Could the Luftwaffe survive against Allied attacks if the USSR had been defeated?

[HoHun]

Hi Venganza,

>If the Nazis had also had the bomb, then that would have changed everything, but even in real life, with the impetus of getting hammered by both sides, they didn't have the bomb by 1945

Hm, we know that today, but how much did the Allies know in 1945? I suppose the consideration that Germans might possibly have an atomic bomb could have dampened the enthusiasm to nuke Berlin, even if it was only a low-probability chance ...

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[ratdog]

and the junkers 390 made it possible for them to drop it on one of our cities because one mission they came within 12 miles of new york

 

[kool kitty89]

The validity of that has been discussed ad nauseum, I'll dig up the thread...


However, a one way trip could be made by, say an He 177B/277, which had the payload (and iirc bomb bay size requirements) capabilities as well. I believe the Ju 290 (if suitably modified) may have been possible to do it with as well.


But the question is would the Germans have had a nuclear bomb available? And IMO the answer is no. There just wasn't serious work being done to develop one, and out of the relatively small nuclear projects that were going on all serious reasearch was going into development of reactors and nuclear power development.


Had work been concentrated on weapons development and producing sufficient amounts of enriched uranium for bomb use, it may have been possible, but I doubt they would have been able to complete more than one (in the 10 kTon class) or maybe a couple smaller ones. I'm not sure if there was work being done on breeding plutonium. (which can be produced much more quickly than enrichiching natural Uranium to weapons grade -hence why the US only completed a single Uranium bomb, while they had enough material to build 3 Plutonium bombs by the wars end)

Of course, the functioning mechanism of the Uranium bomb can be made much simpler (gun-type opposed to implosion) than a plutonium bomb. (which is why the US decided it necessary to test their plutonium bomb before deployment)

The point is,, German devleopment was minimal in terms of a bomb.

Otoh the Japanese focused their 2 projects -1Army + 1Navy- solely on Uranium enrichment and weapons development. And there is evidence of a posible test of a staged device just days befor the surrender. (from the more secret IJN project off shore of N. Korea)

 

[ratdog]

that could have been bad

 

[kool kitty89]

Yes (I assume you're referring to my discussion on German development), and it possibly could have ended the war in a stalemate with the begining of a cold war with the Axis in place of the Soviets.

 

[Venganza]

Hi Venganza,

>If the Nazis had also had the bomb, then that would have changed everything, but even in real life, with the impetus of getting hammered by both sides, they didn't have the bomb by 1945

Hm, we know that today, but how much did the Allies know in 1945? I suppose the consideration that Germans might possibly have an atomic bomb could have dampened the enthusiasm to nuke Berlin, even if it was only a low-probability chance ...

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

HoHun, that's a good question about how much did the Allies know about the Nazi atomic program in 1945. I still think even with that uncertainty, the U.S. would not have allowed air superiority to be wrenched from them, not after so many air casualties on the U.S. side. Remember that one nuclear bomb on Berlin, and with the Germans still thinking they're in good shape (having taken out the Soviets) all the good Nazis would have been in Berlin, and that bomb probably would've taken out almost all of the Nazi High Command, including der Furhrer. Probably the end of the war. Now I'm talking about the U.S., who did have the bomb, and had an ocean between them and the Nazis. If there were a possibility of a Nazi counter nuclear strike, say against London, then I imagine the British wouldn't have been so keen on a nuclear strike on Berlin. However, the U.S. might have just gone ahead and done it anyway without British approval (or knowledge). Who knows - thankfully it never came to that.

Kool Kitty89, you seem to know more about the WWII U.S. nuclear program than I do - do you think that if necessary we could have increased production of A-bombs to counter the still extant Nazi threat?

 

[kool kitty89]

I'm not sure. There was already a huge amount of reasourses going to the bomb program and production of weapons grade uranium was relatively slow. Uranium production was considerable but I realy don't think it could be made particularly faster. (at least not without breaking -partial- secrecy and widening industrial production)

In any case I don't think combating one nuclear threat with another would realy be the right choice. The allied nuclear arsenal would still be ~5x the size of any axis one. (not taking Japan into account) But I think finding and taking out German nuclear facilities would be the top concern.


Historically there was a considerable amount of reasourses put toward thwarting the "Nazi Nuclear Program" (attacking supplies of hevay water etc.) as the allies though the Germans were making considerable progress in developing nuclear weapons (farther along than the allies were). Which of course we now no isn't true.

Rather ironically, the allies never seem to have taken Japan's exploits into nuclear weapons as a serios threat. Only having made "small" progress and having their (mainland army) program bombed out anyway. (after they had begun enrichment of Uranium using thermal diffusion)
However, as mentioned, the much more secret IJN project had continued up to the end of the war, being moderately aided by some data from the defunct army project (the IJA and IJN didn't work well together) and managed to attemt a test of a nuclear device (with possible sucess) just before the wars end.

A History Channel documentary on the topic:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdCe2wBeCiw

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCpZvyHW0NI

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCPH5kTj-5Y

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0fv2_-AJeE

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWOuxC9jkYs



The discussion on Japan leads me to another thought: if the entire allied force focused solely on Europe after the USSR's defeat (as some have proposed) and it does lead to a victory:

What the hell is going on in the Pacific with little to no intervention from the US or Britain?

 

[delcyros]

all the good Nazis would have been in Berlin, and that bomb probably would've taken out almost all of the Nazi High Command, including der Furhrer. Probably the end of the war.

This is a very unlikely event. Central european cities simply aren´s build like japanese. If You compare the damage to buildings with the distance to point zero, You can analyse the blast effect of the then in use bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hieroshima. The high degree of area destruction caused by them is to a very large extent attributable to the light, wooden construction of buildings in both japanese cities. Beton, stone and brick constructions usually prevailed in Japan. Damage was generally caused above the surface and damage below the surface was limited instead.
The large european cities not only are build from very thick and solid stone walls but also regularely have cellars for shelters.
In addition to this, Flakbunkers of the period placed on the larger cities are proof against blast, heat effects and radiation. They do have their own electrical plants and ressources. The subway system would also offer a degree of protection depending on distance to point zero.
This all is nothing in comparison to the autark Führerbunker substructures where the nazi elite housed during the latter part of the war. Don´t expect the nazi leadership to be taken out by a nuke unless the nuke happens to hit the bunker physically.

If there were a possibility of a Nazi counter nuclear strike, say against London, then I imagine the British wouldn't have been so keen on a nuclear strike on Berlin. However, the U.S. might have just gone ahead and done it anyway without British approval (or knowledge). Who knows - thankfully it never came to that.

Yes, thankfully. They were in possession a more dangerous substance than a nuke. Had they been nuked, they may have used their refined Botulinum against the UK and likely also against the US East coats with millions of losses on human life. The UK may have used it´s stocks of nerve gas in return, causing millions of losses in europe. Anyhow, these are bitter prospects.

 

[kool kitty89]

Goo points (I thought about mentioning the chemical and biological weapons, but I wasn't too sure on the specifics, particularly on the German side. The British had anthrax at their disposal as well.

 

[Soren]

Pretty similar to the Meteor F.4 which is more or less constant 590mph up to 15000ft whereupon its limited to M0.82

Which wasnt even close to seeing service in WW2.

 

[Venganza]

Delcyros, you make some very good points. Maybe a nuclear attack against Berlin would have been a futile gesture that would have backfired against the Allies. In that case, and with the possibility of German nuclear or biological counterstrikes, the war might have, as Kool Kitty89 wroter earlier in this thread "ended... in a stalemate with the begining of a cold war with the Axis in place of the Soviets.". Then the Nazis would have had free reign to put into place their "New World Order" in all of Europe. A very chilling thought and let's be thankful it didn't happen, as it would've been a tremendous and bloody disaster, even for the German people.

 

[kool kitty89]

Originally Posted by red admiral
Pretty similar to the Meteor F.4 which is more or less constant 590mph up to 15000ft whereupon its limited to M0.82

Which wasnt even close to seeing service in WW2.

Soren the F.4 prototype flew on May 17, 1945. At the very least it would have been in service by the end of the year. THe delay in post-war introduction was due to the greatly reduced pace of millitary development and spending in Brittain.

 

[Soren]

If the war had lasted till the end of the year 45 then the Germans would've fielded a/c with top speeds i excess of 1,000 km/h. Furthermore a/c such as the P.1011 would've likely been ready in limited numbers, and the Ta-183 would've been in production. And on top of that there would be HeS-011 equipped Me-262's flying around at 1,000 km/h.

 

[Soren]

Delcyros, you make some very good points. Maybe a nuclear attack against Berlin would have been a futile gesture that would have backfired against the Allies. In that case, and with the possibility of German nuclear or biological counterstrikes, the war might have, as Kool Kitty89 wroter earlier in this thread "ended... in a stalemate with the begining of a cold war with the Axis in place of the Soviets.". Then the Nazis would have had free reign to put into place their "New World Order" in all of Europe. A very chilling thought and let's be thankful it didn't happen, as it would've been a tremendous and bloody disaster, even for the German people.

IMO Hitler would've been assinated before that could ever happen. Sooner or later the entire German people would come to know about the concentration camps etc etc, and thus Hitler would've lost all his power.

 

[kool kitty89]

Soren,

I'm not sure on how ready the HeS 011A (1,300 kp) was for production. Also I'm not sure the Ta 152 would have had all its bugs worked out. (likely the normal type tail yould have been utilized as well) I'll admit the P.1011 was proceding well (and a much more practical a/c than the Ta 152 IMO) but may have had to use a different engine.

Likewise the swept-wing He 162's might have made it as well. (at the very least an up-engined standard He 162)


When you say "1000 km/h Me 262's" do you mean regular ones, or with a swept wing and tail a-la HG-II.


In any case the 004E (with AB) and the excellent (1,200 kp) BMW 003D could have made up for a lack of available HeS 011. (for the later Me 262's He 162's and the P.1011) And possibly the Ho 229.

 

[red admiral]

If the war had lasted till the end of the year 45 then the Germans would've fielded a/c with top speeds i excess of 1,000 km/h. Furthermore a/c such as the P.1011 would've likely been ready in limited numbers, and the Ta-183 would've been in production. And on top of that there would be HeS-011 equipped Me-262's flying around at 1,000 km/h.

There would be very small numbers of these aircraft if any. The Ta 183 is best described as downright dangerous given the highly swept wings and complete lack of high lift devices. Add in the fact that it would be woefully underpowered and you've got serious problems. Given that it was developed postwar into the Pulqui II which was a complete pig even with twice the power. The Saab Tunnan was a bit more successful but again with twice the power and considerable changes to the wing design. Similarly the X-5 developed from the P.1101(though not the same aircraft) was rather dangerous. The speed calculations of all the Luft46 aircraft are rather optimistic given the lack of accurate theoretical means of calculating transsonic drag.

The HeS-011 never came close to making it's designed power but would be more reliable in flight due to the mixed-flow compressor and easier to build. It would still be heavy and have poor lifetime.

The rapid production and successful adoption of transsonic designs moving into the M0.9+ range is not going to happen in 1945. The US and USSR both kept production and development at near wartime levels and ended up with these aircraft in 1949 with the F-86 and MiG-15. There's no way to compress that development into a year with limited production and development facilities. Even then its hardly an exact science with designs that seemed promising in early testing soon found to have serious problems when the envelope was pushed a bit further (e.g. Supermarine Swift)

 

[davparlr]

There would be very small numbers of these aircraft if any. The Ta 183 is best described as downright dangerous given the highly swept wings and complete lack of high lift devices. Add in the fact that it would be woefully underpowered and you've got serious problems. Given that it was developed postwar into the Pulqui II which was a complete pig even with twice the power. The Saab Tunnan was a bit more successful but again with twice the power and considerable changes to the wing design. Similarly the X-5 developed from the P.1101(though not the same aircraft) was rather dangerous. The speed calculations of all the Luft46 aircraft are rather optimistic given the lack of accurate theoretical means of calculating transsonic drag.

The HeS-011 never came close to making it's designed power but would be more reliable in flight due to the mixed-flow compressor and easier to build. It would still be heavy and have poor lifetime.

The rapid production and successful adoption of transsonic designs moving into the M0.9+ range is not going to happen in 1945. The US and USSR both kept production and development at near wartime levels and ended up with these aircraft in 1949 with the F-86 and MiG-15. There's no way to compress that development into a year with limited production and development facilities. Even then its hardly an exact science with designs that seemed promising in early testing soon found to have serious problems when the envelope was pushed a bit further (e.g. Supermarine Swift)

I agree with your assessment. There is always a tendency here to assume paper aircraft will perform as proposed, and the transonic arena was especially dangerous. However, I do think the P.1101 could have been developed in 1945 utilizing a fixed wing sweep to a moderate degree; with inflight variable sweep, it was years away.

The Horton, while very advanced in theory, was five to ten years away.

 

[davparlr]

As far as the original premise, it must be remembered that Germany would not be bringing all of it Eastern aviation resouces back to face the western forces, but rather, they had to face the Western forces plus the resources not sent to Russia. The US delivered about 15,000 aircraft, most probably delivered in '43, '44. So, the allies would now have thousands of new bombers, fighters, etc. that it would not have otherwise, and these would be flown by better trained allied pilots. Also, the manufacturing facilities would probably have tranformed into building aircraft better suited for the Western front such as P-51s, 47s, 38s instead of P-40s, p-39s, etc. although even those would have been effective in quantity.

The war in Western Europe would have been an even larger cauldron, but I don't think the air war would have changed, the Axis would still be overpowered by numbers. The Allies would have maintained control of the air and the added ground resouces of Germany would have been fodder to even more hordes of P-47s, P-51s, and maybe even P-39s and P-40s. And, there could have been thousands of more B-17 and 24s.

 

[KrazyKraut]

Also, the manufacturing facilities would probably have tranformed into building aircraft better suited for the Western front such as P-51s, 47s, 38s instead of P-40s, p-39s, etc. although even those would have been effective in quantity.

Isn't that what happened anyways? Or are you referring to the lend-lease aircraft provided to the SU.

The war in Western Europe would have been an even larger cauldron, but I don't think the air war would have changed, the Axis would still be overpowered by numbers. The Allies would have maintained control of the air and the added ground resouces of Germany would have been fodder to even more hordes of P-47s, P-51s, and maybe even P-39s and P-40s. And, there could have been thousands of more B-17 and 24s.

I think it depends entirely on when the SU would've been defeated. If it had been in late '41, early '42 the whole setup would've been so entirely different that noone can really say what would've happened. The war in the west might've dropped to another phoney war altogether. The total number of bombers doesn't play that much of a role (imo) as the overall casualties determined whether bombing campaigns were continued or not.

If it had been in '43-'44 I would agree with you, however the only time Germany was remotely close to a 'victory' was late '41.

There would be very small numbers of these aircraft if any. The Ta 183 is best described as downright dangerous given the highly swept wings and complete lack of high lift devices. Add in the fact that it would be woefully underpowered and you've got serious problems. Given that it was developed postwar into the Pulqui II which was a complete pig even with twice the power.

The Pulqui isn't the Ta-183 it's just based on the same layout. Given that the Ta-183 was just a wooden windtunnel models and pre-production versions by the time the development stopped, I doubt it would've made it into production in this exact shape if the war had progressed as the premise here says. With its projected powerplant I have no doubt it would've reached or at leat come close to the performance specs.
Same goes for the X-5 and the P.1101: The X-5 had swept-wings adjustable in flight and thus the center of gravity problem which could've never been solved. The P.1101 was much simpler.

 

[Soren]

The Ta-183 wasn't underpowered by any means what'so'ever, and the performance of the a/c would've been mindblowing for its time. The light weight, large wing area, high sweep high performance engine would ensure great performance.

That the Ta-183 wing didn't feature any LE slats or wing fences on the drawing board illutrations is no surprise as it hadn't been flight tested yet and thus the placements for the devices couldn't yet have been established. However as soon as the a/c had undergone flight testing it would've without any doubt quickly have been equipped with either automatic LE slats (most likely) or wing fences (a German invention from 38 ), just like the Me-262.

And as for comparing the Ta-183 to the Pulqui II well that just illustrates a lack of insight and reasonable arguments on the subject. The Pulqui II and Ta-183 are two VERY different designs, which should be clear visually as-well as technically. (Note for ex. shoulder vs midfuselage mounted wing) Tank didn't even design the Ta-183, he wasn't even involved in the project, the lead designer project leader was hans Multhopp who assembled his own team to make the a/c. If you want to compare the Ta-183 to anything it has to be the MIG-15 which is much closer to The ta-183 in terms of design than the Pulqui II.

Here's a bit of info on the Pulqui II, which btw was anything but a pig, despite what red admiral falsely claims. The Pulqui suffered from deep stall, that was it's only issue, and the solution was already there when the Argentinian government cut the budget:
FMA IAe 33 Pulqui II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And as for the P.1101 and X-5, they can't be compared, they were different in many ways as-well.