It wud haf von ze war had ve gotten ze snags out!
Posted on 06/27/2009 6:30:17 PM PDT by Arec Barrwin
The 163 was not a flying wing.
Lesson to learn here.
The Germans had the most advanced weaponry of the war V-2 ballistic missiles, snorkel submarines, Tiger tanks, 88 mm artillery - and they lost. Because they didn’t have enough of them and they were overwhelmed by more numerous and less sophisticated Allied weapons..
So now we have people like Gates and Obama telling us that we only need 187 F-22s, less than 300 ships, etc., because “they are so technologically superior”.
Ever see the radar return from a corrugated metal building?
As much as I love the History Channel, years ago I called it the 3rd Reich Channel. Every other program was based on Hitler and the gang. A lot of those shows were very good but they were run into the ground.
It wud haf von ze war had ve gotten ze snags out!
“Because they didn’t have enough of them and they were overwhelmed by more numerous and less sophisticated Allied weapons..”
In all fairness, add fighting wars on 2 fronts, and also the very very bad decisions overriding commanders in barbarossa, such as not retreating for the winter, to name one of a number of big issues where local military command was overriden. I have read arguments that hitler and the general staff in berlin lost barbarossa themselves.
The modern theoretical development of Radar Cross Section calculations wss by Pietor Ufemsev of Soviet Union. I am lucky to be able to say I took two classes on the subject from him after he was able to emigrate to the US.
“Hitler’s Secret French Onion Soup Recipe” Tonight, at 8, on the History Channel!
despite the corrugated skin, the three motors must have had a huge radar profile.
The dumb german commanders were the ones who planned Barbarossa. There were no winter uniforms so they merely assumed that Soviet Russia would be destroyed before winter.
Go back a little farther, Burgess-Dunne 1914 ;)
Yep. That bird was waaay ahead of its time.
The Germans didn’t have the fuel to fly a fleet of such twin-engined jet fighters.
The Germans didn’t have a nuclear weapon.
The Germans were far behind in computers and cryptography.
They lost some 12 million people, and any delay in the war would have cost them millions more, especially civilians.
They were never close to winning, they never could win...not against the U.S.
The U.S. lost 350,000 people if you include those killed by the Japanese.
The U.S. introduced the infra-red sniper scope at Iwo Jima (M2 and M3) and the radar-activated airburst artillery round at Bastiogne...both of which ramped up Axis casualties far beyond what the Axis could even predict, much less withstand.
Fair is fair with regard to the German scientists, as well as their more conservative opposite numbers on our side. No one knew what any of these designs might do in the 1940s. All of this stuff was trial and error. It happened that the V1, V2, and Me 262 worked. Plenty of other ideas failed, including some of our own. The Spruce Goose is an American example.
I agree with you about the numbers of aircraft. Our resources and industrial plant were far greater than Germany’s, and safe from German attack. They may have prolonged the inevitable, but German loss was inevitable after they attacked Moscow and failed to reach the Caucasus oil fields. It may have been inevitable as soon as they crossed the Russian border.
the the Messerschmitt Me 163 ‘Komet’ was said to be the first swept wing fighter. it was not a flying wing as far as I ever heard it described. anybody?
Today's "stealth" bombers fly only because of computer technology and thrust.
Also: one poster stated that the Horton is not too very stealthy.
Yes and no: today it would not be all that successful but as of WWII (and much later) "stealth" was measured by frontal area of the aircraft.
I think that this wing would have met those criteria quite nicely.
“The dumb german commanders were the ones who planned Barbarossa. There were no winter uniforms so they merely assumed that Soviet Russia would be destroyed before winter.”
I always wondered why they didn’t take napoleon’s lesson seriously.
That said, am I right in saying that General Staff denied (guderian? dont remember now) permission to pull back considerably into the winter? I know I remember 3 or so major overrides of on-site generals by berlin which were either absurd on the face of them (such as weathering winter where they were) or otherwise strategic disasters.
He saw the evidence and people are still around that witnessed 3 Atom Bomb tests. They were some kind of Dirty Bombs, but the show was very interesting. I think that was on Nat Geo as well.
Their fate was sealed when Hilter invaded Russia. Operation Gunnerside sealed the deal.
I guess the Brits/Americans wouldn’t have continued to work and improve radar when confronted with a plane such as this.
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