WWII quality....the manufacturers. (1 Viewer)

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I cannot comment on all the nations but it did vary. The USA tended to have the highest quality of finish in the weapons produced. Certainly my Grandfather was astonished when he picked up his Liberty ship. It even had an Ice Cream machine which he had never seen before and it AA guns would shame a typical british escort.

As for the UK it did vary. Aircraft were as well built as anyones, ships were simple but reliable but our tanks were awfull, not just design but in quality of Production.
 
Off my knowledge of tank production; the Soviet Union was poor. It was all quantity.

Don't forget Uncle Joe Stalin's famous phrase:

"QUANTITY has a QUALITY all of its own!"

It served the USSR well for many years, well into the WARPAC scenario. It doesn't matter how good/fast/agile/beautifully finished your $XXm Typhoon/F-22 is, when the 1 serviceable one comes up against 25+ MiG 29s, there's only one result.
 
Don't forget Uncle Joe Stalin's famous phrase:

"QUANTITY has a QUALITY all of its own!"

It served the USSR well for many years, well into the WARPAC scenario. It doesn't matter how good/fast/agile/beautifully finished your $XXm Typhoon/F-22 is, when the 1 serviceable one comes up against 25+ MiG 29s, there's only one result.
A lot of Mig 29 parts! :rolleyes:
 
Don't forget Uncle Joe Stalin's famous phrase:

"QUANTITY has a QUALITY all of its own!"

It served the USSR well for many years, well into the WARPAC scenario. It doesn't matter how good/fast/agile/beautifully finished your $XXm Typhoon/F-22 is, when the 1 serviceable one comes up against 25+ MiG 29s, there's only one result.

Maybe not.. so far the ratio of kills to losses for the F-15 and F-16 are more than 100+ to zero in air to air against soviet fighters
 
Interesting discussions. Following is my view;

>Zero Defects/Failures
That is very thing we mocked, albeit after the war. My opinion is that Japanese had been so good at making what the eye can see. There were good examples like A6M Zero-sen, G4M bombers and even battleship Yamato. All these were fruits of superb engineering and technology but manufacturing of them largely depended on craftsmanship or individual skill of the workers. Operating of the equipment in the fields also depended on skills and techniques or guts, rather than systematized standards or procedures.


Before WW2 airplanes and ships were manufactured, or crafted, in limited numbers under contracts from military and ALL of the civilian mechanical industries were exclusively geared up with military contracts. There had been almost no industry like automobiles, appliances existed for the people's life. It is evident that there had been no such items exported to foreign countries. There possibly be the case that cheaper Japanese made civil airplanes sold in US before the war but it was not.

As can be imagined, the quality of the products went down drastcally later in the war when the aircraft industry inflated so much suffered a lack of skilled wokers or craftsmen. This reflected in the numbers of planes lost other than in combat which is almost the same or exceeding the number of the lost in combat, as reported in post-war US survey documents. Quality of other supplies including fuels and oils accounted for that too.

After the storm gone, the reccuring of the Japanese industry confronted another competition or war in civilian market and to win it, it was needed to introduce, or mock maybe at first, the QC. This was led by the indstrial leaders who mostly had been in military before and/or during the war and who well aware of the value of it.
 
I have part of a copy of the report of the comparison between US fighters and the Kiska A6M. The Zeke had been repaired by American technicians but during the tests the US Army fighters had a number of realiability issues while the A6M just kept soldiering on. Having had a large number of German cars, I have found them to be somewhat overengineered. I wonder if their AC suffered from that characteristic. I believe some of their AFVs did. Having dealt with the fuel systems and electrical systems of British cars, I also wonder about the realiability of their WW2 AC. Based on books about the Pacific War, I would guess that early on the Japanese may have had the best quality AC as far as realiabilty is concerned but their advantage there dwindled as the war went along.
 
After the storm gone, the reccuring of the Japanese industry confronted another competition or war in civilian market and to win it, it was needed to introduce, or mock maybe at first, the QC. This was led by the indstrial leaders who mostly had been in military before and/or during the war and who well aware of the value of it.
There is no doubt that the Japanese had a problem with quality especially parts that were supposed to be interchangeable. After the war William Edwards Deming tried to sell Quality Control sciences to US industry and he was laughed at - he went to Japan and his concepts were totally embraced and it eventually showed in the improvement of Japanese goods over the years.
 
...of German cars, I have found them to be somewhat overengineered. I wonder if their AC suffered from that characteristic.

I believe so too, after doing maintenances on many of German gliders which are all very well engineered and still remained features of the good old days. For example control linkages in some of the top racing types have interconnected aileron and flap which can set them to each flying conditions.
All the gliders can be de-rigged to be stored and transported and in that all the controls are connected automatically. And the retractable power plants. I owed German aircraft technologies and its designers so much.

There seems to be a limitless flow of new ideas still. That should be okay for hobby flying in peacetime to make it more interesting. But suppose if that happened during the war? It seems it did.

I heard that pre-WW2 Japanese military aircraft were very well crafted. If we had learned the QC before making Zero, we would have fought better a lot.
 
I cannot comment on all the nations but it did vary. The USA tended to have the highest quality of finish in the weapons produced. Certainly my Grandfather was astonished when he picked up his Liberty ship. It even had an Ice Cream machine which he had never seen before and it AA guns would shame a typical british escort.

As for the UK it did vary. Aircraft were as well built as anyones, ships were simple but reliable but our tanks were awfull, not just design but in quality of Production.
I think the first really "good" British tank was the Comet of late '44 from what I've heard. The Valentine was more reliable than the cruiser tanks (Crusader etc.) but too small. The irony is that the best commonwealth tank in 1941 was the Canadian "Ram' which was never used in comat. It's one great flaw was that the British Tank commision over-ruled Col. Worthington (who wanted a 60 inch turret ring - big enough for the 75mm) and so it was only able to carry the standard Brit 6 pounder. (57 mm) It used most of the running gear of the US Grant, but had better armour, better radio equip, lower profile a 360' turret.

By the time the Brit's got a really good design, on the Centurion, the war was over!

Ram mk. II at CFB Borden
 

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I think the first really "good" British tank was the Comet of late '44 from what I've heard. The Valentine was more reliable than the cruiser tanks (Crusader etc.) but too small. The irony is that the best commonwealth tank in 1941 was the Canadian "Ram' which was never used in comat. It's one great flaw was that the British Tank commision over-ruled Col. Worthington (who wanted a 60 inch turret ring - big enough for the 75mm) and so it was only able to carry the standard Brit 6 pounder. (57 mm) It used most of the running gear of the US Grant, but had better armour, better radio equip, lower profile a 360' turret.

By the time the Brit's got a really good design, on the Centurion, the war was over!

Ram mk. II at CFB Borden

Have to agree with every word of this posting, but its worth noting that even the Comet didn't have any sloping armour.
 
Yes it would have been nice to see the 8th army using Canadian tanks at El Alamein. But of course it would have been even better to see a Canadian army in "Torch", unfortunately our government was playing stupid politics, so we would up doing "Jubilee" instead. (Dieppe)

Interestingly, although the reference books say that the Ram's 60" turret ring could not mount a 75mm, the Dutch managed to do this with the Ram's they got after the war. The Ram had better armour (25 - 78mm) than ANY of the main Allied tanks in 1942 or 1943 except the Churchill. (although the Russian had better sloped) The Ram had semi-sloped armour I guess, but rounded in the front.

Allied tank armour

M-3 Grant 25 -50mm
M-4 Sherman 25-50 mm
T-34 14 - 45 mm
Matilda 20-78 mm
Valentine 8 - 65 mm
Churchill 16 - 102 mm
 
Well I think it was and is still the general rule that the Germans prioritize quality over quantity more than any of the other countries involved here, and sometimes that proves to be their downfall.

Take a look at the AFV's of each country, the German AFV's clearly stand out in terms quality finish featuring absolutely top quality beautiful welds, optics, refined surfaces, polstery etc etc. The same goes for the German a/c (Take a look at how all was covered in the cockpits, esp. those of FW a/c), and although the lack raw materials meant that substitute metals sometimes had to be used the finish was always excellent.

German guns projectiles were also of unmatched quality throughout the war, take for example the MG-42, it is still is widespread use today and is still considered by many the best LMG available. Or the K98K, the exact action being used by over 80% of all bolt action rifles today.

German optical range finders on tanks being copied and used by all tanks from post WW2 and up until the introduction of laser range finders. And Zeiss continues to provide the best tank optics to date.

There's also anti tank tank guns, a field where Germany was completely ahead throughout WW2 and still is today. Krupp Rheinmetall designed produced the 8.8cm KwK43 L/71 for the Tiger Ausf.B in 1943, the deadliest gun to be mounted on a tank with a turret during WW2, and in 1979 they designed produced the 12cm L/44 smoothbore gun, at the time the most precise powerful tank gun in the world, used today by the Leopard 2 M1A1/2 Abrams. The gun was only recently surpassed in performance by the 12cm Rheinmetall L/55 gun mounted on the Leopard 2A6, the new gun adding an extra 200 m/s velocity to any AP projectile being fired.
 
Yes it would have been nice to see the 8th army using Canadian tanks at El Alamein. But of course it would have been even better to see a Canadian army in "Torch", unfortunately our government was playing stupid politics, so we would up doing "Jubilee" instead. (Dieppe)

Tanks and AFV are certainly one of the araes where my knowledge is not as good as in other areas.

In your opinion how do you think these Candian AFV's would have held up against the German tanks?
 
Tanks and AFV are certainly one of the araes where my knowledge is not as good as in other areas.

In your opinion how do you think these Candian AFV's would have held up against the German tanks?

Absolutely, the Canadian Ram could have bested the Germans! (and not just Canadian patriotism here LOL) If the Ram had been built as originally proposed by the Canadians (75mm version) it would have made a dramatic difference, even the modified version, (after the British had changed the main gun to the 6-pounder - 57 mm) was still the best American or Commonwealth tank. (Sherman had better gun but poorer armour - it arrived Aug/Sept 1942)

The British 6-pounder anti-tank gun was higher velocity, its anti-tank performance in 1942 was almost as good as the lower velocity 75 mm in the Grant. The performance of the US 76 mm (later Shermans) was much better, but wasn't around in 1942. In the desert in 1942 the British 6-pounder could penetrate any German tank in the Africa Korps

The US M-3, (Grant) first produced from May 1941, and was first used in Combat mid 1942. (Eur. theatre) At the battle of Gazala, (May 27, '42) the shortcomings of the tank were noticed (too high silhouette, limited traverse, hull mounted 75 mm prevented hull-down use), and the British armour could not cope with the Germans.

The Canadian RAM (first production was Aug of 1941), was developed very quickly, by using the engine drivetrain of the M-3 Grant. The Ram improved on the M-3 design by increasing the frontal armour from 50 to 78 mm, main gun was turreted (allowing the use of hull-down), adding a turret radio lowering the profile by 18". The added weight of the armour only lowered the speed by 1 mph (Grant - 26 mph, Ram 25 mph)

It basically corrected the problems of the other '40 - '42 British AFV's - Crusader was too lightly armoured (7 - 40mm), only had the 40mm gun very unreliable (breakdowns!); Both the Valentine Matilda II were too slow (15 mph) and had the smaller 40 mm main gun; and the Grant's problems as forementioned.

Remember that at this time the best German tanks (in the desert 1942) were the Pz III with the 50 mm gun, and the Pz IV with the low-velocity 75 mm. By August of 1942 Rommel only had about 30 of the new Pz IV "F" with the high velocity long 75mm. In 1942 both the Pz. III Pz IV had armour of 10-30 mm, some were up-armoured to 10 - 50 mm (But most were not) and none were proof against the British 57mm gun.

if the Ram's had been sent to the desert in early '42 I think it is far less likely that the British would have suffered the heavy defeats of spring/summer 1942!
 
Thanks for your opinion on the matter. As I said AFV's are not really the area that I read to much about and to be honest I knew very little about the Ram.
 

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