Shortround6
Major General
the Germans seemed to do a lot of stuff well in the 20s and early/mid 30s. A lot of the weapons (planes/tanks/artillery/ships) seem to have been solid workman like designs. A bit better than a lot of the other nations stuff. Problem seems to have started in the late 30s ? Believed a little too much of their own propaganda? It is like they tried to leap frog a bunch of different technologies and/or believed they were smarter than their opponents.
The standard 88mm AA gun was good gun but it was not exceptional in any way. What was exceptional was the mount and the overall weight (a bit lighter than average) and perhaps the fire control system. The later long barreled 88mm gun went a little overboard. It fired the standard shell at about 1000m/s instead of 820m/s but it came at the cost of much shorter barrel life, in large part because it used about twice the propellent per shot. The Germans had a real thing for high veleocity guns and maybe they should have backed off just a bit.
Jumping over the manned (mostly) aircraft turret to remote control/remote aiming didn't work out well for them.
A number of other things, like getting rocket motors to work was one thing. Trying to come up with the guidance systems was something totally different. That is guidance systems that would work in combat, not work on a test range just to see if it was feasible.
For the U-boats, yes they were late adopting the snort, So was just about everybody else. But the early snort had more than a few problems. It limited the speed of the sub to about 6kts. They could have made it heavier so it didn't bend or break at higher speed but that complicated folding it up. There were problems in rough seas when the diesels tried to suck the air out of the boat when a wave blocked the inlet for more than a few seconds. Post war the British and Americans tried several things, including closing off the engine room/s and using the next compartment as an air chamber while closing off the rest of the crew compartments to make things easier ( pressure change in aircraft is minor in comparison.
Homing torpedoes had some basic problems. One, you have to get the torpedo to home at any speed. two you have to get it to work at a usable speed.
The Allied Fido worked because it ran at about 12 kts and the German U-boats topped out at about 8kts under water. Most homing torpedoes stopped working in the mid teens for speed. Either the noise of the water rushing by the sensors made them deaf or the noise of their own propellers drowned out the target. A better sensor doesn't work, you need to make the the torpedo itself quieter and somehow smooth the flow of water over the sensor, or move the sensor while keeping a similar search pattern.
German Type XXI subs had some real problems. British didn't even want to try to use the one/s they got after after the war even for experiments. They claim there were control issues. Like keeping at a set depth at high speed. British were having trouble with some of their own boats that were running at closer to 12kts. Boats would either broach (break surface) of dive too deep which was really dangerous as you need a slightly different amount of water in the ballast tanks for different depths and it works backwards, the deeper you go the less water you need in the ballast tank/s. Hull actually shrinks a little bit under pressure reducing buoyancy.
The high speed was real, it was nerve racking and dangerous to use so it didn't give quite the benefit they thought. 1950s subs got more automated depth keeping systems.
Germans tried to go from 8-9kts under water to 17kts (type XXI) or into the 20kt area with the H2O2 boats.
Maybe something halfway would have been easier and still given the Allies fits. 12 knots for 2 hours? Or perhaps 6kts with lot less noise?
The standard 88mm AA gun was good gun but it was not exceptional in any way. What was exceptional was the mount and the overall weight (a bit lighter than average) and perhaps the fire control system. The later long barreled 88mm gun went a little overboard. It fired the standard shell at about 1000m/s instead of 820m/s but it came at the cost of much shorter barrel life, in large part because it used about twice the propellent per shot. The Germans had a real thing for high veleocity guns and maybe they should have backed off just a bit.
Jumping over the manned (mostly) aircraft turret to remote control/remote aiming didn't work out well for them.
A number of other things, like getting rocket motors to work was one thing. Trying to come up with the guidance systems was something totally different. That is guidance systems that would work in combat, not work on a test range just to see if it was feasible.
For the U-boats, yes they were late adopting the snort, So was just about everybody else. But the early snort had more than a few problems. It limited the speed of the sub to about 6kts. They could have made it heavier so it didn't bend or break at higher speed but that complicated folding it up. There were problems in rough seas when the diesels tried to suck the air out of the boat when a wave blocked the inlet for more than a few seconds. Post war the British and Americans tried several things, including closing off the engine room/s and using the next compartment as an air chamber while closing off the rest of the crew compartments to make things easier ( pressure change in aircraft is minor in comparison.
Homing torpedoes had some basic problems. One, you have to get the torpedo to home at any speed. two you have to get it to work at a usable speed.
The Allied Fido worked because it ran at about 12 kts and the German U-boats topped out at about 8kts under water. Most homing torpedoes stopped working in the mid teens for speed. Either the noise of the water rushing by the sensors made them deaf or the noise of their own propellers drowned out the target. A better sensor doesn't work, you need to make the the torpedo itself quieter and somehow smooth the flow of water over the sensor, or move the sensor while keeping a similar search pattern.
German Type XXI subs had some real problems. British didn't even want to try to use the one/s they got after after the war even for experiments. They claim there were control issues. Like keeping at a set depth at high speed. British were having trouble with some of their own boats that were running at closer to 12kts. Boats would either broach (break surface) of dive too deep which was really dangerous as you need a slightly different amount of water in the ballast tanks for different depths and it works backwards, the deeper you go the less water you need in the ballast tank/s. Hull actually shrinks a little bit under pressure reducing buoyancy.
The high speed was real, it was nerve racking and dangerous to use so it didn't give quite the benefit they thought. 1950s subs got more automated depth keeping systems.
Germans tried to go from 8-9kts under water to 17kts (type XXI) or into the 20kt area with the H2O2 boats.
Maybe something halfway would have been easier and still given the Allies fits. 12 knots for 2 hours? Or perhaps 6kts with lot less noise?
