was too small a calibre (and hence lower effective range and ceiling) for engaging allied fighter-bombers.

 

[Omega133]

Only so many - and then they'd run into problems keeping their society going. Don't forget that essentially Western cultures have "excess" manpower AND money. We can afford to have men not producing (i.e. standing armies) and equip them. Zulus needed men at home to tend the cattle etc.

Yeah. That doesn't tend to be a problem now these days.

No, that was one reason they went for a smaller calibre: something intermediate between the 88 and the next one down, the 37mm.
The 88 was too slow-firing (and traversing) for fast, low targets and the 37 was too small a calibre (and hence lower effective range and ceiling) for engaging allied fighter-bombers.

I guess a combination of the two wouldn't have been a bad idea.

 

[ScaryMonster]

Don't laugh many people believe that the Nazi's were working with aliens and had secret UFO bases in Antarctica.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_UFOs