Our Nazi scientists beat your Nazi scientists…to the moon.
http://www.cdvandt.org/Wunderwaffen-file-11110.pdf
What exactly is your point, JAW?
Von Braun, even as a Nazi Party card-carrying ex-SS Colonel [with the lives of untold slave-labourers expended in his rocket-man quest] was granted U.S. citizenship for his part in defeating the Soviet Cold-war missile-gap/space race moon-landing…
Funny too, I recently caught an ep’ of ‘Get Smart’ [the `60s spy spoof] where the U.S. is in crisis…& are pleased to accept an offer from “South America’s best German[Nazi] scientists.”
If the Americans had treated von Braun proportionately to the way they treated the Japanese bastards at Unit 731 / Harbin by ignoring their vastly worse crimes and crimes directly against American servicemen in captivity in the empty hope of learning something about bacteriological and chemical warfare derived from largely pointless and primarily sadistic experimentation by Japanese ****s, von Braun would have been given the Congressional Medal of Honor and made President for Life.
Nothing remarkable about the Allies and Soviets using former SS and other Nazi types post war. The Gehlen intelligence service on the Allied side relied heavily on such types, as no doubt did what became the Stasi in East Germany.
There are, however, differences.
For example, the Western Allies didn’t hold most of the Germans they’d captured during WWII as war reparations and hang on to them until the mid 1950s when the Soviets released the relatively few survivors they hadn’t executed or marched or worked to death.
To be fair, the value of the ex-Nazis did come into calculations, both for the Soviets & the U.S…
But you are correct, & the glaring double standard remains generally unspoken…
For example,Klaus Barbie former Gestapo security chief was cut loose when his post-war U.S. employment ceased…
But the Junkers guys who built the mighty turbo-shaft mills for the Tu 95 ‘Bear’ recon-bomber did get their freedom, eventually…
I don’t think it’s a secret that both the USSR and the US used German scientists after the war. I think the British did as well. All three countries scoured Germany taking equipment, entire airframes, jet engines, V2 rockets, documents and live scientists and technicians to their respective countries. I read somewhere that the French just took everything in their sector that wasn’t nailed down.
Nor is it a secret that German scientists worked on the American and Russian space programs. As with so many human endeavors, the programs eventually outgrew the original scientists and technicians and the “locals” took over. It took such a massive effort that this process didn’t take all that long. So, as this is all rather well-known except to those not paying attention, I’m still curious about why you started this thread. What are you hoping to learn, if anything?
It’s well known in industrial circles that following WWI, many, if not all, German- being chemical geniuses - organic chemical process patents were purloined by the British and Americans. This is what was known as “to the victor the spoils”. Same with WW2.
Well the conclusion of the report is that the Germans were ahead in some fields but the US were ahead in others, specific parts of several different rocket motor systems were to be looked at further with the aim of incorporating them into existing US designs and developments.
Without a doubt, the Germans were well ahead of the allies in the development of ballistic missiles. If necessity is the mother of invention, as it often is, then the V2 partially fulfilled a pressing German need. I say “partially” because the German guidance systems were quite hopeless, not being too far off from a blind man shooting an arrow in the “general direction” of something big. So while the V2 was definitely “invulnerable” in the sense that it couldn’t be deterred or shot down, it couldn’t hit anything in particular either.
The allies had no need for such a weapon since they had a very large bomber force - also very inaccurate, by the by - that, once it was escorted to and from Germany by Mustang fighters, proved quite resistant to German fighters. If the shoe had been on the other foot, the allies would probably have invested the time and effort to develop their own. But there was no such need.
When the English put centimetric radar in their Mosquitos and other aircraft, the u-boats’ days were definitely numbered because they suddenly became visible at night and even periscopes peeking above the surface of the sea were “visible” - a good example of a pressing need resulting in a definite and effective response.
At the beginning of the Battle of Britain, the English use of radar probably saved Fighter Command from the get-go. The system was rather poorly understood by the Germans, at least at first, and their attacks on the system, had they been pressed, might have had a good effect for them. They were not, however. Not until the Kammhuber Line was developed, did the Germans match the kind of integrated radar defense that Fighter Command had ready at the beginning of the war.
The Americans were league boots ahead of the Germans in the development of a nuclear bomb, and while the Germans were also working on it, apparently, their commitment to it may have been rather half-hearted on the part of the government as a whole. There is a story that Heisenberg miscalculated the quantity of fissionable material needed to make such a bomb, but the truth of this is murky to me. The point is, the Americans (and English) were running scared and the Americans, at least, were willing and able to make the huge investments necessary to make the bomb. If Germany had not surrendered when it did, it is likely the bomb would first have been used on the Germans, the original target. As it was, the bomb relieved the Americans of the dreaded likelihood that several hundreds of thousands of American boys would have been killed during an opposed invasion of the homelands, a very specific response to a very specific and urgent need. We can debate endlessly the morality of the use of such a weapon but the difference between a nuclear device and wide-area fire bombing is one of scale and not really one of kind.
A common quotation that RADAR saved the UK during the Battle of Britain.
It is a bit misleading though, the UK had the first fully integrated air defence system in the world.
RADAR fixed backed up with some mobile sets, Observers, Control rooms ranging from individual airfields through sector and group to national with back ups enabling a full command and control to be centralised with all the information coming in, this enabled aircraft to be sent as and when needed instead of continuous patrols which is what was previously done, AA Guns and Rockets, Searchlights.
The whole plethora of the Air Defence system was not understood by the Germans and most people only seem to focus on one aspect RADAR - RADAR was not perfect, it was not complete, it was knocked out at times with some sectors out of action for long periods (although some were replaced by the mobile sets they were of a different type and did not have the capability of the fixed stations).
The saving grace was the British Command and Control system that was set up to tie in all the resources and information.
Yes, the integrated system put in place by the British was a defense system in depth. I thought I had said that; if not, that’s what I meant. The British system was so impressive because it had been so well thought through without benefit of any adversary to test it on. Of course, it wasn’t perfect - I understand the radar could detect direction and speed, but not altitude - but it was far and away better than anything anyone else had.
Note also the remarkable volatility/energetic characteristics of Diesel fuel in that report…
No wonder Diesel tanks blow-up so violently…
Diesel is a very good explosive substance, expand’s massively when the energy is released by a stimulous.
Used to use it for Vis effects Bat Sims as a simulated Nuke, major component of of the explosive ANFO as well.