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Oh boy..............I was wondering about the advantages & disadvantages each nation had over the other during the course of WWII.
For example, here's a few advantages I can readily think of
1. The Germans and Russians seemed to have the most brilliant minds, with the UK following very close behind those two:
Russia's disadvantage was that it did not have much skilled labor, and was often dependent on the resources of other nations (UK/US) to supply it; Germany had plenty of skilled labor but seemed to develop every oddball design they could think of, failing to grasp the need to produce things in bulk and cancelling projects with little promise; the UK seemed to have a good ability to come up with ideas that ranged from conventional to novel, and the ability to better determine what they did and didn't need.
2. The Germans and British, due to their brilliant minds were able to see the advantage in a gas-turbine where such ideas were either ignored, or erroneously viewed as useless in other nations like the US.
Not sure what you mean by this, examples?3.The Luftwaffe & USN/USMC both seemed to be the most adaptable in real time.
Of all the independent air-arms, the Luftwaffe and Soviet Air Force were the most able and willing to perform army support, and had produced large numbers of light & medium bombers, including those capable of dive-bombing to this purpose.
The Luftwaffe and Soviet Air Force as independent entities, seemed to have taken the greatest interest in dive-bombing. For overall air-arms, the USN/USMC, and RN also took a serious interest in the idea. The RAF had a periodic interest, and the USAAF's interest was barely existent except in 1940 when they saw how effectively the Luftwaffe plowed across Europe.
Of all the air-arms, the USAAF seemed to value high-altitude capability (as a general rule) more than all the others in that they were willing to put in the effort to make the concept an actuality: To that effect, the US was the only nation to mass produce turbochargers, and while the Russians were quite fond of the idea, they lacked the industrial power to make it work (The Luftwaffe had made at least some successes with turbochargers in the form of the Ju-86P). The Luftwaffe, RN, and USN generally preferred to use superchargers, and while it's possible to produce superchargers with remarkable high-altitude performance, the Luftwaffe and the RAF seemed to both be designed around operating altitudes of around 15,000 to 22,000 feet, the USN/USMC around 21,000-24,000 feet; the USAAF were working on or developing aircraft that could fly comfortably around 25,000 feet (B-17) before the war even started (by 1945, that was of course different: Seemingly everybody could comfortably operate over 25,000 feet)
We should have cut to the chase pre-war and selected the twin wasp instead of continuing our wishful thinking to build merlins and Taurus engines
Army wasted plenty of money and time on hi-per engines that delivered nothing for war effort.
One other issue is that Japan had a poor bearing industry.Japan: early emphasis on long combat radius and suitable fighter escort, IJN used cannon armament, useful torpedos, trained manpower early on making the most of their aircraft, the most formidable attacking force when Pacific war started.
Failings: low standard of training as ww2 progressed, took too long for production to gear up, production of obsolete types after 1943, inter-service rivalry, IJA with too light weaponry until too late, low standard of protection until too late, no big strategic bomber worth takling about in service, no follow on for the Zero, separate designs for separate roles, low state of electronics both development and use, for either surface-based or airborne platforms, low capability for night combat, no 2-stage engine, too late turbo developments, messing with Ha-140 and Atsuta instead of license production of DB 605, low emphasis on V12 engines in general.
...
Also, do remember that Germany and Japan went on a war footing earlier than the democracies or the USSR, so the Allies had to play catch-up.
Might be, but I didn't know where else to put it...
[Soviet designs]Is this an advantage, disadvantage, or both?
When you say it was not-conservative, you mean the idea of using armor as an integral structure?
Do you mean that they were slow by 1941?
Yeah, and they [Soviets] were doing it with most of the labor force in jail...
Even the Pe-2 and Tu-2?
I'd almost swear the I-16 had the provision for drop-tanks, I can't vouch for other aircraft used by the USSR; they definitely had strategic aviation, as well as airplanes to fulfill it (Yer-2 and Pe-8), though I'm not sure how many of either were built, and they might have lacked navigational aids to make their targets.
[no turbos or 2-stage engines for VVS]Same thing could be said of the UK...
[Soviet lack of night fighting capacity]They didn't have many Pe-3's and Tu-2's?
One thing I've noticed with the Russians is they seemed to have attempted to develop an escort fighter in the form of the Pe-2. It wasn't originally designed as a fast-bomber, but an escort fighter.
The Germans had an issue with producing shitloads of designs and tying up lots of resources on them, but not allocating enough resources on one project to see it through.
You mean the zerstorers right?
I have almost no knowledge of german supercharger design..
Installation was good, but reliability was bad?
Yeah, but the Russians also developed the Pe-2 and Tu-2... they were big two engined dive bombers. Hell the Tu-2 could carry something like 8300 pounds of bombs
Has the U.S. gone to war in 1939, it wouldn't have struggled as much as one might think.Don't forget a big advantage for the USA was being geographically isolated from the fighting as well as having an additional two years to see what worked and what didn't before having to commit forces. If they'd gone to war in 1939 they would have struggled.
The U.S. had the F2A, P-35 and P-36 as front-line fighters in 1939.
The problem was, the U.S. wasn't on a wartime footing until winter 1942 and the two years that elapsed between the invasion of Poland and the attack on Pearl Harbor did not see urgent fighter develpment, so when the U.S. did get drawn in, it was not as well equipped as it should have been.