How was it that the Germans were so far ahead of everyone else with sub technology in WWII?
None of the allied powers had anything close to the type XXI U-boat at the end of the war. These fuckers could dive to over 1000 feet in 1945 while the US Gato class was lucky to make 500
Can you imagine if germany had been able to produce these in mass? Or if the US had developed a sub during the war with the same type of capabilities?
Cause Germany was behind in everything else naval.
americucks incoming
OP here and I am American. Our subs were shit compared to the Germans across the entire war
A fleet of type XXI-like subs in the Pacific would have chewed the Jap navy up in a year
>How was it that the Germans were so far ahead of everyone else with sub technology in WWII?
because they had no other choice but to put all their funding into subs
their surface vessels were far inferior in average quality and numbers to challenge the british in the open seas, and they were far lacking in naval tradition, training, or tactics to ever hope to catch up
they built better subs, because subs were their only way of challenging enemy naval power
the XXI would have been a fearsome foe, but it would never have changed the tide of battle, and would have only made the allied advance more costly but not change anything
american industry would literally have built ships faster than the germans could sink them
it also ignores that by 1945, german fuel stores so dangerously depleted, and sub bases pushed back further from the atlantic, that they would have spent more time in port than on the prowl
makes sense
Very impressive Germany.... BUT
can you imagine if germany had built 2 massive carriers instead of useless mega battleships? they were so close to beating england with zero navy
>their surface vessels were far inferior in average quality
no
>and numbers
yes, because of the no above.
most of englands navy was merchant and unarmed so yeah taht shit didnt start to matter until later when the brits had enough armed ships to send out
Not like they weren't trying to build them
Oh another "what if" "should have" whreaboo thread :D
Right? Fucking Jow Forums is mostly these.
>BUT GERMANY HAD SUPER SCIENCE OKAY
can you imagine if they made this a carrier instead of a floating noregian fjord coastal defense
shut up you idiots germany had the best fucking science and engineering and was respected by its enemies for it. name me an allied country that was launching ICBMs into near space during ww2 ill wait
>launching ICBMs into near space during ww2
>None of the allied powers had anything close to the type XXI U-boat at the end of the war.
The Japanese had their equivalents to XXI and XXIII (Sen Taka and Sen Taka Sho). They had experimented with high speed submarines before the war already.
The real sophistication advantage of the German navy was in snorkel (refined Dutch invention), radar warning receivers, passive sonar, mechanical encryption/decryption (cracked), decoys, guided torpedoes (the Allies had one, too), autopilot torpedoes (running in patterns after a certain distance to maximise chance of hit in a large convoy after missing the original target), shock hardening, anechoic coating (not mature yet) and deep diving hulls (Type VII/42).
Text depth of Type XXI was a mere 240 m (787 ft), which is well less than the maximum achieved in WW2. Type CII/42 had 300 m, and 400 m crushing depth.
No, but Type IXC/D were indeed superior to Gatos in cost (smaller), maneuvrability, emergency dive time, visibility on the surface and torpedo quality. Type IXD2 blew every U.S. sub out o the water quality-wise (safe for not having an active radar due to its environment).
There were plans for na submarine-launched V2 and there were plans for an ICBM, but the connection wasn't made.
if we just had one more year until D-Day
if the winter of 1943 wasnt so unusually harsh
if the useless japs had just moved west from chinkland
if rommel had just not been on holiday june 6 and people had woken hitler up during the invasion
if mussolini could just stop getting captured by rebels and forcing us to break him out of jail every 2 months
if the RAF had just not taking a small accidentally bombing so personally and gone full retard on the german capital of innocents forcing hitler to stop the effective strategy of destroying RAF radar and air fields to save face
honestly we had so many chances to win it gets depressing listing out all the little things that fucked up the war for us
> The V-2 rocket also became the first man-made object to travel into space by crossing the Kármán line with the vertical launch of MW 18014 on 20 June 1944.[5]
>vertical launch
it was a fucking surface to surface missile you idiot
>shut up you idiots germany had the best fucking science and engineering
germans were cutting edge in some ways, but inferior in the others
they never got the hang of mass production, and even their best factories didnt have the efficiency of their allied counterparts
they also lacked the more sophisticated radio systems employed by the US
one example where they had a total and utter deficiency to their allied counterparts was in artillery
where the US superiority in technology, doctrine, and industry was overwhelming throughout the entire war
also trucks. if germany had just fucking made jeeps, trucks, and half tracks they woudl have fucking been in russia before winter and won that shit
There were also plans for a thousand year reich, but like with a lot of plans they fell through
>their surface vessels were far inferior in average quality and numbers to challenge the british in the open seas, and they were far lacking in naval tradition, training, or tactics to ever hope to catch up
only true with numbers
training, traditions, tactics or quality weren't an issue
the reason they couldnt expand their truck fleet was because of their limited industry, they didnt even initiate mass production until 1943, when they managed to triple their tank production
so every truck built was a tank not built, they simply lacked the industrial capabilities to match the soviet union or the US
another problem was fuel, there would have been no point in expanding truck production if they were using the same fuel as the tanks and now both are out of gas
there basically a zero percent chance that germany could have won because by the time they reached moscow, their fuel was stretched thin as hell and their supply train stretched to breaking point
winter was just the absolute last straw in the attack
their production options were a catch-22
build more tanks and save the fuel for them, and have a fragile and slow supply train and grind your attack to a halt after a certain distance
or build more trucks and use up your fuel even faster and have your attack fizzle out from no gas
they simply couldnt win barbarossa even if they had taken moscow
Same as WW1. Funnily enough, they only had the 5th biggest u-boot fleet in WW1.
Not true.
They could have done shit like using wood gasifiers for trucks.
It's not ideal but they could use the waste wood mulch to power them while leaving nicer petrol for tanks.
meant for
A vertical launch and flight, instead af a ballistic trajectory or whatever, you get it.
They would have been better off developing good landing craft, operation sealion was going to be powered craft tugging flat bottom River boats across the treacherous English Channel. Even today no thinks they could have successfully taken and held the UK with what they had at the time even if they were not fighting the Soviets.
USN fleet boats and KM subs were broadly equivalent in capabilities for most of the war, each with their own advantages and disadvantages (fleet boats with range and crush depth, u-boats with torpedo fuzes that were fixed when it was discovered they didn't work)
>These fuckers could dive to over 1000 feet in 1945 while the US Gato class was lucky to make 500
It was almost like the US was fighting an enemy that wasn't adequately equipped or ready to counter unrestricted submarine warfare. They were able to develop a far more accurate TDC than the Germans and a far more sophisticated suite of radar sets and warning devices. It also really helps that the thermocline is typically up at far lower depths in the pacific.
>Or if the US had developed a sub during the war with the same type of capabilities
The subs the U.S. had historically seemed to do well enough, considering 88% of the Japanese merchant marine available during the war was sunk, more than half by submarines, causing an 83% drop in imports to Japan between 1943-45. It was the most effective submarine campaign in history.
moscow was of almost zero military significance, hitlers generals wanted to skip moscow, stalingrad, leningrad, all that shit, they wanted to go up to the caucuses and seize the oil fields and refineries. which not only was a good strategic target but also an easier fight since there was nowhere near the defenses in place up there.
destroyers werent good against british ones, cruisers consisted of some decent light cruisers, not outstanding but could fight, some decent but not outstanding heavy cruisers and some really poorly designed overgunned experiments.
capital ship wise the scharnhorst and gniesnau were fucking disasters, too slow to avoid action and too weakly gunned and armored to face a true battleship in combat, the best they could manage was sinking a old carrier and a pair of destroyers and even that took longer than it should have done.
and bismarck and tirpitz had significant design flaws, notably relatively poor armor layout, poorly designed propulsion and steering arrangements and a lack of dual purpose HA/LA guns. sure bismarck managed to sink the hood but any capital ship with guns bigger than 11 inches could have managed that, she was unable to significantly damage the PoW had her armor penetrated several times in that engagement, crippled by a single torpedo from a obsolete biplane and was then pounded into burning wreckage.
tirpitz didnt dare engage a RN battleship after bismarcks poor showing and was sunk in port.
and yes the germans had a massive numerical inferiority
>moscow was of almost zero military significance
It was the single largest rail head in the entire Soviet Union and the center for a great deal of industries that couldn't be relocated. It was the single most strategically valuable city in the Soviet Union.
its almost like Germany was building for deterrence and defense on a regional level until Soviet tanks where rolling up on its borders.
>they simply couldnt win barbarossa even if they had taken moscow
What happens to soviet union if at the end of Barbarossa before fall rasputitsa Germanys controlling everything from sevastopol to moscow to leningrad while soviets total field strength is less than a million men total?
>How was it that the Germans were so far ahead of everyone
The obvious answer
You forgot the point where they basically had to take stalingrad to take the caucuses and have a defensible line that would've stretched german forces, most notably their air force, even thinner than they already were.
We were investing in a different sort of weapon.