WW2 But With Todays Technology??

St3ve_o,

An interesting question but there are more interesting ways to ask it.

1. If a /man/ (with extensive historical knowledge and military war college 'supplemental training') were transported back in time. What weapons or tactics could he use to defeat both an imminent threat (BOB or Stalingrad come to mind). As well as 'direct' through a strategic manufacturing program, to gain decisive advantage.

2. If a /force/ went back in time, with all of todays weapons but only in the _stocks immediately available_, what targets would they hit, 'while they could'. People who make no acknowledgement to the effects of logistics upon war are fools to discuss weapons systems based on fragile technology.

Does an F/A-18 drop a bomb visually if it's radar CCIP goes down? How much closer does it have to come to do so? Do you modify existing bombs (lug spacings etc.) and 'fly with what ya got' (ignoring the dangers of releasing uncleared weapons from a fragile airframe using weapons calcs that are designed for much cleaner Mk.80/Aero-1 shapes)?

It is quite possible that a man who COULD choose between a warfighter that would last, at most, weeks if not days without ready access to modern engineering principles and manufacturing techniques would in fact prefer to go with 'SOA 194x' systems. And simply /employ them better/ than was done during the actual conflict.

Or to maximize the developmental emphasis on those areas which could most readily support an enhanced chance of victory.

We spent /billions/ on the Manhatten Project and acted like total barbarians with the resulting nuclear devices we built. At a time when the Heisenberg was ass-u-me'ing that to get a runaway chain reaction, each neutron detonation within each atom had to trigger spontaneous similar events throughout the critical mass. How dumb is that?

OTOH, Whittle's turbojet could have made 'Allying' ourselves with the Russians, solely to bleed the Nazis of critical time and emphasis unnecesarry.

Imagine a world in which Hitler has ruined Communist Russia, there are no nukes (or at least no overt ones) and WE STILL BEAT THE AXIS.

Because we make superior use of things like Enigma. Don't commit to an 'all for the Empire' stupidity of inertia in the Mediterranean. And simply _don't commit_ to fighting the childish antics of Japanese and their love for occupying swampfilled wastelands in the middle of the Pacific (a war entirely winnable with nothing more than mines and torpedoes).

WHAT IF. We had not abandoned all our moral superiority by deciding 'not to fight a Jewish War' which _One Man_ knew was going to lead to the murder of 12 million people. But instead unleashed the full fury of Allied Airpower on every named camp he could recall from history class?

CONCLUSION:
Much of the strategic disaster that was the Cold War came out of our failure to _win_ WWII in ETO. Certainly for the U.S. much of the guilt inherent to rebuilding Japan to an economic state of mouse-eats-elephant dominance today was a mistake directly related to 'atomo-ethnic guilt'.

All these things could have been done better, cleaner, smarter _Even If Not Faster_. By simple virtue of having someone with more than a single working neuron in charge of making just a few key decisions.

'The Problem' (in a less 'TFC' than Sliders/Quantum Leap fashion) then being how you plan to convince anyone to listen to you.

If you're a female, you have a social stigma just shy of being black in the Antebellum South.

If you're a male, you have to prove your expertise in a way that gets to the right people /in the right way/ (try saying Ultra or JN25 without a major head bashing) as to rapidly gain trust without being subject to draft-dodger suspicion or of having a viable personal history to prove you are some kind of counter intelligence asset in play.

Keep in mind.

That if you try to base all your 'say so' authority on 'historical futures', you will have to do so in a way that allows for whatever /changes/ you will make the instant you are successful in instigating countermeasures based on your advice.

'Queen For A Day' doesn't even come close to the kind of truth or dare proofs you would need.


KPl.


P.S. The ultimate disappointment inherent to the 'The Final Countdown' was exactly that which I mentioned. A modern day naval aviator who has (amateur historian) knowledge about the PTO conflict in WWII 'chooses' not to have any material effect on the total casualty count after having been knocked off his helicopter and forced to stay behind.

Instead becoming an industrialist and profiting, immensely, from the flow of time as it was. That he could do so, both morally. And by virtue of not being drafted as a combattant and thus killing 'a whole raft of grandfathers' that might otherwise have lived. Shows the cowardly lack of story telling skills inherent to a sales-over-substance Hollyweird interpretation of the outcomes from as much as leadup to a modern day interference with December 7th.

Lets ask a much more interesting question. Prior to WW-II the germans were working on a whole string of weapons that became the bases of post war armouries, like the Helicopter [Fl-282/Fa-223] Jet [Hs-178/Me-262] ASM/SAM/AAM/ATGM Guided missiles [HS-293/Hs-117 /Ru-344/ X-4 & X-7] Long rod penetrator [Rochling] and ofcourse the Vunder Veapons. All these programs were in early development as the war began but where all canceled by Herman Goering on Feb 1940, because he and Hitler believied the war was already won and they were not needed.

Some of these programs were revived and kept on the back burner like the V-1 /V-2 /Hs-293 & Me-262, but the accumulated delays mean't they were not operational until the last year of the war. When it became clear that the war had turned against Hitler he authorised all the other Vunder Veapons [and some more] to be built and every one was at least in low rate production or advanced prototyping when the war ended.

The programs that were continued [Hs-293] were in mass production by the end of 1942 and operational by 1943, which gives us an interesting time frame for the whole family of modern technology weapons to arrive. Given that even the Hs-293 was itself delayed , its not unreasonable to see these weapons in mass production at the begining of 1942 and operational by the end of 1942. Lets assume for a moment all these weapons are operational by the end of 1942.

So the Hs-117 SAM replaces the 88mm flak on the production line while the Me-262 interceptor replaces the Me-109/110/210/410 on the production line and Ar234 jet bomber replaces the Ju-88 on the production line. Mean while the Fl-282 and Fa-223 helicopters replace the Storch and Ju-52 on the production lines. The Panzercheck/Puchen program has its industry diverted to produce the AAM/ATGM [Ru-344 ; X-4 & X-7 ] while the V-1 industry is diverted to Hs-293 ASM production.

Given the german practice of trying all combinations of weapons and mounts. Its not long before all the Warships have Helos ,SAMs and ASM modified for surface to surface launch throught the ship catapult. The Helos were already used in warships down to 1800 tons but helos were also planed for forward observer rolls to allow entire regiment of artillery to fire to be directed through radio by the Fl-282 helicopter. The ASM were developed for use by bombers to hunt down shipping, but would quickly be adapted to attacking point targets like Airfields and bridges etc. Its not inconcievable to see Stukas carrying these ASMs [their center line hard point was strong enough].

The AAMs were planned to mount on bombers as selfdefence and on fighters to act as interceptors.They were wire guided so they would need a second seater in the interceptor to make it effective. So that could lead to the mass production of the two seat trainer version of their fighters like the Fw-190 and Me-262. Either that or the adaption of the AR-234 into a bomber destroyer. Since the early development of the Helicopter envisaged armed versions, its not unreasonable to expect the Germans to try mounting small ATGM on these helicopters.

So given the fascination with weaponary winning wars, how long before Germany wins the war?



[edit on 18-3-2006 by psteel]

Originally posted by st3ve_o
ok not sure where to post this, but:-

with todays technology (allied forces) how long would it take to beat the nazis with (1945 technology)?

serious guesses people, it would take longer than 1 day but A LOT less than 6 years (which WW2 lasted).

this ant work most if not all Todays Technology was born in WW2

Psteel,

>>
Lets ask a much more interesting question. Prior to WW-II the germans were working on a whole string of weapons that became the bases of post war armouries, like the Helicopter [Fl-282/Fa-223] Jet [Hs-178/Me-262] ASM/SAM/AAM/ATGM Guided missiles [HS-293/Hs-117 /Ru-344/ X-4 & X-7] Long rod penetrator [Rochling] and ofcourse the Vunder Veapons. All these programs were in early development as the war began but where all canceled by Herman Goering on Feb 1940, because he and Hitler believied the war was already won and they were not needed.
>>

Cancelling weapons development programs on the eve or in the midst of a perceived _protracted_ conflict is also not uncommon.

Paladin died in the 1990s. Raptor is dying now.

It is often frankly better to fight with the best of what you have at the moment (in numbers with full quantities of spares) than to devote resources to uncertain yield or inapplicable weapons systems that are not appropriate to the situation at hand.

In this, the early war German efforts look a lot like the later Allied (consolidated production and employment of just a few types) ones. And yet nobody notices or comments on the effectiveness of OUR choices.

>>
Some of these programs were revived and kept on the back burner like the V-1 /V-2 /Hs-293 & Me-262, but the accumulated delays mean't they were not operational until the last year of the war. When it became clear that the war had turned against Hitler he authorised all the other Vunder Veapons [and some more] to be built and every one was at least in low rate production or advanced prototyping when the war ended.
>>

But when did it become clear and why?

You see, the key to victory is to prosecute it without mercy or letup /while you are winning/. From a strategic position irrespective of losses.

Don't beat Britain on the shores of Dunkirk?

Don't beat Britain over London?

_DO_ beat Britain in Africa?

_DO_ beat Britain in the early phases of the Night War?

You see how counter intuitive these indicators are? It makes no sense to feed failure. But rather a skilled military leadership uses it's assets to map out the battlefield, defining strong points as a functon of working it's way around to other points of enemy vulnerability.

Yet _if it were me_.

I would have gassed the Brits in 40-41. Repeatedly. Because that was the time where even a tired Luftwaffe could still delivery terrible blows with chemical agents like Phosgene and Mustard which either clog filters or attack skin. Irrespective of 'little case at your side' defenses.

I would have also burned her agro.

And life a living hell for her road and rail systems.

All things which /I can do/, not because my own forces are still stinging from their defeat en-masse. But because _their forces_ cannot yet summon massed raids sufficient to overcome the Himmelbett/Kammhuber system of '1v.1' defensive intercept.

And of course I have all of France and the Low Countries betwixt me and the enemy. While the notion of an Anglandblitz offensive intruder campaign had not yet been forbidden either.

Switcing to 'desperation tactics' is something you do when you are still wining. It's just that history books write these up as 'brilliant strokes' (vice 'slugging matches') as some kind of foregone conclusion.

>>
The programs that were continued [Hs-293] were in mass production by the end of 1942 and operational by 1943, which gives us an interesting time frame for the whole family of modern technology weapons to arrive. Given that even the Hs-293 was itself delayed , its not unreasonable to see these weapons in mass production at the begining of 1942 and operational by the end of 1942. Lets assume for a moment all these weapons are operational by the end of 1942.
>>

I believe testbombs were actually being dropped before the war. In any case the interesting element is the provision of wire and alternate radio frequency communications for these weapons which were otherwise rendered vulnerable to terminal jamming. If the Luftwaffe fails to recognize added peculiarities inherent to what was already a highly complex terminal flight path (target LOS rate and weapon flare tracking with the planar control sytem of the Hs.293 was very hard to compensate for at the best of times), their enablers won't work regardless.

And if you DO recognize the problems. Or simply assume their presence and diversify your guidance methods preemptively, you must STILL have a strategic plan to take advantage of the window of operational freedom that your (limited) smart weapons inventory provides.

>>
So the Hs-117 SAM replaces the 88mm flak.
>>

Large Caliber Flak is quite adequate as an AA tool against massed high altitude raids. Indeed the _majority of bombers lost_ went down to these tubed fire, especially after June 1944.

What killed the Germans was darling little Goering's 'fear of little black boxes filled with widgets and wires'. Because they needed, more than anything, a working proximity fuze. And ignoring the acoustic systems, they never really got one (Me-109's made routine high altitude flights over the EC throughout 1943 until a flak battery sited on one of the English held islands used ONE ROUND to blow the wing off an aircraft moving at 300+mph and 30,000ft. Thereafter, the 109's rarely came and when they did, they ducked and weaved all the time.)

Go with what ya gots. But make sure what ya gots _works_.

>>
...on the production line while the Me-262 interceptor replaces the Me-109/110/210/410 on the production line and Ar234 jet bomber replaces the Ju-88 on the production line.
>>

No. The time for the Jets to have a significant contribution (and for politics to yield to pragmatism) was 1942 and the He-280. You must put Little Willy in his place. And you must proceed with an available platform to _prove the concept_ (better engine design, adequate airframe, virtually unused production house) as early as possible.

If the He-280 had been productionized, we would have seen a 410-450mph airframe dealing with Mk.V and IX Spitfires like they were /nothing/.

THEN you get the impetus of success to make a Ta-183 as much as a 262 work.

The Arado is another matter but here the Big Deal is trimming the other idiotic efforts (He-219, Ta-154, Me-210/410, Do-335, He-111, Do-217) that were soaking _engines_ as much as production line time.

The Luftwaffe needed two basic types: a medium bomber/destroyer/nightfighter aircraft. And a medium range fighter.

Those types could and should readily be the FW-190 and Ju-88.

WHILE THE JETS COME ONLINE.

More pressing issues, from the strategic standpoint, is the failure to see in Hamburg and streaming Raid system, both the increasing sortie effects on the effectiveness of the intercept system. And the need to have all production _and associated labour_ moved into dispersal. Before U.S. daylight efforts began in 1943.

Germany could hold the line against either one. But not both. And /certainly not/ while the operative psychology (on the part of the leadership) was throwing everything available at every raid, no matter how tactically unwise the attrition effects were.

>>
Mean while the Fl-282 and Fa-223 helicopters replace the Storch and Ju-52 on the production lines. The Panzercheck/Puchen program has its industry diverted to produce the AAM/ATGM [Ru-344 ; X-4 & X-7 ] while the V-1 industry is diverted to Hs-293 ASM production.
>>

Baaah.

Without significant enablers in the form of lightweight, high density, weapons and safe logistics, airmobile is no more useful than airborne ops.

And the Germans simply didn't have the fuel to use the helicopter as a utility transport.

Better, by far, to either put ONE MASSIVE air assault op deep into the 'factor districts', East of the Urals. Or to simply develop a bomber that could reasonably hostage Soviet marshalling/assembly areas and airbases from beyond the nominal 100-150nm that Luftwaffe tactical efforts could reach.

Lack of a proper OCA and Transport interdiction effort was the key failure of both sides in the Russian Campaign. And the failure by the OKW to understand the need to rapidly stabilize their Eastern Front holdings (as they had done in WWI) was key to all subsequent efforts failure in the West.

Again, Germany, with the advantage of mass and distance could HOLD one and WIN the other. But not both. Not at once.

In this, the abandonment of bombers and zerstoren type fighters was not as wise as it seems. Something that the telling German efforts on the USAAF relay missions is indicative of.

>>
Given the german practice of trying all combinations of weapons and mounts. Its not long before all the Warships have Helos ,SAMs and ASM modified for surface to surface launch throught the ship catapult.
>>

The Kriegsmarine had about five useful functions:

1. Norway.
2. England.
3. Turkey.
4. Malta
5. The Black Sea.

In all three areas that service failed, miserably, to undertake what could reasonably be called decisive action.

A notable exception were the merchant surface raiders and here, aye, advanced AShM and Helicopters would do a lot. But not so much so that RN command of the seas would ever truly be jeopardized.

The German hope for the future lay in her Underseewaffen and then mostly in the realization that submerged attacks with standoff weapons (a Long Lance equivalent with Wire Guidance and Terminal Homing) off of acoustic targeting could allow largely conventional U-boats the edge needed to kill without prolonged pursuit and terminal approach exposure.

Obviously a decent understanding of ComSec and again /preemptive paranoia/ relative to code systems was mandatory. Daily action reports were stupid in the face of HuffDuff. Single-use keypad cryptography for contact reports would have been brilliant (even if compromised by capture, no individual boat would ever be 'on the same cypher' with any other).

>>
The Helos were already used in warships down to 1800 tons but helos were also planed for forward observer rolls to allow entire regiment of artillery to fire to be directed through radio by the Fl-282 helicopter.
>>

What the Germans needed, desparately, was an antitank capability that could be rapidly shifted between battles at more than the 20mph that only their best averaged. Anti Tank Guns were fine but slow and required both time to site and transport to shift. Guns were fine but required closure to ranges at which helos would be unable to survive as well as fixed wing aircraft with their superior armor and payload:weight fraction.

Until and unless you put Blitz or Schrecke type weapons /in numbers/ on a helicopter, it cannot replace tubed weapons as a force beyond the convenient range of artillery and able to breakup an attack in road march as much as assault.

And Germany again failed utterly to see that a big HEAT head on a _stable and well aimed_ rocket beat HP guns with their requirement for quality steel and tungsten penetrators all to pieces.

Until it was too late.

With the Russians HAVING that kind of steel (and untouched production output to manufacture multiple tubes from it), the only thing you can do at a tactical level is sit there and take it as they use massed artillery to rototill your forces.

And then pray that a combination of depth and good tactical position plus a scratch team as much as kampfgruppe could handle any leakers.

In such a role, men in a _truck_ with Panzerfaust are as good if not better a weapon than any 'scouted' heavy platform fires.

>>
The ASM were developed for use by bombers to hunt down shipping, but would quickly be adapted to attacking point targets like Airfields and bridges etc. Its not inconcievable to see Stukas carrying these ASMs [their center line hard point was strong enough].
>>

Depends on when you notice and what you do about it.

As early as 1942 the Allies had too many fields and too high a quality air defense to risk massed attack over Britain. At low level your ASM's are iffy at best (see Anzion and later Normandy where flak ate the Germans out of Foggia to pieces).

If you make those bombs /count/ as a function of attacks on Malta then maybe things change. But here too, massing forces to make it all happen matters more than smart bombs so long as you realize that your emphasis of attack is on occupation and victory by main force. Rather than simple 'starving them to death' desultory attrition as in fact occured.

The notion that a few well placed bombs can win wars without overt aggression to force the capitulation is a modern ideal. It hasn't worked well in our time when PGMs actually have the seeker technology (SALH vs. MACLOS CG) and autopilot sophistication to compensate for guidance shortcomings (lags in the control inputs etc.).

In fact 9/11 could largely be said to be a failure of policy based on the success of PGMs. And Arabs today are far less bloody minded than the Allies were in the 40's.

In any case, it would be well not to fall too deeply in lust with the notion of widespread use of proto-smart weapons until you have a battleplan that adequately addresses the logistics and employment doctrine of their use as a function of total-force synergies (How many Do-217 or He-177 do you have that are capable for instance? How many fighters do you have that can compete with the enemy -at range- in escorting them?).

>>
The AAMs were planned to mount on bombers as selfdefence and on fighters to act as interceptors.
>>

The mistake here lies in the assumption that fighters will do any better with guided weapons than they will with cannon. The Ruhrstall was a simple weapon, in principle not unlike Sagger. The problem being that while it did have a prox fuze; it still required undo closure to the bomber stream by an aircraft rendered slow (300mph or so) by it's carriage.

In this you see the fallacy of facing bombers with fighters trying to blow through an escort cordon. You can armor them in the forward sector. Or give them guns that will disable a bomber with 1-3 shells. Or install enough horsepower and booster to let them outrun the escorts. But not all three.

THE KEY then is to divide and conquer. Using the lowest common denominator theorem of 'equivalency' between aircraft of the time: the pilot.

This is actually rather simple, given that a 1,000 aircraft bomber raid is 70 miles long and the escorts are further divided between ingress, target and recovery groups for which rendezvous is seldom certain.

You hit /the Allied fighters/ with a full Jagdgruppen or two and you will rapidly start to score decisive attrition based on the 1PHA (One Pass, Haul Fundament) rule of diving away from threats and into predesignated flaklanes. Anybody that lives is captured or returned to service. Anybody who dies is working against an 8-week replacement cycle.

And with the later radios, the Germans have the ability to mass locally by simply flying the equivalent of a TACAN radial from a marshall stack to ensure that each Allied fighter group is hit with odds of 10:1 or more.

Once you begin 'thinning the herd' on competent escorts; the twins start to become more viable. Not simply with Pz.63 and WGr rockets (themselves exceptionally draggy and more useful in scattering the boxes than anything). But you also can move to simpler 37 and 50mm Bordkannone as your 'plinking devices'.

What this requires to work is relatively simple:

1. Coordinated IADS to included CONTROLLED fires and recognition
(Papagei Markings perhaps, also airborne radio coordinators).
2. Grouped Experten (ala Circus').
3. Long Range Fuel For Everyone.
4. Familiarity with Dispersal ops (whether by local nav training or fire beacons)
5. ACCEPTANCE of initial losses to industry and infrastructure.

You must augment Allied losses with S2A fires (something period German SAMs will be nearly useless for as an anti-fighter weapon) to speed the rates of decisive attrition and prevent counter-bounce and free-sweep tactics from being employed. You must make sure everybody shoots and shoots /well enough/ as small Rotte teams, to be viable as fighter vs. fighter combatants. You must ensure that airbase attacks are not effective for the period in which they are not disrupted. And you must be able to put enough fighters from enough JG coverage zones TOGETHER so that attacks en-route are not profitable and local odds around the bomber stream are severe. Something difficult to do with combat assets of only 60-90nm worth of radius.

Do these things and you can shoot up the autobus' by saddling up on their undefended six and blasting away from beyond their .50 defensive coverage ability to stop you.

And you can do it with existing gun+rocket technology that exploits the native strengths of the platforms you have rather than relying on smart weapons which do not really solve the principle problem of getting smaller aircraft close enough (past the escorts) to do viable attrition while also taking it in the teeth from the bombers.

The alternative is to train cadres of Sturmbocke type forces and make ramjaeger attacks mandatory for every man who failed to get a gun kill on his previous mission. "Lest we make you an infantryman and send you East..."

>>
They were wire guided so they would need a second seater in the interceptor to make it effective. So that could lead to the mass production of the two seat trainer version of their fighters like the Fw-190 and Me-262. Either that or the adaption of the AR-234 into a bomber destroyer. Since the early development of the Helicopter envisaged armed versions, its not unreasonable to expect the Germans to try mounting small ATGM on these helicopters.
>>

The greatest utility for AAM is most likely in the nocturnal campaigns. Here, the most dangerous part of the intercept was the closure from the radar merge to visual breakout of the bomber threat against the clouds or sky. Particularly in a high speed platform like the Do-335 or Arado/262; their is simply not going to be time to play throttle jockey; particularly if you are flinging yourself about from contact to contact and having to waste valuable minutes of gas playing catchup games.

Schrage Musik is a fools game and steady state pursuit invites attack by Beau and Mossie yet you cannot /afford/ to miss and try again because the various signature elements of attack will likely trigger Corkscrew type evasions with massive changes in altitude and heading.

The X-4 works here but the Hs.298, being radio guided and (potentially) having a primitive IR seeker, is probably the better choice.

>>
So given the fascination with weaponary winning wars, how long before Germany wins the war?
>>

Smart weapons work best with a smart strategy and a well versed employment doctrine. Their use in exclusion of rather than as enablers to a more conventional attack is unwise given the technology of the day.

ARGUMENT:
Contrary to popular belief, BOB was entirely winnable and Britain could have fallen did only SeaLion be replaced with foothold strategy and small OMG type raiding forces for a prolonged winter campaign.

Yet short of winning BOB you cannot afford to pursue a 'war of grievances and petty attrition' with the UK for she will manipulate the U.S. into joining and between them they present a nearly untouchable industrial base with which to stretch any interdiction/blockade efforts beyond the tenable.

Indeed, you might almost be better off treating the UK with gentle scorn and letting the pro-Nazi elements within her own populace and leadership stew the nation into a defacto capitulation at the 'reputation untarnished' might of the Germans.

Similarly, you CANNOT accept that Stalin is going to stay on his side of a polite little line in Poland. Because there is reasonable evidence that he was plotting his own little steamroller action and Germany is a helluva lot closer to a Russian frontier than vice versa.

What you MUST seek to achieve then is a campaign which decisively deals with each foe in detail and turn. For Russia that means securing a depth of salient sufficient to starve them while maintaining your own lines of communication. Probably as a function of a SINGLE axis of attack.

It also means abandoning the Italians to their own stupidity in the Balkans and Africa until and unless you are able to deal with the Caucus and Crimea by way of Turkey.

FAIL in this 'win fast or prolong loss' scenario, and Uber Weapons are less a functional superiority than a crapshoot on what will or will not work /doctrinally/ (understanding the engineering well enough to integrate it with tactics and strategy) in the minds of a military heirarchy that still thought in largely 19th century fashion and particularly along linear lines of conflict. Even the concept of Schwerpunkt was a frontal (linear) approach to methodology. Not an ability to see the synergies of interaction by which an opfor functioned as a composite organization. So much as a reduction of their main force ability fight by an awareness of physical geometries and geographies of fire and maneuver application.

CONCLUSION:
Until and unless you deal with the cognitive theorems by which organizations react with strictly regular (normalizing) standard scenarios to highly varied operational, political and technologic complexities that is war your warfighting choices will always remain as narrow as conflict itself is broad. For the latter is a chaotic (fluid) state dictated by preconceived 'justifications' that are truly nothing more than projected objectivism as tunnel vision.

As such, you cannot make Hitler win 'as Hiter', even on a discussion board.

Naziism and the cult of personality it built around 'one bold individual' (strategic moron with a messiah complex) being an ultimate indictment, not of unmitigated nationalist militarism. But rather overt conventionality and ultimately insecurity at acting without the reinforcing template of group-mind allegiance to conservative and staticist rationalism.

All-for-oneing failing to show the very diversity and delegation of authority which would OBSERVE individual casepoint scenarios. Before reporting them up a chain of command able to deal with the raw empirical data in a way that synthesized an operational paradigm to lead as much as meet each fluctuating change in the overall 'situational ethic' of the campaign as it progressed.


KPl.

I respect the Germans and even Hitler for being so bold, so technologically advanced and just a fierce fighting force, but not as the inhumane killers that they were.

I have another similar question, how would a war in the 1940's be fought with TODAY's technology on BOTH sides? imagine the same conflict but with modern weapons (minus the nukes maybe).

Total war with modern weapons is something I can hardly imagine, esspecially without the nukes.

I wish ch1466 could organize his thoughs more clearly since its very confusing to follow. I don't agree with alot of what he writes but then that maybe cause I'm not sure of his points.

The basic premise of the thread is that the super technology of today would make a war of the past a walk in the park . If thats true, then these advanced German weapons I listed...which were just a continuation of prewar military thinking to fill percieved military roles....should by the same logic lead to a german victory.

Unless the basic premise is faulty.

Well, if the Nazi’s got as far as invading Poland they would face the democracies of France and Britain. A Nazi military of 1945 would not stand a chance against a French / British military of 2005.

Nazi Germany would be wiped. Japan would not attack the in the Far East. The USA would be uninvolved as it took then two years to enter the fray historically and Japan was the catalyst to that entry.

In short – a 1945 Nazi war machine would not be able to beat a 2005 Britain / French military. They would be rapidly stopped and Nazi Germany would dissolve under nuclear threat and precison munitions falling on Herr Hitler's bunkers.

Boom

Regards

I think the question needs to be considered more closely.

Is it the technology of 2005 that ther Axis couldn't beat, or the economy?

A Spitfire cost £8500 in 1940, which is £309k in 2005

A Tornado ADV cost £16.4m in 1984, = £33m in 2005

In August 1940 we had 226 Spitfires and 353 Hurricanes, these days we have about 150 Tornados.

Obviously that many billion pounds-worth of Tornadoes would shred the Luftwaffe, but then so would a billion pounds worth of Spitfires!

How well would the RAF do with the financial equivalent, or about six of them?

There are some books by Harry Turtledove called the World War tetrology. It starts during 1942 when during the height of the war earth is invaded by lizards ( yeah I thought it was funny as well ). The lizards use all the technology we have today including nuclear weapons, modern tanks, helicopters etc.
The book uses historically accurate characters from that time frame and makes a good fist of with all the politicking which would eventuate from such an encounter.

One scen I always remember is the Germans on the Russian steppes using Dora - an 800mm cannon - to take out 2 of the lizard motherships.

Worth a read, if the aliens don't put you off.

There are 2 more tetrologies which extend into the 60's.

He has also written a few series on WW1 extending into WWII with no peace in between.

www.amazon.com...=8-7/qid=1142882626/ref=sr_1_7/002-6045895-3900862?%5Fencoding=UTF8

Originally posted by paraphi
Well, if the Nazi’s got as far as invading Poland they would face the democracies of France and Britain. A Nazi military of 1945 would not stand a chance against a French / British military of 2005.

Nazi Germany would be wiped. Japan would not attack the in the Far East. The USA would be uninvolved as it took then two years to enter the fray historically and Japan was the catalyst to that entry.

In short – a 1945 Nazi war machine would not be able to beat a 2005 Britain / French military. They would be rapidly stopped and Nazi Germany would dissolve under nuclear threat and precison munitions falling on Herr Hitler's bunkers.

Boom

Regards

The UK has 1-2 divisions with maybe 60 AH & 250 tanks and maybe 100-150 heavy arty, the French have maybe 1/2 dozen divisions with 100 AH ;700-800 tanks and sevaral hundred heavy arty. Yes they have PGMs, but after a month they will have none.

Yes the UK/French would have several hundred jets as would the french , but how many AAM do you think they have? As i recall its 10:1 max so they have maybe 5,000 AAMs, which may be able to shoot down 4000 Nazi planes. But the Nazie economy was producting ~ 4000 fighters a month along with several thousand pilots. So what happens in the second month when you only have the few hundred AAMs you were able to produce in that month.

OK maybe you have another 5000 SAMs that can shoot down another 4000 nazie bombers/fighterbombers. Thats another months supplie, what happens after that?

The Wehrmacht in 1944 had 350 divisions with 12,000 tanks and 7000 heavy arty.Sooooo how do you plan to stop a swarm of millions of fanatical nazies who know how to fight as well as you do ? Sure their PzFaust will not penetrate their armor of the tanks but parts of the APC are vulnerable. I dare say Panther could penetrate the Warrior and even the rear armor of Challenger, Certainly T-II could. Beyond that all the other AFVs and trucks needed to function are just as vulnerable as they were in 1944.

If the lines of supply are just as vulnerable then the germans can choke off this supply, so pretty soon you have all these super tanks and ICVs with no fuel or ammo to fight with.

The allied super weapons would become a case of too little too late to alter the out come?



[edit on 20-3-2006 by psteel]

That does highlight another problem: modern Western armies are built to take out small numbers of aircraft and tanks and have relatively low stocks of missiles. This is exactly the weakness that the Soviets were aiming at: they would have gone for a very bloody longer struggle, whereas NATO would have to win decisively in a matter of weeks before the ammo ran out.

Hey guys!
Why don't you try to imagine Germany with 2005 technology against rest of the world with 1939?
Imagine Leo2 vs Sherman.
How long will it take for Germany to conquer entire Earth?

[edit on 21-3-2006 by ArcPeter]

Nope, again high tech doesn't really help, unless allied to modern economics, and even then it's hard...

In 1940 German had some 2,5 million men and 2,500 tanks, against a French army of some 5 million...what sort of Blitzkreig could you mount with tiny modern German forces, and how could you maintain lines of supply?
Could you sustain a war of several months, never mind years? Hard to see it...

This is a pointless question, but I can think of two questions that might put it into perspective.

How long did it take to drive Saddam out of Kuwait and later to depose him?

How long did it take the US to defeat Japan once the atom bomb was perfected?

Japan's weaponry was disgraceful even by the standards of the day and Japan's navy was defeated at the Battle of Midway. Pretty much the rest of the war was retaking the Philippines and taking strategic islands held by the Japanese and, of course the bombings, of the mainland.

If by some strange circumstance the US had it's current arsenal to use against those early twentieth century enemies, things would have been a lot different. Japan could have been defeated on December 8th, 1941 with one, maybe two, bombs, and I'm sure that the rest of the Axis could have been convinced to surrender soon thereafter without a similar demonstration in Berlin or Rome. As for all those Japanese soldiers dug in on all those islands of the South Pacific where so many American Marines and GIs died, we could have just let them starve or commit hari kiri.

Actually, I think it's quite remarkable enough what the Allies did as far as weaponry is concerned before and during WWII, without the hypotheticals.


[edit on 2006/3/21 by GradyPhilpott]

If you could take hardware from today back and fight a war like that, there's just so many ways you could utterly devastate the enemy it's hard to start. I mean if you wanted to just go all out - One stealth bomber and a few Nukes - However that would be a bit overkill, if you consider what you could achieve if you had say... well even just 20modern fighters.
Think of how much faster they are for a start, by the time the enemy had a chance to start any anit-air defence, you'd have been and gone.
It's kinda not worth thinking about. Sorta like asking "What'd happen if you had a Sherman Tank in 1066 Battle Of Hastings"... A lot of people would fall down dead. The end. lol.

Pointless! The war would be over before it starts!

If you assume that Only the Allies have the modern weapons, you have your winner. It only takes 35 minutes for an ICBM to reach its target. Almost all of Germany and Japan would vanish under a hail of Nuclear Warheads before either country even has a chance to surrender.

Now, If you assume both side are equally matched and "No Holds Barred", you might read up on MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) for a preview of the results, because you won't live to see them.

Tim

I think the assumption of the thread was only one side has modern gear.
I was working on the assumption that total destruction was not wanted. With what we have now, if you just ordered air strikes on strategic targets as oppossed to a simple Nuclear strike, you'd still totally screw the enemy with few complications if they was using WW2 hardware, should think they'd be pretty powerless, barring a few bits of luck here and there maybe, I shouldn't imagine they'd get so much as a single hit on a modern fighter/bomber.

Or, it would be like saying "What'd happen in a race, between the 1908 Model T Ford and a Porsche 911 Carrera GT"?
Go figure. lol

[edit on 22-3-2006 by DreadNaught]

[edit on 22-3-2006 by DreadNaught]

Sounds like Philadelphia Experiment 2

A disasterous experiment in 1993 sends a stealth aircraft through the time portal, into 1943 Germany. Simultaneously, Herdeg is pulled into the portal, and finds himself in the terrifying 1993 that resulted from a Nazi victory in World War II. (With the help of the stealth bomber)

If Germany (Or any side for that matter) would have had present day technology, they would have been assured winners.

Originally posted by dbates
If Germany (Or any side for that matter) would have had present day technology, they would have been assured winners.

That's basically the long and short of that discussion.