Author Topic: Skeptoid - German Wonder Weapons  (Read 1130 times)

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Offline Desert Fox

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Skeptoid - German Wonder Weapons
« on: Jan 22, 2012, 06:14:33 AM »
I am kind of a military buff myself.  I must say that he does not seem to have really gotten it right.

He wrote:
Other designs, while seemingly even more fanciful, did in fact exist, in either prototype form or completed (and perfectly sound) blueprints. Aircraft included the Horten Ho-229 jet powered flying wing, the Mach 2.2 Lippisch P13a delta winged ramjet-powered fighter, a high altitude spyplane similar to the later American U-2 called the DFS-228, even a variable geometry swing-wing jet, the Messerschmitt P.1101, which became the precursor to the later American Bell X-5. They also had designs for a number of vertical takeoff and landing jets.

The Nazis also aggressively pursued their Amerika Bomber program, hoping to create a system with the range to bomb the United States from Germany. These included variants of the Arado E.555 jet powered flying wing, and even a suborbital spaceplane called the Silbervogel which went as far as a glide test mockup. There were many, many other candidates for Amerika Bombers as well.


None of these were ether blueprints or prototypes but instead "drawing board projects." It might be five or more years before any would likely be operational.

Also,

On land, the Nazis had plans for a pair of staggeringly gigantic tanks, the Landkreuzer P.1000 Ratte and P.1500 Monster, crewed with over 40 and 100 men respectively. They would have fired the largest artillery projectiles ever designed, the 800mm railroad gun.

Just about every military historian I have ever talked to has argued that they are completely impractical. There is a joke that the engineers kept working on them and promising so they might not get sent to the Russian front.

As well

At sea, the Nazis planned to equip a new type of U-Boat to fire their V-2 missiles into the United States, called the Rocket U-Boat. Three were ordered, and one was actually built, thought its testing was not completed before the war's end. And what would it have carried?

Everything I have ever read has indicated that it would not really have worked. Trying to target a missile from a moving small "vessel" would be impossible.
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Offline Grimner

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Re: Skeptoid - German Wonder Weapons
« Reply #1 on: Jan 22, 2012, 10:45:05 AM »
To nit-pick, I'd say the Ho-229 was far closer to operational status than the others. By the end of the war, there were (if memory serves)... one or two glider models almost ready to be assembled. And myriad problems getting jet engines...
The rest is more like engineers putting dreams to paper to satisfy their bosses in Nazi Germany's many in-fighting services.

Thanks for the Landkreuzer - never heard of them before and got a good laugh.

As for the Rocket U-boat, well, it would go off like clockwork, wouldn't it? Piece of cake.
http://www.uboataces.com/articles-rocket-uboat.shtml

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Offline Citizen Skeptic

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Re: Skeptoid - German Wonder Weapons
« Reply #2 on: Jan 22, 2012, 11:43:43 AM »
I am kind of a military buff myself. 

Is that why you chose your screen name?
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Offline Desert Fox

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Re: Skeptoid - German Wonder Weapons
« Reply #3 on: Jan 22, 2012, 05:17:37 PM »
I would think that it is pretty obvious even though my knowledge is actually more navy than army oriented  ;D
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Online MikeHz

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Re: Skeptoid - German Wonder Weapons
« Reply #4 on: Jan 22, 2012, 05:22:01 PM »
Without a nuclear warhead, the much ballyhooed rockets were largely useless weapons anyway, unable to hit any meaningful target.
If you still hold the same views now as you did in high school, you probably should reexamine those views.

Offline Desert Fox

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Re: Skeptoid - German Wonder Weapons
« Reply #5 on: Jan 22, 2012, 05:58:54 PM »
From what I have read, he actually gave the Germans more credit in nuclear weaponry than they deserve. . .
They appeared to be following completely the wrong track.
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Online Rai

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Re: Skeptoid - German Wonder Weapons
« Reply #6 on: Jan 22, 2012, 06:03:02 PM »
Without a nuclear warhead, the much ballyhooed rockets were largely useless weapons anyway, unable to hit any meaningful target.

At least they could hit something, unlike the Luftwaffe after 1941. Though, it has to be said they had Goering as a Commander-in-Chief, the guy with such remarkable talents that he could have easily lost the Pacific War for the US Navy had he been in command.

Ah, the Axis powers. If they hadn't murdered so many people, they'd be simply hilarious.
There's, another example. See, here I'm now sitting by myself, uh, er, talking to myself. That's, that's chaos.

Offline T.A.P.O.R.

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Re: Skeptoid - German Wonder Weapons
« Reply #7 on: Jan 22, 2012, 06:20:53 PM »
From what I have read, he actually gave the Germans more credit in nuclear weaponry than they deserve. . .
They appeared to be following completely the wrong track.

What?
You mean rolling fissile material into a flat sheet wasn't going to cause a chain reaction?
For shame!

Offline ♫♪ FX ♪♫

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Re: Skeptoid - German Wonder Weapons
« Reply #8 on: Jan 22, 2012, 06:22:05 PM »
The Germans were the first to show a nuclear reaction taking place.  If it wasn't for the damage we did to their heavy water production (in Norway) they would have had a nuclear bomb first.  (they didn't know how to make a light water reactor).
Skeptic, skeptical, 'σκέπτομαι' skeptomai, "to think, to look about, to consider"

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Offline T.A.P.O.R.

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Re: Skeptoid - German Wonder Weapons
« Reply #9 on: Jan 22, 2012, 06:28:57 PM »
The Germans were the first to show a nuclear reaction taking place.  If it wasn't for the damage we did to their heavy water production (in Norway) they would have had a nuclear bomb first.  (they didn't know how to make a light water reactor).

I doubt it.
They were going down the wrong path in terms of design of their bomb.
From what I've read over the years, an implosion device didn't seem to be on the cards.

Offline ♫♪ FX ♪♫

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Skeptic, skeptical, 'σκέπτομαι' skeptomai, "to think, to look about, to consider"

"It's a basic truth of the human condition that everybody lies. The only variable is about what."

Offline T.A.P.O.R.

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Re: Skeptoid - German Wonder Weapons
« Reply #11 on: Jan 22, 2012, 06:59:28 PM »
Wasn't disputing the sabotage as a great impediment.
Was disputing the claim that Germany were close to actually building a bomb.

They were doing it wrong.


Offline Belgarath

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Re: Skeptoid - German Wonder Weapons
« Reply #12 on: Jan 22, 2012, 07:09:39 PM »
The Germans were the first to show a nuclear reaction taking place.  If it wasn't for the damage we did to their heavy water production (in Norway) they would have had a nuclear bomb first.  (they didn't know how to make a light water reactor).

No, they were not the first to show a nuclear reaction.

The FIRST nuclear reaction was observed and understood by Ernst Rutherford (a New Zealand native) in 1917.  He transmuted Nitrogen into Oxygen by bombarding Nitrogen with alpha particles.

If, on the other hand, you're referring incorrectly to a nuclear chain reaction, well, that is much more interesting.  Leó Szilárd was the first guy to theorize such an animal(in 1933), and he wasn't German, he was Hungarian.  The first man made nuclear chain reaction was by Enrico Fermi (Italian American)  in Chicago (on the Racquetball court, strangely enough) in 1942. 

It was later discovered that nuclear chain reactions (fission) actually happened on earth long ago.  Oklo in Gabon, Africa is the most famous example of such a reaction.

The Germans were certainly going the wrong way, but they could have quickly found the error and moved down the correct path.  The Allies had no choice but to keep destroying their infrastructure in order to prevent their progress on the matter.

Stop spouting BS, FX.

« Last Edit: Jan 22, 2012, 07:11:43 PM by Belgarath »

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Offline worldslaziestbusker

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Re: Skeptoid - German Wonder Weapons
« Reply #13 on: Jan 22, 2012, 08:16:15 PM »
To nit-pick, I'd say the Ho-229 was far closer to operational status than the others. By the end of the war, there were (if memory serves)... one or two glider models almost ready to be assembled. And myriad problems getting jet engines...
The rest is more like engineers putting dreams to paper to satisfy their bosses in Nazi Germany's many in-fighting services.

http://www.uboataces.com/articles-rocket-uboat.shtml


The Horten gliders were designs of rare beauty and grace.  I have made RC gliders scaled off the plans, and they flew like pigs.  Controllable, but sloppy in yaw and with really nasty tip stall characteristics.  There might be something in the scaling, or a feature that wasn't mapped to the models, but I don't understand how their design was controlled in the vertical axis.

I've seen pictures of the P1011 in a factory and I think the designs did play a role in X jet development.
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Offline Desert Fox

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Re: Skeptoid - German Wonder Weapons
« Reply #14 on: Jan 22, 2012, 08:33:23 PM »
Curious, do you have any sources that you suggest to be read as far as yaw issues with the Ho-229?
I read bits and pieces about the problems but arguing with somebody who is making claims against the yaw issues and wondering what I could present against it?
"Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith. Banish me from Eden when you will; but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge."
— Robert G. Ingersoll

 

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