Technology in WW2

[Stalins Organ]

Here's a photo of what may be a T37 under a TB-3 - so the Sov's may have invented the worlds first amphiboious airborne tank...... Of course it doesn't actually show the pair flying......

[Affentitten]

Probably another experiment. Not sure how credible the Wiki article is, but it said they did some experiments that didn't bear much fruit. I love the idea of airdropping a tank in neutral gear and it gently rolling to a stop!

[gautrek]

Here's a photo of what may be a T37 under a TB-3 - so the Sov's may have invented the worlds first amphiboious airborne tank...... Of course it doesn't actually show the pair flying......

Any chance you can stick a slightly smaller image up mate as that one was so big it crashed my PC:p

[Stalins Organ]

Yeah ther is a smaller one, but the detail is a bit fuzzy.....you can click on the thumbnail on this page

[mididoctors]

IR: Ah thats the kind of info we are looking for : )

as for helicoptors

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_helicopters_used_in_World_War_II

thats one hell of a list for Germany. An example of undirected "planning"?

floating tanks

DUKW - US

PLUTO

Funnies

Dozer tanks

APDS

Airportable tanks - USSR?

most of the german helicopters used were unpowered towed autogyros for u boat use and the like

[Sgt Joch]

I dont know if someone mentioned this, but the US developped the FIDO acoustic torpedo which homed in on the sound of a submerged submarine and sank 37 in WW2:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_24_Mine

There is also the HVAR, High Velocity Aircraft Rocket:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVAR

[Mord]

I dont know if someone mentioned this, but the US developped the FIDO acoustic torpedo which homed in on the sound of a submerged submarine and sank 37 in WW2:

I saw a Documentary on that once...I think it was called The Incredible Mr. Limpet? Pretty good!

Mord.

[Stalins Organ]

I dont know if someone mentioned this, but the US developped the FIDO acoustic torpedo which homed in on the sound of a submerged submarine and sank 37 in WW2:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_24_Mine

Beaten by Germany on that front sorry - see here

There is also the HVAR, High Velocity Aircraft Rocket:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVAR

not sure what's unique about them tho' - aircraft rockets were in use in WW1 against balloons, and in US service the the HVAR superseded the FFAR.

And of course the British RP-3 had been in service for several months before the FFAR, and they had taken some advice from the Russians who had used RS-82's before WW2 at Khalkhin Gol and vs the Finns.

[Affentitten]

I'm surprised nobody has given credit to NZ for their innovations. Like the Totally crap tank

[Stalins Organ]

Except it was apparently based on pictures of US conversions of tractors to "tanks" - so perhaps you should list it under the actual "inventor"??

At least the Semple tank was recognised as rubbish, rejected by the military, and didn't get anyone killed...unlike the expedient of trying to intercept Japanese aircraft with Wirraway trainers .

Does using a trainer as a fighter count as technical innovation? Nah...probably not.....

[Affentitten]

Well you could argue that the Wirraways were actually filling a gap that obviously existed. At least for the sortie or two that they lasted.

But I think Australia gets the Semple award for some of our shore based defences. During the hysteric months some of the Australian organisation that went into defending Sydney made Britain's Home Guard look like an elite fighting force. You had stuff like beach defences being funded and installed by local community groups and councils. So you'd have 10 metres width of concrete anti-tank structures at the top of a beach and just hope the Japs didn't drive around the side of them. Or land at the completely undefended beach (apart from some chicken wire) 200 metres away.

[Stalins Organ]

re Wirraways - I think sometimes the gap is best left for a while.

Desperation stuff...but not exactly technological innovation. Nor is the other NZ tank "design" from WW2....

[Stalins Organ]

However the US does get active radar homing Air-Ground missiles with the Bat - although as it is a glider/guided bomb "missile" may be technically incorrect!

[Affentitten]

re Wirraways - I think sometimes the gap is best left for a while.

How much of a role does ignorance play though? And in the case of dealing with the Japanese, a certain degree of racism? How different is Wirraways vs Zeros from Fairey Battles vs. heavily defended ground targets?

[Stalins Organ]

This was 1942 - and the Wirraway was slower than the Battle!

[JonS]

Operational Research

[Affentitten]

Yes, and Colonel Blimp was still alive and well in Australia in 1942. Anybody of any talent had been sent to the Middle East. You can just imagine someone in Canberra looking at a squadron record and saying "It says here they've got nearly a hundred planes up there already. Why do they need more? It'd be good to get the young sprogs blooded anyway.Tell them to get some moral fibre."

[Stalins Organ]

Operations Research is a good note - even if not strictly invented in WW2 it was certainly developed then - the wiki article has some fascinating applications of it.

[John Kettler]

A few thoughts on a fascinating topic. Find and read the old book NEW WEAPONS FOR AIR WARFARE. A real gold mine! Contrary to what most think, I recently learned the remote turret was first developed for the B-17 before the revolutionary Sperry ball turret was invented and installed on the B-17 and the B-24. The original remote configuration disoriented and sickened the gunner! Once such "minor" problems got sorted out, the B-29, which had a host of teething problems extending well into combat, was the beneficiary of the "new" system.

Germany alone could keep this thread going for months. For starters, see the highly detailed German technology listings covering aeromaterials, aerostructures, sensors, fuzing, FAEs, ignition disruptors, jammers, jet turbines, ceramics, etc., in Vesco's INTERCEPT UFO and later MAN MADE UFO 1945-1990 (revised edition for sake of info currency) by Vesco and Childress. Astounding stuff! Venturing farther afield, try Farrell's REICH OF THE BLACK SUN (ROBS) (online here http://webfairy.org/missilegate/rfz/swaz/index.htm ) which also has paradigm shattering material on the German Bombs (fission, boosted fission and hydrogen, to name but some, plus juicy stuff on the Japanese Genzai Bakudan (the Japanese atomic bomb)), S.S. BROTHERHOOD OF THE BELL (some coverage of the Bell on the History Channel and elsewhere), SECRETS OF THE UNIFIED FIELD. There's a later book of his claiming the Roswell crash was of German origin, but I don't buy the proposition, and the reasons are technically compelling. This isn't the place, though. The Germans did have computers, though, apparently years before even the long ignored Colossus. See ROBS for details and pics. Believe it's ROBS which describes a successful German disintegration beam test on 200 rats in 1944. In U-977 the author, Schaeffer, describes being invited to a "death beam" test by an SS buddy in 1945, but had to decline because his U-boat had to put to sea ( was taking Germans out of the country and later wound up, months after the war, in Argentina). Reinforcing such claims is an account of a German test of a deep black X-ray beam weapon in a quarry (saw it on a show called "Hitler's Secret Weapons"), after which the huge weapon simply vanished from history--along with the advanced German technology detailed in the video "UFOs of the Third Reich Strike Back," Henry Stevens's HITLER'S FLYING SAUCERS ( http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ufo_aleman/rfz/index.htm ) and HITLER'S STILL SECRET AND SUPPRESSED TECHNOLOGIES.

I previously posted a thread for the Naval Technical Mission To Japan, but here's the link again. Bear in mind much has been learned since. http://www.fischer-tropsch.org/primary_documents/gvt_reports/USNAVY/USNTMJ%20Reports/USNTMJ_toc.htm Japan was very inventive, to include the devastating Type 93 oxygen torpedo, ultra long range submarines with features so advanced we secretly sank the ones we got rather than hand any over to the Russians (topic of a NatGeo special and this marvel http://www.pacerfarm.org/i-400/) and the simply stunning I-201 diesel-electric sub http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-201_class_submarine. I would be seriously, though nauseatingly, amiss if I failed to point out the Japanese were the world leaders in both theoretical and applied (China, 10,000 + deaths of Chinese citizens and POWs biological warfare (Unit 731)) and recently learned the U.S. narrowly escaped just this experience at Saipan. One of seven subs sent there had it (we don't know which one), but was sunk in transit. Had this occurred, the U.S. had fearsome retaliatory means both chemical and biological available and was prepared to use them. If you thought the Pacific War was ugly before...!

The Italians have a bunch of firsts of their own, including this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caproni_Campini_N.1 , figure prominently in the German saucer projects (e.g., Belluzzo-Miethe-Schriever disc, Vesco's work at the Riva del Garda facility on the German Feuerball remote controlled saucer)), had direct access to Germany's most sensitive projects (see ROBS and the mind blowing MilChan doc "Mission for Mussolini") and pioneered a string of naval SpecOps capabilities and craft, both in WW I and WW II, as well as possibly later during the Cold War. The best book on this topic is THE BLACK PRINCE AND THE SEA DEVILS, by Greene and Massagnani. The Italians had their own ignition killing program for internal combustion engines, too!

Russia was so outrageously creative the History Channel devoted an entire program to just aircraft work, much of it during WW II, to include rocket fighters and a submersible torpedo launching plane. Believe the show was called "Secret Aircraft of the Soviet Union." The BM-13 rocket was not only a shattering weapon but was designed to make dismantling it for technical exploitation fatal, a fact which saved an unfortunate crew that lost a launcher when it mired and was captured. Russia had a huge/titanic chemical weapon stockpile and massive delivery means, the mere threat of which being used apparently caused the Germans to stop using some sort of FAE or worse on the Eastern Front. No way to protect the horses which provided most of the Wehrmacht's mobility! See ROBS for details.

This isn't even close to comprehensive, but it should fuel the discussion nicely!

Regards,

John Kettler

[Stalins Organ]

I doubt it - I'm pretty sure and future discussion will concentrate on real stuff.

[dieseltaylor]

Those Wiki articles are very interesting. The Panama Canal attack would have been a stunt and a half, and perhaps the IJN should have had that plan much further advanced,

As for the Itlian type of jet - who knew it!

[John Kettler]

Stalin's Organist,

The Vesco technology cites are taken chapter and verse from such things as the Basic Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee (B.I.O.S.) and Combined Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee (C.I.O.S.) Reports, which are both official and were once classified. If you don't believe me, try the PRO at Kew, U.K. These reports cover the gamut of known German aeronautical technology developments on an institute by institute basis. Farrell cites both civilian and military eyewitness accounts, some of which are declassified Top Secret intel debriefs of direct participants in the tests. One such describes experiencing the same sorts of things in his He-111 that the B-29 atomic crews did and having the experience over "an atomic testing ground." Also included are the testimonies of a woman living near the Ohrdruf apparent boosted fission test site and of KZ inmates forced to go into the detonation zone and deal with the deliberately created human aftermath of live test subjects--all suffering from classic radiation exposure behavior and gradations of injuries based on proximity to Ground Zero. An Italian military war correspondent Luigi Rommersa personally know to Il Duce even before the war and tasked by him to personally investigate Hitler's claims of wonder weapons (see ROBS and "Mission for Mussolini" ) describes being in the bunker for a German atomic test near Rugen and the special protective gear worn for the test. This was the apparent fission bomb test, Germany's months earlier than Trinity equivalent. Farrell names the personnel involved, explains the underlying scientific theory and technologies. And did you know that Japanese radar development was seriously delayed because Japan concentrated so much effort on a High Power Microwave device to kill vehicles and troops--and successfully live tested it on both trucks and "monkeys?" The latter is a marvelous code phrase used to describe human targets without having to actually say it officially. The Bell's existence is attested, inter alia, by the war crime trial in Poland of an SS general who shot all remaining Die Glocke program scientists to maintain deep black program security on a device classified "essential to the war." Here's the short course. http://discaircraft.greyfalcon.us/DIE%20GLOCKE.htm Both Witkowski and Farrell have written books on it as well. Disbelieve if you will, but the facts and evidence are on my side, with more emerging all the time.

dieseltaylor,

During my college days, my brother Ed and I got to participate in a Senior Seminar in World War II, and my school, Cal State College, Dominguez Hills, was Japan. I personally planned and weaponeered the carrier strike on the Panama Canal, to include torpedoing the lock gates, destroying the Gatun earth dam, sinking the vital dredges and mining both ends. It took two weeks of number crunching by the engineering department at Cal State Long Beach, but when it was done, the Panama Canal was completely out of action for over a year. Didn't hurt when I interviewed at Hughes later as a threat analyst, either! The strike was part of the much feared rampage down the West Coast following Pearl Harbor (caught and sank the Pacific fleet in deep water--glub!), but we were both better equipped and far more cunning and aggressive, basically laying waste to that coast from Seattle to the Canal Zone and so traumatizing the U.S. commander in the game that the U.S. capitulated. After that, Control stepped in and began blatantly cheating at every turn.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Wicky]

Welcome back John

Are you still on afternoon meds?

http://boppinalong.finddiscussion.com/groans-pains-tones-f1/brains-beaten-in-last-several-afternoons-followed-by-passing-out-for-20-minutes-in-the-mid-evening-hard-to-function-t1254.htm

MMmmm Does this debunking of the Ludwikowice henge remind you of your evidence of Cherbourg V2 silos

http://www.bielek-debunked.com/Henge/The-Henge.pdf

[Affentitten]

Stalin's Organist,

the war crime trial in Poland of an SS general who shot all remaining Die Glocke program scientists to maintain deep black program security on a device classified "essential to the war."

Rather a counter-productive security measure if the project was so essential.

[JonS]

Rather a counter-productive security measure if the project was so essential.

Effective though - as the old saying goes; the only way three people can keep a secret is if two of them are dead.

I must say, I haven't missed this particular brand of Ketterlian insanity even a little bit. Sorry to see you back, John.