Iron Sky and the real question about Nazi experimentation with flying discs...

[Story]

Given the life in this thread, is there a lot of interest in FL in the Weird World War II genre? I'm just getting back into wargaming after over a decade away rom the hobby, and this is one of the things I am building a force for, specifically Westwind Productions' Secrets of the Third Reich game. Set in 1949, this envisages an alternative history where the Nazis, in response to D-Day, launched a new chemical weapon which ravaged much of Europe, causing zombies. Nazis (and Soviets) can marshall zombie troops on the field. It also works in elements of alien/advanced technology in exoskeletons, two-legged and multi-legged "walking" tanks, and so on. The Nazi interest in the occult is reflected in the appearance in game (on multiple sides) of vampires, werewolves, and so on. Cracking stuff if you like your alternative history on the pulpy side.

See http://www.luft46.com/

 

[Story]

As good a thread as any for this -

The rocket that wrought carnage in London during the Blitz - and took us to the moon: Hitler's V-2 is 70 years old

Missile developed in Nazi Germany first demonstrated on October 3, 1942
V-2 was fired at Britain more than 1,400 times
Weapon was progenitor of rockets used in space programmes


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...deadly-V-2-rocket-launched.html#ixzz28CyA37qd

 

[Stearmen]

It depends on who you ask on wether the V2 went into outer space. The international standard is 100 kilometers or just over 62 miles. The US Air Force says it's 50 miles. Several X15 pilots qualified under the lower standard for their Astronaut wings. Joseph A. Walker, a NASA pilot twice exceeded 328,000 feet or 62 miles up, making him an Astronaut in every country. On a side note, the V2s did have a sophisticated guidance system, but the American rockets of the time could fly higher. The US rockets had a Monocoque structure, while the German rockets relied on a heavy Chrome Molybdenum frame, just like the Fokker Dr1 Triplanes of WWI.

 

[Two Types]

There were a lot of crazy rumors going around at the end of the war. One was that the Nazis were prepared to hole up in a secret underground base in the mountains and keep the war going indefinitely. As the Allied armies advanced, the stories got bigger and bigger. At the end they supposedly had fully equipped underground cities with airplane factories, stocks of bombs, weapons etc.

Of course it all turned out to be hooey but a lot of top military intelligence people took it seriously and convinced the high command that it was possible.

I got the information from a book written at the end of the war by a war correspondent who got the story from military intelligence. Apparently he heard talk during the invasion and later had it confirmed that the top brass took it seriously though it was top secret at the time.

When the British 'T Force' (Target Force - 5th Battalion King's Regiment - whose job it was to drive ahead of the British Army and search for German research establishments) arrived on the Baltic Coast, they captured a German base at Travemunde. They found a number of half-constructed seaplanes. When they spoke to the German staff, they were told that the planes had been made in order to take Hitler to a secret location in the Arctic circle. No one mentioned what he was supposed to happen once he got there! That was the story they were told at the time and that was what the Germans believed. Who knows if it was really true.

Just one of the many stories from a long-forgotten part of WW2:

http://www.amazon.com/T-Force-Sean-...e=UTF8&qid=1349467501&sr=8-1&keywords=t+force

 

[HungaryTom]

Irony s.k. - Operation common sense

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Swabia
33 German expedition members - in 1938/1939
Went to Antarctica
As so many other nations did the same - to grasp a bit of Antarctica
in the meantime WW2 breaks out
little bitty far too overstretched Nachschublinien from Queen Maud's land till Baden-Württemberg? Schwabenland? Donauschwabenland?
Did Allied Naval intelligence sleep for 6 years to miss all the convoys? The U-boots packed with resupply? which the Boot crews would have eaten up during the odyssey to down there.... An U-Boot Typ AX http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Type_IX_submarine is not exactly a tanker in term of carrying capacity.

Still it seems the talk about miracle weapons, the seized prototypes, scientists and documentation, the memories of the pre-war expedition and WW2 itself, had enough psychological impact back in the winter (i.e. Antarctic summer) of 1945/1946 to organize a fully fledged campaign named an expedition. Only one winter after the US were surprised in the Ardennes for Christmas. As it seems, the momentum was still there for politicians and top military decisionmakers alike, to go ahead and not to "ponder" about costs. In the 2010s it is still exploited by conspiracy sites, history publishers and screenwriters.

How could 33 German expedition members plus the 24 crew of MS Schwabenland -who by the way all returned to Hamburg in 1939- build up subterranean cities, coal mines, mould iron ore and forge steel http://www.bodrum-hotels.com/images/antarctica-mineral-resources.jpg ???? from under the ice shield that is covering also that part of Antarctica? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Maud_Land
If they did it, what would have happened in Stalingrad with 100.000s of Germans locked in ice??? Why didn't they break out from the bulge of Stalingrad or Cherkassy with disk planes?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Earth Have you read the novel "Plutonia" by Vladimir Obruchev? The polar version of the Voyage au centre de la Terre, by Jules Verne?

Mining industry? to get raw materials for the saucers? or did they build those nazian disks from the empty food cans to kill some time? in the long dark nights between 1939 and 1945, when Hitler came straight from the Spree to visit? or 1946, when Admyral Byrd arrived? What did they eat in those subterranean caves? Eis am Stil? canned whales? or penguin juice? mit Senf und Sauerkraut made from Antarctic Algae? hello... Plenty of Omega-3 acids that curbes on thinking so they could also design spaceships from there.... Whatever was created was done in the territory of the Reich, close to industrial centers and/or available labour force.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Greenland_during_World_War_II
19 German weathermen fought in the High Arctic Thule in 1945. I read elsewhere about other GER weathermen holding out till september 1945, I don't remember exactly.

The size of Highjump in the beginning of the very Cold War could also suggest reherseals against a more realistic enemy with a proven track of fighting and winning in the cold... since 1812, 1943 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_invasion_of_Russia

Maybe yes they just wanted to be 100% safe... maybe there were/are also some high ranking literati in uniforms who read the novels of Verne and Obruchev with a vivid fantasy ....and classified the reports, to avoid uncomfortable hearings, why assets, time were spent in peacetime to finally confirm that there is really nothing out there... au contraire... Copper, Titanium and Iron. not in the sky.

 

[Big Bertie]

...You get the feeling that after awhile they were just trying to believe this junk would make a difference or that the Allies would see it and be so impressed they'd just give up. They were good at putting on a show and creating symbols ... good for scaring your neighbors but once you are in a war scaring people isn't enough. My opinion is that the Nazis started losing right around the time they started fighting a real war ... it just took everyone, including Germany, a while to realize it. Most of their "victories" had a political component like in Austria, Czechoslovakia, in Poland they traded 1/3 of the country to the Russians, even though France fought they had some like minded Frenchmen there. 1941, year of the Axis's bonehead moves...

That seems a fairly accurate assessment, according to some recent work reported by Max Hastings. The German economy was just about bankrupt even by 1939. Their infantry may have been the best in the world, but after their failure to launch an immediate attack on the British Isles following Dunkirk, when the British army was on its knees, there was no way Germany could ever have won. The timing of Germany's attack on Russia was completely idiotic.

 

[Story]

Can't forget the Soviets...

This isn't a new Dorkbot or Maker Faire oddity. It's a nearly forgotten Russian synthesizer designed by Evgeny Murzin in 1938. The synth was named after and dedicated to the Russian experimental composer and occultist Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin (1872–1915). The name might not mean much to you, but it illuminates a long running connection between electronic music and the occult.

http://boingboing.net/2012/06/27/synth.html

 

[Stanley Doble]

One of the things that hampered Nazi technology was the very compartmentalized, top down organization structure. They had some very smart engineers at the top, and some very smart mechanics all the way down, but they did not talk to each other much except to give and receive orders.

The result was some very advanced, far out weaponry and airplanes that didn't make much difference to the war effort and were never made in numbers.

The Brits and especially the Americans had a looser organization and attitude. The result was some weaponry that does not seem very impressive at first glance, but kicked Nazi ass.

One example was the Mosquito bomber, made 90% out of wood. It drove Marshal Goering crazy. He said "they are knocking those things together in every piano factory in England and they are bombing the shit out of us. And you tell me I can't have airplanes because we have no aluminum".

Another was the long distance raids on Berlin protected by P51 fighter planes whose range was extended by drop tanks. Goering had asked for similar planes and had been assured by his experts that it was impossible to build a fighter plane with such long range.

Chrysler was supposed to build a new model tank with engines supplied by Ford. When Ford stumbled building the engines, and told them there would be a 2 or 3 month delay, Chrysler complete the tanks on time and within spec. They cobbled together a 30 cylinder power plant using 5 of their flathead six cylinder engines borrowed from Dodge cars and trucks .

Then there was the Jeep, the Browning 50 caliber machine gun, mobile radar units and no doubt thousands of other inventions mass produced in ways the experts said could not be done.

It only takes one guy to have an idea that solves a problem but if the little guys are not allowed to speak, their ideas never see the light of day.

There are many cases where the Nazi stuff was technically brilliant , while the Allied stuff was good enough to do the job, and available in mass quantities.

This is the sort of thing that is overlooked by the armchair experts.

 

[DNO]

There are many cases where the Nazi stuff was technically brilliant , while the Allied stuff was good enough to do the job, and available in mass quantities.

This is the sort of thing that is overlooked by the armchair experts.

The Sten gun comes to mind immediately.

 

[Stearmen]

The hedgehog mounted on tanks. Invented by an American Sergeant, using the beach obstacles, the Germans put at Normandy to stop the tanks!

 

[Otter]

The Sten gun comes to mind immediately.

The one that springs instantly to mind for me is the M4 Sherman, not the best performing tank of its era but available in overwhelming numbers.

 

[kiwilrdg]

As for quality of equipment I heard a vet say something like
Germany had the finest target rifle
US had the finest hunting rifle
England had the finest military rifle
Russia had the finest club.

 

[MikeKardec]

A mention just for fun ... last time I was in Hamburg (a few years ago now) I heard there were still a number of Type XXI subs in a collapsed Uboot pen. They had been almost completely forgotten! "Urban explorers" used to sneak in to see them. I was not one of these trespassers, though I fantasized about it.

http://www.uboat.net/history/hamburg_elbe2.htm

I did get to go aboard the refurbished one up in Bremerhaven. It was a HUGE step up from the Type VII, more like a US fleet boat.

There are still WWII relics hidden around the world and still mysteries to be solved ... probably not in Antarctica or on the moon, however!

Truly, I am much happier with today's Germans.