Post WW2 with no German wonder weapons

[uk 75]

In our world, the horrific Third Reich left us a slew of technology from Von Braun's rockets to swept wing jets. But supposing the Reich had simply generated dull unimaginative stuff.
What would our postwar world have looked like?

 

[Orionblamblam]

In our world, the horrific Third Reich left us a slew of technology from Von Braun's rockets to swept wing jets. But supposing the Reich had simply generated dull unimaginative stuff.
What would our postwar world have looked like?

The United States would have launched the first satellite in 1950 atop a North American Aviation, Douglas or Martin Co. rocket. The US had a healthy space-launch-concept-industry at the end of WWII... which was overturned and replaced by the German imports. Not because the Germans necessarily had better ideas, but because they had better press. By 1957 the United States Space Force had regular manned missions to LEO; by 1962 or so, the first bases on the Moon. By 2000, Olympus Mons is petitioning for statehood. By 2020, the United States flag replaces the field of stars with a graphic of the solar system.

Additionally: since the Germans didn't waste so much effort on wunderwaffen, they devoted more to practical weapons. The Soviet Union eventually emerges victorious, but they are wore the frak out and have no neato German stuff to copy, and there's no post-war economic recovery for them. So by 1955 communism collapses with no Red China, no Korean or Viet Nam wars, no Cuba. Without Soviet agitprop, the nuclear industry never staggers; the last gas station in the US closes in 1995. By 2020, people are tearing their hair out about the rise of glaciers in the far north, with the first hints of sea level drop causes beaches around the world to expand. With no Soviet agitprop, western universities fail to become bastions of woke nonsense, and students largely get educations in useful and productive fields, fueling the expansion of the United Worlds of America.

YMMV.

 

[zen]

While I think that the Germans did a lot, I don't tend to view most it as revolutionary or so important to a field of technology that we'd not develope a lot of the most obvious stuff anyway.

Swept wings was coming anyway. However it's the funding a supersonic wind tunnel that mattered.

Jet engines? Don't make me laugh!

Rockets.....now here is some very good work on rockets and gyros.

Electronics.....not so much, save their efforts drove the allies to put a lot of effort into electronics....including turning the theory of Mr Turing and the Reverend Church into hardware.

I'm given to understand that several major states were in the process of investigating the switch to intermediate ammunition and rifles. Inuding the US with the Pedersen .276. And while semi-auto and automatic rifles efforts included some very good designs, other states produced good functioning weapons of this sort.

As for submachine guns, the Sten was cheaper, Hungarian Kirali was more powerful (and more liked by the troops using it) and the Italian developments just miles better weapons. The Finns had probably the most potent and the Russians had a astonishing rate of fire.

Tanks might qualify, but does it or is it the post war world that really saw the rise of the MBT?

Submarines.....we tend to hear most about the U-boat, but in the hullabaloo we ignore the Allied efforts....

Nuclear? Seriously?

Radar?

Artillery?

Mortars?

Diesel engines? Weren't they unreliable on their warships?

Encryption......actually you have to hand that one to them. If perhaps a flawed effort, it was impressive nevertheless. The Lorentz machine combining enigma rotors with a teleprinter was the driver for Colossus.

Logistics? Not even funny.

Drugs....actually theres a real development, though not an influential one today.

That's about as long as I can go at the moment. But I'm sure there is more.

 

[royabulgaf]

The trouble with german armor is the perfect is the enemy of the good. German tanks were way more complex than needed.

 

[Justo Miranda]

V-2 programme=150,000 Fw 190+20,000,000 of R4M 55 mm air to air rockets and the Eighth Air Force kaput, or 20,000,000 of "Panzerblitz" 88 mm antitank rockets and Red Army no more.

 

[Orionblamblam]

The trouble with german armor is the perfect is the enemy of the good. German tanks were way more complex than needed.

The King Tiger was a fantastic, world-beating battlefield monster, far better and more advanced than anything else in the world. But for each King Tiger there'd be a whole armada of T-34's. And while the T-34's are tear-assing through miles of mud, the King Tigers are laid up because someone tracked a speck of dirt on board.

 

[riggerrob]

Without von Ohane, jet engine development would have arrived a decade later.
Without Hitler's monster tanks, 75 mm anti-tank guns would have been sufficient for another decade.
Without scrapping all the Kaiser-era german weapons factories, submachine guns and general purpose machine guns (Mg-34 and MG-42) would have been delayed many more decades.
No Panzerfaust or bazooka anti-tank rockets.
81 mm mortars would have remained curiosities rarely deployed below brigade level.
Without Soviet human-wave tactics, development of 8 mm Kurtz ammo (Stg 44) would have been delayed another decade.
Without Goering's ambitions, paratroopers and assault gliders would have been delayed another decade, maybe even eclipsed by autogyros and helicopters.
Without horrendous infantry casualties - on both sides - roofed armoured personnel carriers woudl have been delayed until major use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
Without WW2, nuclear weapons would have been delayed decades and might not even have been developed beyond slow fizzle steam-generators (think ships, propulsion or stationary electric generators.)
Radio-guided missiles would have been delayed by generations.
Radar would have remained a crude novelty only used for ships' navigation in fog.
Sonar would have been limited to depth-sounding and fish-finding.
Instrument flight rules delayed another decade or two.
Trans-Atlantic passenger airlines delayed another decade or three.
Absence of synthetic rubber and silk (nylon, rayon, etc. fabrics) mean huge rubber plantations still dominate the economies of Brazil, French Indo-China, etc.
Fewer combat airplanes mean slower development of personnel parachutes, cargo parachutes and ejection seats.
Slower development of emergency medical procedures, sulfa drugs, penicillin, anti-malaria drugs, blood-transfusion, etc.

 

[zen]

Without von Ohane, jet engine development would have arrived a decade later.
Without Hitler's monster tanks, 75 mm anti-tank guns would have been sufficient for another decade.
Without scrapping all the Kaiser-era german weapons factories, submachine guns and general purpose machine guns (Mg-34 and MG-42) would have been delayed many more decades.
No Panzerfaust or bazooka anti-tank rockets.
81 mm mortars would have remained curiosities rarely deployed below brigade level.
Without Soviet human-wave tactics, development of 8 mm Kurtz ammo (Stg 44) would have been delayed another decade.
Without Goering's ambitions, paratroopers and assault gliders would have been delayed another decade, maybe even eclipsed by autogyros and helicopters.
Without horrendous infantry casualties - on both sides - roofed armoured personnel carriers woudl have been delayed until major use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
Without WW2, nuclear weapons would have been delayed decades and might not even have been developed beyond slow fizzle steam-generators (think ships, propulsion or stationary electric generators.)
Radio-guided missiles would have been delayed by generations.
Radar would have remained a crude novelty only used for ships' navigation in fog.
Sonar would have been limited to depth-sounding and fish-finding.
Instrument flight rules delayed another decade or two.
Trans-Atlantic passenger airlines delayed another decade or three.
Absence of synthetic rubber and silk (nylon, rayon, etc. fabrics) mean huge rubber plantations still dominate the economies of Brazil, French Indo-China, etc.
Fewer combat airplanes mean slower development of personnel parachutes, cargo parachutes and ejection seats.
Slower development of emergency medical procedures, sulfa drugs, penicillin, anti-malaria drugs, blood-transfusion, etc.

The basis of this thread is that WWII happens but that Nazi Germany doesn't pile efforts into wonder weapons.
It is not a thread about WWII not happening.

 

[pathology_doc]

By the end of the Second World War, the Allies already had air-launched, radar-guided anti-ship missiles (Bat), acoustic homing torpeodes and jet fighters, and driven by the Kamikaze they were starting to look seriously at surface-air missile programmes. Some very early surface-air and air-air missile work had already been done in Britain (per BSP4), and television guidance was being played with, so the existence of all sorts of missile programs in the west is not dependent on captured German research. The surface-air programme would have driven supersonic aerodynamic research, and we might have got swept wings a little later than we actually did with the Germans, but I think we would have got them. With no swept-wing data out of Germany to cloud the picture, the Miles M.52 might not have got sidetracked and the Brits would have beaten the Americans to Mach 1.

It's also possible that high speed fighter development would initially have gone down the "thin straight low-aspect-ratio wing" pathway which the F-104 epitomized, while the "standard" swept wing as we saw on the F-86 became a later development.

If the Germans don't develop any Wunderwaffen at all - not even concepts - that leaves the Soviets with nothing to capture and nothing to copy.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Alternate discussion point: assume the Germans came up with all the wacky stuff they actually did... not just the stuff they actually built (V-2's, Me 163's, etc.) but also all the concepts. BUT: the SS is *way* more effective at making sure than all the infrastructure, blueprints, actual stuff and, importnatly, *experts* are wiped from existence before the Allies can nab them. So the Allies *see* this stuff in action, get vague reports of more, neater, weirder stuff on the horizon... and then all the factories go up in thermite flares and the war ends with the Allies capturing nothing but ashes. So they know that there were these amazing things, but there's no way to capitalize upon them.

 

[kaiserd]

I’m no defender of the USSR but in the discussed timescales of this topic it was significantly more robust and significantly more advanced in a number of the relevant fields than some contributors appear willing to recognise. Hence the impact of the absence of captured German Wunder Weapon technology on the post-war USSR is similarly being overstated by the same contributors.
And, for example, one could as easily and equally convincingly come up with a scenario where the “more non-wunder-stuff” leads to Nazi Germany pushing the D-Day landings back into sea and defeating the US/ UK combined bombing campaign, only to be eventually overcome by the USSR which hence gains dominance over all of Europe etc.

 

[Orionblamblam]

And, for example, one could as easily and equally convincingly come up with a scenario where the “more non-wunder-stuff” leads to Nazi Germany pushing the D-Day landings back into sea ...

Indeed so. But an alternate Nazi Germany that devotes more time and effort to sensible weapons and less to goofball ones would be *obviously* more of a challenge and thus D-Day itself would have either been pushed to a later date or delayed indefinitely.

and defeating the US/ UK combined bombing campaign, only to be eventually overcome by the USSR which hence gains dominance over all of Europe etc.

If Germany was strong enough that D-Day is off the table, then in the west there'd likely be something like an armistice, at least for ground troops. Which would mean that both the US and UK would start stacking up troops and weapons in Britain, basically sitting and waiting while the Nazis and the USSR beat the tar out of each other. So, say, 1946 comes along and the Soviets *finally* start stomping through Poland towards Germany and *then*, once the Nazis are fully committed to a defense against Stalin, the US and UK launch into France. Germany by this point would be more exhausted, as would the Soviets, while the US and UK are relatively fresh; so in this timeline the joint US/UK invasion gets as far as Moscow before Patton finally puts the brakes on.

 

[zen]

I’m no defender of the USSR but in the discussed timescales of this topic it was significantly more robust and significantly more advanced in a number of the relevant fields than some contributors appear willing to recognise. Hence the impact of the absence of captured German Wunder Weapon technology on the post-war USSR is similarly being overstated by the same contributors.
And, for example, one could as easily and equally convincingly come up with a scenario where the “more non-wunder-stuff” leads to Nazi Germany pushing the D-Day landings back into sea and defeating the US/ UK combined bombing campaign, only to be eventually overcome by the USSR which hence gains dominance over all of Europe etc.

Actually you make a very good point about the USSR. There certainly was a wealth of talent there and rather too much is made of captured German technology.
After all early work on rocket Science and theory was Russian.
Their work on automatic rifles alone is highly impressive despite the standard of mass manufacture they had.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Their work on automatic rifles alone is highly impressive despite the standard of mass manufacture they had.

Well... given that the AK-47 seems to have adopted bits not only from the STG-44 but the Remington Model 8, the AK-47 is *perhaps* not as impressive as often suggested.

As for Soviet rocketry, it should be pointed out that from 38 to 44, Sergei Korolev and Valentin Glushko had been locked up in various gulags and prisons for the crime of... well, who the frak knows, really. If Germany had focused on more practical weapons earlier on (like, perhaps long-range strategic bombers), and thus hit the USSR harder, who's to say whether the increased pressure would ahve caused the NKVD to release their rocketry experts sooner to work on rockets, or whether the lack of gee-whizbang Luftwaffe stuff might have kept the Soviet rocket experts locked up *longer.*

 

[zen]

I always thought the bolt and gas system was more Lewis Gun/FG42 on the AK47....?

 

[Orionblamblam]

By the end of WWII, pretty much everything currently used in firearms but laser sights and Starlight scopes had been tried and often adopted by *somebody.* Kalashnikov had a whole bunch of stuff to pick through to develop the AK-47. Less so if the alterna-Nazis hadn't developed the STG44.

Of course, if one tiny thing had gone different in the alternate timeline, Kalashnikov might've got capped, and thus never developed the AK-47; or maybe he avoided getting wounded in 1941, and thus never went into the hoispital, never overhearing complaints from fellow wounded soldiers about their weapons, and thus never developed the AK-47. But then, perhaps he'd go on to develop the M-16 or the M-134 of his timeline. Shrug.

 

[Dilandu]

The King Tiger was a fantastic, world-beating battlefield monster, far better and more advanced than anything else in the world.

It was not. It was overweight, overcomplicated, unreliable monstrosity with small-caliber gun and poor quality armor, which could be quite reliably penetrated by IS-2 gun. As "more advanced" - Tiger II was so laughably inferior to IS-3, that essentially it was a clear demonstration, how Nazi run german engineering into national-scale dead end.

 

[uk 75]

To prove that point about tanks compare the number of T34s built with the number of Panthers.

 

[Orionblamblam]

To prove that point about tanks compare the number of T34s built with the number of Panthers.

Quantity has a quality all its own. The best legion of Imperial troops can be taken down by a sufficient number of carnivorous teddybears.

 

[uk 75]

Carnivorous teddybears?
I think my point about the T34 was that It inspired the Panther but the Germans couldnt make a tank as good as the T34 in sufficient quantities.
Antonia, 35y says hi Although she is a dwarf Polar Bear, she can still bite!

 

[kaiserd]

Im

Carnivorous teddybears?
I think my point about the T34 was that It inspired the Panther but the Germans couldnt make a tank as good as the T34 in sufficient quantities.
Antonia, 35y says hi Although she is a dwarf Polar Bear, she can still bite!

important update....

 

[Dilandu]

Quantity has a quality all its own. The best legion of Imperial troops can be taken down by a sufficient number of carnivorous teddybears.

T-34 have both, actually. It wasn't flawless, of course, but it was near-optimal combination of characteristic, required from the medium tank at this time. Essentially this ewok carriers heavy blaster rifle, combat-grade armor, and knew how to use camo paint)))

 

[Orionblamblam]

important update....

Feh. That's "Greedo shot first" level of retconning. Those of us who were there in 1983 know damn well that those furry little murderbears ate the Stormtroopers. The retcon is Disney trying to Disneyfy the dropbears.

 

[Orionblamblam]

T-34 have both, actually. It wasn't flawless, of course, but it was near-optimal combination of characteristic, required from the medium tank at this time. Essentially this ewok carriers heavy blaster rifle, combat-grade armor, and knew how to use camo paint)))

The T-34 was evidence that a good design didn't need the latest tech or Swiss-watch level of complexity. It was kinda the Colt M1911 of tanks.

 

[pathology_doc]

If Germany was strong enough that D-Day is off the table,

I can't recall the title, but I remember reading a book of alternative histories and how things might have turned out. This scenario was sort of covered. In the author's reckoning, the failure to establish a US/UK bridgehead in Western Europe and defeat Germany that way is handled by dropping the bomb intended for Hiroshima on Berlin.

 

[Orionblamblam]

In the author's reckoning, the failure to establish a US/UK bridgehead in Western Europe and defeat Germany that way is handled by dropping the bomb intended for Hiroshima on Berlin.

Sounds about right... if the war in Europe lasted long enough, well, in the words of famed political theorist Nelson Muntz, "Gotta nuke somebody."

Although: if the Nazis and the Commies are feeding each other into a meatgrinder, it might well behoove the western powers to dawdle a little on bring the canned sunshine to continental Europe, *especially* if they somehow conclude that the Nazis are nowhere near having nukes of their own. If you can finagle it so that Patton gets to walk straight into Moscow unhindered by either German or Russian armies of any practical value, so much the better for the post-war years.

 

[Dilandu]

If you can finagle it so that Patton gets to walk straight into Moscow unhindered by either German or Russian armies of any practical value, so much the better for the post-war years.

Please! Patton vs Soviet armies of 1945 would be either "surrounded general Patton heroic last stand", or "Patton memories written in captivity: how those Russians psychologically tortured me by not doing anything bad to me." Seriously, while he was a great tactician, there were no better strategists of land warfare than Soviet marchalls in 1944-1945. Nobody could - at this time, of course! - manage large-scale operations on contitental-wide frontlines as we.

 

[Orionblamblam]

If you can finagle it so that Patton gets to walk straight into Moscow unhindered by either German or Russian armies of any practical value, so much the better for the post-war years.

Please! Patton vs Soviet armies of 1945 would be either "surrounded general Patton heroic last stand", or "Patton memories written in captivity: how those Russians psychologically tortured me by not doing anything bad to me." Seriously, while he was a great tactician, there were no better strategists of land warfare than Soviet marchalls in 1944-1945. Nobody could - at this time, of course! - manage large-scale operations on contitental-wide frontlines as we.

And that's why the western allies stand back and let the Nazis and the Commies kill each other to the last man. It likely wouldn't be "Soviet armies of 1945," but "Soviet armies of 1946 or 1947," depleted after facing, per the topic, a Nazi Germany that spent more money on assault rifles and strategic bombers and less on sound cannons and electromagnetic guns and ballistic missiles. One can also argue that the Nazis spent even less on their atomic program since *that* is about as Wunderwaffen as things got back then, leaving the US as the sole atomic power, one loaded with nukes but not overburdened with arguments not to use them. "Nukes are horrifying" was sort of a result of sober reflection post-war, but during wartime, other than some of the scientists ulcerating over what they built, the military and politicians would have been happy to toss them around all over the place. After nuking the Nazis into surrender, I could see Patton calling up the USAAF to nuke him a path to Moscow.

 

[Dilandu]

After nuking the Nazis into surrender, I could see Patton calling up the USAAF to nuke him a path to Moscow.

I.e. after allowing Nazi to devastate completely the Western European market, Patton would attack the only one left that could save USA from a new decades-long recession? Another several years of Nazi control over Western Europe, and it wouldn't recover. The USSR would be essentially the USA last chance to re-establish some positive trade balance.

 

[pathology_doc]

After nuking the Nazis into surrender, I could see Patton calling up the USAAF to nuke him a path to Moscow.

I.e. after allowing Nazi to devastate completely the Western European market, Patton would attack the only one left that could save USA from a new decades-long recession? Another several years of Nazi control over Western Europe, and it wouldn't recover. The USSR would be essentially the USA last chance to re-establish some positive trade balance.

Utter garbage. Western Europe would have recovered.

The only reason the Soviets beat the Germans is that they were willing to throw whatever it took into the meat grinder, and they have been let off the hook for decades because very few Western historians want to talk about it the way they do about the actions of their own Generals between 1914 and 1918.

 

[Dilandu]

Utter garbage. Western Europe would have recovered.

If Nazi were allowed to ruin it for several more years? Quite probably not.

The only reason the Soviets beat the Germans is that they were willing to throw whatever it took into the meat grinder, and they have been let off the hook for decades because very few Western historians want to talk about it the way they do about the actions of their own Generals between 1914 and 1918.

The reason, why USSR beat the Germans, is because we were smarter than them, and by the 1944-1945 our military science far surpassed Nazi one. Yes, we suffered grievous losses, but we learned on them, and by 1944, there were no army on Earth that actually stand a chance against Soviet. I do not underestimate the Allied armies, of course; British and Americans were much more formidable fighting force than half-dumb Nazi. But Red Army at this time was simply better.

 

[A Tentative Fleet Plan]

We are

Utter garbage. Western Europe would have recovered.

If Nazi were allowed to ruin it for several more years? Quite probably not.

The only reason the Soviets beat the Germans is that they were willing to throw whatever it took into the meat grinder, and they have been let off the hook for decades because very few Western historians want to talk about it the way they do about the actions of their own Generals between 1914 and 1918.

The reason, why USSR beat the Germans, is because we were smarter than them, and by the 1944-1945 our military science far surpassed Nazi one. Yes, we suffered grievous losses, but we learned on them, and by 1944, there were no army on Earth that actually stand a chance against Soviet. I do not underestimate the Allied armies, of course; British and Americans were much more formidable fighting force than half-dumb Nazi. But Red Army at this time was simply better.

Not to mention that the vast majority of Soviet casualties were civilian victims of the Hunger Plan and Generalplan Ost.

 

[Dilandu]

Not to mention that the vast majority of Soviet casualties were civilian victims of the Hunger Plan and Generalplan Ost.

Exactly. And our military casualties in 1941-1942, while enormous, were almost unavoidable; the only way we could stop the Blitzkrieg was to attack at any possibility presented. Trying to sit in defense - this simply did not work out, as France experience clearly demonstrated. The bloody Red Army counterattacks in 1941-1942 pursued one goal - to deny Germany the initiative, force them to REACT, to deplete their limited supply of mechanized troops countering our attacks, not commencing theirs. And it worked. By the time of Stalingrad, the scale were on balance, and Stalingrad tipped it completely in our favor.

 

[kaiserd]

I would suggest that (1) the lead fighting forces / strength of the Red Army as of 44/45 was both very large, well equipped, and of good quality and was increasing well lead at very level as the War went on, and (2) while it is easier to second guess this in retrospect it is undeniable that the USSRs military and civilian losses early in the war were larger than they necessarily had to be in the circumstances and that this owed a lot to the fundamental nature of Stalin’s and the Communist Party’s tyrannical rule (this of course does not diminish Nazi Germany’s own responsibility and guilt for their crimes).

 

[Justo Miranda]

I always thought the bolt and gas system was more Lewis Gun/FG42 on the AK47....?

A feature common to all the Polikarpov fighters was their longitudinal instability, caused by the short length of their fuselage that had been designed to save weight and building materials. For their part, the Polikarpov fighters suffered snaking problems that affected weapon accuracy during combat manoeuvres.

The Soviets believed to have found the solution by increasing the rate of fire of the machine guns. In 1933 they began to build the ShKAS, a 7.62 mm gas-operated machine gun that used the Polish Szakats revolver-feed system and the French Berthier gas regulator.

The ShKAS had a rate of fire of 1,300-1,800 rounds/minute, but it presented numerous problems of maintenance and jamming, due to the low manufacturing quality of the 7.62x54R ammunition.

The reality of the aerial combat in Spain showed that the ShKAS was effective against slow aircraft built in wood and fabric, but to destroy the new German fast bombers it was necessary to use more powerful weapons.

The British chose to equip their fighters with eight or even twelve 0.303 in Browning machine guns. That proved to be a wrong solution that allowed too many German bombers to escape during the Battle of Britain. The Americans and Italians preferred to use a lower number of 12.7 mm heavy machine guns and the French trusted the destructive power of its 20 mm Hispano-Suiza H.S. 404 cannons.

The Soviets failed with the 12.7 mm ShVAK of 1932 and could only build the version of 20 mm after studying the gas-operated locking bolt of the French cannons. The H.S. 9 technology was acquired on February 1936, together with the Dewoitine D.510R c/n 45, while the H.S. 404 was considered a secret weapon by l'Armée de l'Air and not authorized for export. But in May 1936 the communists of the Front Populaire stole an entire set of drawings from the H.S. 404 from the Bois-Colombes Hispano-Suiza headquarters.

Not to mention that the vast majority of Soviet casualties were civilian victims of the Hunger Plan and Generalplan Ost.

Exactly. And our military casualties in 1941-1942, while enormous, were almost unavoidable; the only way we could stop the Blitzkrieg was to attack at any possibility presented. Trying to sit in defense - this simply did not work out, as France experience clearly demonstrated. The bloody Red Army counterattacks in 1941-1942 pursued one goal - to deny Germany the initiative, force them to REACT, to deplete their limited supply of mechanized troops countering our attacks, not commencing theirs. And it worked. By the time of Stalingrad, the scale were on balance, and Stalingrad tipped it completely in our favor.

By the beginning of 1933 the Soviets had nothing that could overcome the P.Z.L. fighters and looked for new ideas in the world of air races. In 1931 and 1932 the Gee Bee aircraft had achieved great publicity with reported speed records in the Shell Speed Dash. In 1932 also, five low-wing monoplanes managed to overcome the Hall's Bulldog, a racer equipped with Pulawski wing, in the Thompson Trophy.

In January 1934, the soviet prototype TsKB-12 flew for the first time. It incorporated in its design many of the innovations used by Gee Bee Model Z and R-1, as well as some of its dangerous defects. It had a small low-wing, without flaps, based on structural solutions of the Lorraine Hanriot 41 and 130, designed for the Coupe Michelin air races of 1930-1932.

The retractable undercarriage, which was operated by use of a hand crank, had been copied from the Lockheed Altair model 1930 but never worked properly. The wheels did not completely retract frequently, due to an abnormal extension of the cables, generating considerable drag and turbulence. At other times the mechanism was flattened, and the pilots had to free it by cutting the cables with pliers.

The production version, Polikarpov I-16 Type 4, had been intended to use the M-25 engine, but its availability was delayed by the difficulty in copying the American engine and the new fighter entered service propelled by an old M-22.

The new fighter was presented to the public by the Soviet propaganda services as the most advanced in the world in May 1935. In fact, the insane tendency to flat spin, caused by its longitudinal instability, the high landing speed, due to the absence of flaps, and the unreliable undercarriage killed almost as many pilots as the Axis fighters.

The I-16 failed in Spain, Finland, Khalkin Gol, China and in its own country, having been unable to stop the Luftwaffe in 1941, even resorting to carry out numerous Taran suicide attacks. It also failed the more modern MiG-3, burdened by the 830 kg of its Italian engine it could only carry three machine guns and was finally used in Taran attacks against German reconnaissance planes. These acts of desperation, caused by the low level of Soviet technology, were presented by the official propaganda in heroic terms.

During the Second World War, the Soviets made massive use of French Hispano-Suiza H.S.12 Y engines, version Klimov M-105, to propel their Yak and LaGG fighters. The M-22 did not have the Bristol license and it was manufactured in accordance with the Gnôme-Rhône French version. The M-85 used by the bombers Ilyushin DB-3 was also a version of the Gnôme-Rhône 14 Kdrs.

The German attack forced the Soviets to interrupt the production of armament while they moved their industry to new locations, to the East of the Urals. The former offender was forced to survive thanks to the massive aid sent by Americans and British: 18,000 aircraft, 500,000 vehicles, 20,000 tanks, 16,000 km of telephone cable, 35,000 R/T devices, 380,000 phones, chemicals product to improve the poor quality of Soviet fuel, 100 octane fuel for the fighters, information about the movements of the Werhmatch provided by the British Intelligence Centre of Bletchley Park, millions of boots and all types of military equipment for the Red Army.

Actually, the VVS could only fight the Luftwaffe on equal terms after receiving 143 Lend-Lease Spitfire Mk VB through Iran in February 1943 and 1,183 Mk IX almost a year later.

It was not a selflessly aid. The democracies could not afford the millions of casualties that the defeat of the Reich required.

 

[Dilandu]

and (2) while it is easier to second guess this in retrospect it is undeniable that the USSRs military and civilian losses early in the war were larger than they necessarily had to be in the circumstances and that this owed a lot to the fundamental nature of Stalin’s and the Communist Party’s tyrannical rule (this of course does not diminish Nazi Germany’s own responsibility and guilt for their crimes).

Hm, so French defeat in 1940 was due to what? Stalin and Communist Party reached them too?

The main reason was, that USSR was simply weaker in military power than Germany when the war started. USSR painstakingly rebuild Russian military out of ashes of Civil War - while Germany never suffered such level of destruction and desolation. In 1938, when everybody started to boost their military fast, we were still quite poor country, with only relatively small territorial army, that we were forced to enlarge into national-scale fast. Also, Germans have obtained a lot of very useful experience in 1939-1941; they learned much of their campaign, their troops were all veterans.

So... well, Russian alternate history writers broke a lot of pens arguing how exactly USSR may avoid such costly tragedy in 1941 - including the notorious "popadantsy" (i.e. peoples from the future, suddenly transported into the past) - and the general conclusion, sadly, that even in fiction it would be enormously hard to avoid...

 

[Dilandu]

The I-16 failed in Spain, Finland, Khalkin Gol, China and in its own country,

Hardly. In Spain and Khalkin Gol it worked perfectly fine. And while it wasn't on pair with Bf-109, it could be quite dangerous enemy even for it, due to much better horizontal maneuvering.

, even resorting to carry out numerous Taran suicide attacks.

Er, you seems to not understood aerial ramming correctly. The usual method was to came over enemy plane and hit it with the landing gear. Of course, SOMETIMES the head-on ramming also occurred, but they occurred anyway, you know.

It also failed the more modern MiG-3, burdened by the 830 kg of its Italian engine it could only carry three machine guns and was finally used in Taran attacks against German reconnaissance planes. These acts of desperation, caused by the low level of Soviet technology, were presented by the official propaganda in heroic terms.

...Mig-3 was intended as high-altitude interceptor. Its main problem in 1941 was, that it was forced to fight on low altitudes, trying to cover ground troops. When the machines were moved in PVO squadrons and used correctly, they worked perfectly fine.

Not to mention that AM-34 engine was completely native development, and while have issues, was not a copy of Italian one.

During the Second World War, the Soviets made massive use of French Hispano-Suiza H.S.12 Y engines, version Klimov M-105, to propel their Yak and LaGG fighters. The M-22 did not have the Bristol license and it was manufactured in accordance with the Gnôme-Rhône French version. The M-85 used by the bombers Ilyushin DB-3 was also a version of the Gnôme-Rhône 14 Kdrs.

Klimov M-105 was a derivative of HS12Y, not a version. The version was old M-100 engine. M-105 have little common with HS one.

Actually, the VVS could only fight the Luftwaffe on equal terms after receiving 143 Lend-Lease Spitfire Mk VB through Iran in February 1943 and 1,183 Mk IX almost a year later.

It's just plainly wrong. While lend-lease fighters were appreciated (especially Bell's Airacobra), you really think that they have that much impact? The absolute majority of fighters that dominated Eastern airspace in 1943-1944 were Yak-9 and company like La-5.

 

[uk 75]

To return to the original intention of my idea for this thread.
It seems that the impact of German innovative designs on postwar devlopments both in the Soviet Union and the West has tended to obscure what was already being done by their own people.
This is important as it has tended to give the Third Reich a sheen which it really did not deserve. In fact a peaceful Weimar Republic may well have been more innovative and creative had it survived and avoided the Nazi nightmare. One has only to think of what German Jewish scientists might have achieved in a peaceful democratic state.
On the eve of VE Day it is also worth remembering the sacrifice made by ordinary Russians, Americans, Europeans and British Commonwealth peoples to defeat the virus of Fascism.
One of their legacies is the quiet success of Angela Merkel's democratic Germany as it has gone about coping with Corona virus.

 

[Orionblamblam]

After nuking the Nazis into surrender, I could see Patton calling up the USAAF to nuke him a path to Moscow.

I.e. after allowing Nazi to devastate completely the Western European market,

How so? Remember the alt-history under discussion... less wacky Nazi stuff, a more rational appropriations policy, with - perhaps - D-Day held off. Under this circumstance, France, Denmark, Norway, Belgium etc. remain under the Nazi thumb... but the Nazis weren't exactly bulldozing those countries. Arguably, in a world where D-Day doesn't happen and the Nazis are busier militarily off east, those countries are relatively (economically and infrastructurally) better off due to no bombing campaigns or ground battles.

Patton would attack the only one left that could save USA from a new decades-long recession? Another several years of Nazi control over Western Europe, and it wouldn't recover. The USSR would be essentially the USA last chance to re-establish some positive trade balance.

Offhand, I don't recall the USSR being all that important to the US economically in the post-war years except as being another money pit. If the Soviet Union were no longer seen as any kind of a military threat, if Mao and the Korean War didn't happen because the Soviets weren't backing them up... this seems like it'd be a pretty major *boon* economically to the West.

 

[Orionblamblam]

The absolute majority of fighters that dominated Eastern airspace in 1943-1944 were Yak-9 and company.

Where were these fighters manufactured? Were they within range of the Ural Bombers such as the Do 19 and Ju 89? If there was more logical thinking in Nazi weapons aquisition, they might well have had long range strategic bombers in some numbers, so when the Nazis invaded Russia in 1940, they could reach out well beyond the front lines and turn the factories that otherwise would have made Yak-9s and T-34's into so much rubble. The existence of such bombers might also have played a role in convincing the Brits to reach an armistice, which would have allowed the Nazis even *more* resources to lavish upon ending the Soviets.