Nazi Equipment - Revision history

Psykerdeblanker: Undo revision 1010225 by 109.70.100.13 (talk)

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73.69.193.6 at 22:57, 26 March 2026

2026-03-26T22:57:11Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 22:57, 26 March 2026
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	Of all the technology the Nazis used, the Wunderwaffen are the thing that caught the imagination of the world and started the "Superior German Engineering" meme. As a preface, civilian engineering is great in Germany. Military? Well... you'll see in a bit. This is the place any of the "Nazi Super Science" stuff goes. You want lightning guns? Wunderwaffen. Super tanks? Wunderwaffen. Moon rockets? Wunderwaffen. [[Wolfenstein\|Hitler in a giant robot spider powered by the souls of the damned?]] Wunderwaffen.		Of all the technology the Nazis used, the Wunderwaffen are the thing that caught the imagination of the world and started the "Superior German Engineering" meme. As a preface, civilian engineering is great in Germany. Military? Well... you'll see in a bit. This is the place any of the "Nazi Super Science" stuff goes. You want lightning guns? Wunderwaffen. Super tanks? Wunderwaffen. Moon rockets? Wunderwaffen. [[Wolfenstein\|Hitler in a giant robot spider powered by the souls of the damned?]] Wunderwaffen.

	A lot of people argue that things like the Wunderwaffen and to a lesser degree the Gen 3 heavy tanks like the Tiger and Panther were wastes of time, money and resources at a point where the Nazis desperately could not afford to spend all three. These same people argue that it would have been preferable to produce more Panzer IVs and StuGs then produce expensive Tigers or Wunderwaffen. The truth is, as usual, a lot more nuanced. Take a quick look at even a modern map of Europe and you will quickly see the same hard truth that has confronted generations of Holy Roman/Prussian/Nazi~~/German~~/NATO strategists: Germany is small. It simply doesn't have the same kind of territory and resources at its disposal that Russia or America have. They could ''maybe'' match England or France one-on-one, but both had global empires that when factored in meant that Germany was dwarfed in the resource game (hence why trying to blockade England into submission was such a critical part of their strategy during both world wars). There is, frankly, no way Germany could ever have produced enough tanks to match the hordes of Shermans or onslaught of T-34s that the Americans and Soviets produced, and there was also no way for them to keep all those tanks fueled. It is with this mindset that one can understand the reason for the Wunderwaffen and Gen 3 heavy tanks. If there is no way to produce as many tanks as your enemy, your only option is to pack so much power into each individual war machine that they can achieve favorable kill/death ratios to make up the difference. At the core, it's Space Marine logic, a few stronger units outfighting many times their number. (This was also the idea Japan had, since they faced the same problem as Germany; unfortunately for them, their industrial infrastructure was even more gimped and dysfunctional than Nazi Germany's, and the result was that while they produced some absolute units like the Mitsubishi Zero, the Long Lance torpedo, and the ''Yamato'' and ''Musashi'', they could never hope to match America's productive capacity when it got going.)		A lot of people argue that things like the Wunderwaffen and to a lesser degree the Gen 3 heavy tanks like the Tiger and Panther were wastes of time, money and resources at a point where the Nazis desperately could not afford to spend all three. These same people argue that it would have been preferable to produce more Panzer IVs and StuGs then produce expensive Tigers or Wunderwaffen. The truth is, as usual, a lot more nuanced. Take a quick look at even a modern map of Europe and you will quickly see the same hard truth that has confronted generations of Holy Roman/Prussian/German/Nazi/NATO strategists: Germany is small. It simply doesn't have the same kind of territory and resources at its disposal that Russia or America have. They could ''maybe'' match England or France one-on-one, but both had global empires that when factored in meant that Germany was dwarfed in the resource game (hence why trying to blockade England into submission was such a critical part of their strategy during both world wars). There is, frankly, no way Germany could ever have produced enough tanks to match the hordes of Shermans or onslaught of T-34s that the Americans and Soviets produced, and there was also no way for them to keep all those tanks fueled. It is with this mindset that one can understand the reason for the Wunderwaffen and Gen 3 heavy tanks. If there is no way to produce as many tanks as your enemy, your only option is to pack so much power into each individual war machine that they can achieve favorable kill/death ratios to make up the difference. At the core, it's Space Marine logic, a few stronger units outfighting many times their number. (This was also the idea Japan had, since they faced the same problem as Germany; unfortunately for them, their industrial infrastructure was even more gimped and dysfunctional than Nazi Germany's, and the result was that while they produced some absolute units like the Mitsubishi Zero, the Long Lance torpedo, and the ''Yamato'' and ''Musashi'', they could never hope to match America's productive capacity when it got going.)

	When put that way, it makes the Wunderwaffe sounds like a good idea in theory. In practice they turned out not to be, due to many different factors, including technical limitations that could not be overcome with the available equipment of the time and sheer nepotism and human stupidity (more on this below). It is indeed true that the different wonder weapon projects were on the bleeding edge of their epoch's technology when envisioned, next generation devices which most of the scientists of other nations had been thinking about/started to toy with, but had yet to reach the prototype stage, much less mass production. Yes, the Germans pioneered a lot of things that were afterwards [[Blood Ravens\|acquired and adapted]] by the Allies and the Soviet Union. The problem was, at the start of the war, the technology to make said Wunderwaffen '''efficient''' weapons (a real guidance system for the V1 and V2, for instance, and a decent fuel valve for V-1s to avoid engine death after a hundred turns) simply wasn't there yet, and once the war got into full-swing and the attendant drain on fighting a multi-front war along with the effects of Allied strategic bombing became dominant, the Germans never managed to close the gap. All that the Wunderwaffen '''could''' have been agreed upon having accomplished is the initial psychological shock upon deployment (such as the unstoppable V-2 launches), which wasn't much of a big deal after the human mind would adapt to the new threat.		When put that way, it makes the Wunderwaffe sounds like a good idea in theory. In practice they turned out not to be, due to many different factors, including technical limitations that could not be overcome with the available equipment of the time and sheer nepotism and human stupidity (more on this below). It is indeed true that the different wonder weapon projects were on the bleeding edge of their epoch's technology when envisioned, next generation devices which most of the scientists of other nations had been thinking about/started to toy with, but had yet to reach the prototype stage, much less mass production. Yes, the Germans pioneered a lot of things that were afterwards [[Blood Ravens\|acquired and adapted]] by the Allies and the Soviet Union. The problem was, at the start of the war, the technology to make said Wunderwaffen '''efficient''' weapons (a real guidance system for the V1 and V2, for instance, and a decent fuel valve for V-1s to avoid engine death after a hundred turns) simply wasn't there yet, and once the war got into full-swing and the attendant drain on fighting a multi-front war along with the effects of Allied strategic bombing became dominant, the Germans never managed to close the gap. All that the Wunderwaffen '''could''' have been agreed upon having accomplished is the initial psychological shock upon deployment (such as the unstoppable V-2 launches), which wasn't much of a big deal after the human mind would adapt to the new threat.

73.69.193.6 at 22:55, 26 March 2026

2026-03-26T22:55:58Z

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73.69.193.6: Undo revision 1008220 by 192.42.116.179 (talk)

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185.220.101.19 at 02:28, 8 February 2026

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imported>Administrator: 548 revisions imported

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2601:1C0:5001:5320:A1B4:2DA2:F72D:497: /* Tanks */

2023-06-22T12:17:08Z

Tanks

← Older revision		Revision as of 12:17, 22 June 2023
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	===Vehicles===		===Vehicles===
	====Tanks====		====Tanks====
	German tanks were in general well designed, but in hindsight were overengineered and prone to breakdowns in the field. For example, take their ''Schachtellaufwerk'' (interleaved wheel system for the tracks). The idea was: more roadwheels = weight distributed more evenly over track = less ground pressure = less bogging down and/or a higher maximum load. It was also supposed to lessen tank shaking and allow the panzers to fire (relatively) accurately on the move. Great idea on paper, and a pretty good one when testing prototypes at home... but an absolute hell on the Eastern front, where the almost supernaturally awful mud (caused by the spring thaw, or ''rasputitsa'') infiltrated between the wheels before freezing and breaking everything. Cue hour after hour of work for the maintenance teams, removing the track and wheels for cleaning before mounting them again [[FAIL\|each and every time the goddamn tank sortied]], where a more traditional slack-track system would have required much less cleaning. And those were just added on top of the already quite large list of ''traditional'' mechanical breakdowns that plagued any and all vehicle pool of the epoch...		German tanks were in general well designed, but in hindsight were overengineered and prone to breakdowns in the field. For example, take their ''Schachtellaufwerk'' (interleaved wheel system for the tracks). The idea was: more roadwheels = weight distributed more evenly over track = less ground pressure = less bogging down and/or a higher maximum load. It was also supposed to lessen tank shaking and allow the panzers to fire (relatively) accurately on the move. Great idea on paper, and a pretty good one when testing prototypes at home... but an absolute hell on the Eastern front, where the almost supernaturally awful mud (caused by the spring thaw, or ''rasputitsa'') infiltrated between the wheels before freezing and breaking everything. Cue hour after hour of work for the maintenance teams, removing the track and wheels for cleaning before mounting them again [[FAIL\|each and every time the goddamn tank sortied]], where a more traditional slack-track system would have required much less cleaning, [[Fail\|and it didn't even work]] post war testing showed no real advantage, hence why no tank in the post war period used a similar system. And those were just added on top of the already quite large list of ''traditional'' mechanical breakdowns that plagued any and all vehicle pool of the epoch...

	Another big weak point in the German Panzerwaffe was the lack of standardization between individual tank models. The Allies more or less made all the variations of their tanks (which were standardized for every company and factory making them) from existing models and fitted them with weapons they deemed appropriate for the task at hand([[Leman Russ (tank)\|just like the Leman Russ, in fact]]), which eased supply and maintenance, whereas the Germans designed entirely new vehicles for every purpose and spread them across multiple manufacturers, each with their own specifications, tooling and production lines. In practice, this meant that parts between German vehicle types were mostly incompatible with each other; i.e. a gear made for a Panzer IV "A" could not go into a Panzer IV "J", compared to T-34s being basically entirely interchangeable. It quickly became a logistical nightmare to keep all the tank units in the field sufficiently supplied with spare parts or even fuel (the Germans never could make their minds up if they preferred gasoline or diesel). That's not to say that they didn't know or realize this (thoughts in this direction lead into the E-Series of design studies, planned to be a series of tank models that more or less shared all parts with each other except armament and chassis) but by 1944 Germany lacked the industrial capacity and resources to switch to a more economical model of production. Furthermore, the German model of tank production didn't help too; all of the German tanks were hand-crafted, using expensive and elaborate methods with strict tolerances to produce the best results possible, which becomes positively idiotic when you compare the results to the colossal production runs of the T-34 and the Sherman. As an example: the most produced German tank of the period was the Panzer IV, with 8,553 produced from 1937 to 1945. The Soviets, meanwhile, built ''over 57,000'' T-34s from 1940-1945. In 1943, they were cranking out 1,300 of the damn things a month, compared to Germany's puny monthly average of 252 Panzer IVs. The T-34 wasn't perfect, but it was good enough, and "good enough" is really all you need when you have 57,000 to your opponent's 8,550. Moreover, while the Germans kept tinkering with and refining the IV's design, the Soviets ignored any modification that would slow production and focused on finding ways to build T-34s as quickly and cheaply as possible. The "5 to 1 ratio" of Allied vs German tanks is as much the result of the modus operandi of the German war industry as it is of failed planning, overly complicated designs, fascist inefficiency, a whole lot of nepotism and corruption and having the SHIT bombed out of them.		Another big weak point in the German Panzerwaffe was the lack of standardization between individual tank models. The Allies more or less made all the variations of their tanks (which were standardized for every company and factory making them) from existing models and fitted them with weapons they deemed appropriate for the task at hand([[Leman Russ (tank)\|just like the Leman Russ, in fact]]), which eased supply and maintenance, whereas the Germans designed entirely new vehicles for every purpose and spread them across multiple manufacturers, each with their own specifications, tooling and production lines. In practice, this meant that parts between German vehicle types were mostly incompatible with each other; i.e. a gear made for a Panzer IV "A" could not go into a Panzer IV "J", compared to T-34s being basically entirely interchangeable. It quickly became a logistical nightmare to keep all the tank units in the field sufficiently supplied with spare parts or even fuel (the Germans never could make their minds up if they preferred gasoline or diesel). That's not to say that they didn't know or realize this (thoughts in this direction lead into the E-Series of design studies, planned to be a series of tank models that more or less shared all parts with each other except armament and chassis) but by 1944 Germany lacked the industrial capacity and resources to switch to a more economical model of production. Furthermore, the German model of tank production didn't help too; all of the German tanks were hand-crafted, using expensive and elaborate methods with strict tolerances to produce the best results possible, which becomes positively idiotic when you compare the results to the colossal production runs of the T-34 and the Sherman. As an example: the most produced German tank of the period was the Panzer IV, with 8,553 produced from 1937 to 1945. The Soviets, meanwhile, built ''over 57,000'' T-34s from 1940-1945. In 1943, they were cranking out 1,300 of the damn things a month, compared to Germany's puny monthly average of 252 Panzer IVs. The T-34 wasn't perfect, but it was good enough, and "good enough" is really all you need when you have 57,000 to your opponent's 8,550. Moreover, while the Germans kept tinkering with and refining the IV's design, the Soviets ignored any modification that would slow production and focused on finding ways to build T-34s as quickly and cheaply as possible. The "5 to 1 ratio" of Allied vs German tanks is as much the result of the modus operandi of the German war industry as it is of failed planning, overly complicated designs, fascist inefficiency, a whole lot of nepotism and corruption and having the SHIT bombed out of them.

imported>Administrator: 1 revision imported

2023-06-19T02:48:45Z

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